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Grace of God #1

Fred Coulter

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Now, going through the series in the book of John, we basically ended with the third chapter and we had the sermon about the love of God for the world, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and then how we need to walk in the light.  This one is going to be in conjunction with it, although not directly in the series of John, but this is going to be on the grace of God in the Bible.  And this first one is going to be in the Old Testament, because there are too many people who have the idea that God was only gracious in the New Testament.  That God only gave His grace in the New Testament.  And His grace was not revealed at all until Jesus Christ.  Well, that is not a wholly accurate statement, even though John said the law came through Moses and grace and truth through Jesus Christ.  But that is not saying that God was ungracious in the Old Testament.  God was gracious in the Old Testament and in dealing with the people that He dealt with.

Now let’s go to Hebrews 13, which we all know is in the New Testament, but Hebrews 13 gives us a very important scripture that we need to just really rely on and understand and realize in approaching this because we’re going to see other aspects of the grace and mercy of God in the Old Testament, which also are precursors or forerunners of those in the New Testament.  And after all, let’s not forget that all of those who prophesied also spoke of the grace that was coming.  Those who wrote the words of God also were prophesying and writing down what Jesus Christ was going to do.

Here, Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”  Now I would have to take it that this statement means Jesus Christ the same yesterday - that is as the LORD God of the Old Testament; and today - which means as He is the mediator of the New Covenant; and forever - which means on into eternity.

Now there’s one thing that we need to grow in, and that is in grace and knowledge.  Since we’re back this far in the New Testament let’s go to 2 Peter 3, and let’s see how we are to be growing in grace and knowledge.  Here’s a statement that is made, and as we get into this we will see how we are to grow in grace and knowledge.  Ok, the very last verse of 2 Peter 3, that is verse 18.  “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Now as a result of just studying through this again, like I mentioned before this is about the third time in ten years that I have given an in-depth sermon or series of sermons or study into the aspect of grace in the Bible.  And this time I know, not just saying it, but this time I know that I understand it more.  And I think we’ll all understand our calling better, we’ll all understand…   How many have asked this question to yourselves?  Why did God call me?  Haven’t you asked that question?  Almost everyone does.  Why did God call me?  And you know that’s been one of the hardest to answer, but we’ll answer that.

I’ll give you a partial answer right now.  If we look at the things that we have done and what we are, then we have to ask the question: why did God call me?  And that’s how we introspect and look at it.  But you see the grace of God gives us the answers to why God has called us.  And we’re going to see it’s not because of some great thing we have done, but it’s the great thing that God has done.  And we’re also going to see that in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, how God dealt with the ones that He worked with directly was in a very gracious way, with the exception of when they sinned and God had to really lower the boom on them.

Now we also need to just balance out the equation a little bit.  If we sin in the New Testament under the New Covenant, does not God lower the boom on us?  What is the ultimate punishment of sin?  The lake of fire.  It sure is.  And that is the opposite of God’s grace.  God’s grace is all encompassing, all purpose, as we could put it this way, in God’s goodness to us, and the lake of fire is all encompassing and all consuming in doing away with people who do not follow God’s way.  So we have these two very broad extremes.

Now let’s go back to the Old Testament, begin in Genesis, and let’s look at things just from a little bit different perspective than we have before.  Let’s go back to Genesis 1:31.  Now we’ve gone through this many times.  I suppose that we could almost recite the first and second and third chapter almost by heart.  If we couldn’t by heart we could surely summarize it without looking at it.

Here in the very last verse of chapter 1 we find something of God’s goodness, or graciousness.  Verse 31 says, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”  Now this word in the Hebrew is tobe, which means beautiful or bountiful, cheerful, fine, glad, good, and also a word for gracious.  So even the creation of God was an act of grace.  Why can we say the creation of God was an act grace?  Because grace, when you define the word grace, grace means an act of God unearned on the part of the recipient.  Unmerited in why the person is getting it.  Grace actually means, it has quite a meaning.  Grace in the Old Testament means favor, or kindness, gracious, pleasant, precious, well favored.  Gracious in the Old Testament means to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior in position or level or in this case we are inferior to God, even though we are made in His image.  So God stooping and bending to us is an act that He does, ok?  To be, or to find, or to show favor, and to be or to deal, or to give, or to grant graciousness, show mercy and have pity upon.

So if God is gracious, which He is, then what He does reflects His grace or graciousness, or goodness.  Now we know that God is love, so then grace is a quality of that love.  And that love is shown in the things that God does.  Now you go through the first chapter, everything there is totally positive.  God made the earth and all the animals, all the plants, He created human beings, He blessed everything.  He blessed all the animals, said be fruitful and multiply.  He blessed Adam and Eve and said be fruitful and multiply.  And when He finished everything behold it was very good.

And then the next thing He did, chapter 2, was a very gracious thing.  In a day, a day, which we can now say is a day of grace, because it’s a day God chose.  You know this gives us a little insight verses Sabbath keeping verses Sunday keeping.  If you do what God says by His dictate, by His demand, then you’re acting in response to what God has done.  So therefore that is a gracious act upon God, or from God to even give us these things.  So creating the Sabbath, blessing it, sanctifying it, establishing it as a day of contact between His creation and Himself is in fact a very gracious thing.  Adam and Eve didn’t earn it.  You know, they were created and you know they came to consciousness  and God said, “I’m God and you’re Adam and you’re Eve.”  Ish and Isha.  It’s interesting the German word for  I is Ich, and it’s interesting how so many of these things you can get traces in all languages going back to these very basic things.  So here then, God gave the Sabbath, which was a very gracious thing to do.  You know, you look at it that way.  The Sabbath was given to man, Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, and it’s given for our benefit.  Boy, I tell you, we sure need it.

Doing what I’m doing now I know the value of the Sabbath much more than when I was just full time in the ministry and so forth.  There is sort of a little trap in that being full time in the ministry, not to put it down or say that things are better the way they are now, or things were worse the way they were then, or they’re worse now, or whatever.  There’s no judgment, it’s just a comparison of the difference in perspective.  When I would go around and visit all Church people, which I would do.  I’d visit almost all Church people.  I hardly had contact with anybody that we would say would be “in the world”.  And Sabbath was a totally different thing from what it is now.  And people would come to Church and say, “Boy I’m so glad it’s the Sabbath.”  And I’d say, yea I am too, but I had all this I had to do, see.  Had to go here and go there and do these things, which is fine.  I always enjoy doing it but now when the Sabbath comes, and now when we get together with God’s people, because I’m not out there with God’s people day in and day out, I’m out there with the world, the swearing, cursing, smoking, tobacco-chewing, you know, foot-stomping, all this kind of thing world, then when the Sabbath comes boy it sure means a whole lot.  And I can see how that the giving of the Sabbath was a tremendous gracious act of God so that we could have a day of contact with Him, a day of fellowship together with Him.  A day that He has blessed.

Now have you ever noticed when you’re talking to someone and you have a good conversation and at the end of it they say, “Well, God bless you.”  And you feel just real good when someone says “God bless you”, you know.  And you go away and you feel real happy.  Well just think, God has blessed the Sabbath.  That’s a fantastic thing.  God has blessed this very day.  That’s really a gracious act.  He didn’t bless the other days.  He said go work.  This day He blessed.

Ok, then He showed them the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He gave them a warning, which was gracious.  Isn’t that gracious to give a warning…, “In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.”  You know when we look at it it’s a very negative thing and say, “Oh terrible.”  But that was really gracious.  He warned them before they did it.  How would it be if He said nothing to them.  If He said, “Go ahead and eat of all the trees in the garden.”  So they go eat of all the trees of the garden and ooh, they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and lo and behold all these things come crashing in on them.  You know, what would be the first reaction?  “Well God, why didn’t you tell us.”  God didn’t do it that way.  He told them first.

Ok, then the creation of Eve for Adam was a very gracious act by God.  Now then we find where man, as they always do, turn the grace of God into something that it shouldn’t be.  Isn’t that right?  And doesn’t that go right back to the book of Jude which says that they turned the grace of our God into licentiousness.  That’s exactly what happened right here in Genesis 3 if you look at it properly.  Didn’t they take the graciousness of God and turn it into license to do what they want?  Sure, yes, ok.

Let’s go on and see after man fell, which he did.  Satan fell and man fell.  Both of them fell.  They fell from God’s grace.  So then there had to be the penalty of sin that came.  And God had to set in motion, then which were already to go, all the laws controlling goodness and righteousness and sin, and all of that sort of thing, to where there has to be a control on evil.  There’s an automatic control on all evil whether people believe it or not.  Good example, point in case today.  Look at all these so called great, great rock stars.  Just take an extreme point.  They run their lives in a very evil way.  They take the drugs, they debilitate themselves, they bring others into the evil that they are doing and what happens?  They all die at a young age.  That’s almost like an automatic law that sets in.  The more evil you are the shorter that you’re going to live. Whenever there’s a sin there’s always a consequence for it because it’s an automatic law.  So God set all of those things in motion as well as, within inherited as we have gone through other sermons we have inherited the law of sin and death passed on to us by inheritance.  Now then how does God deal with us, because we’re dealing in a situation whereby in certain things in almost everything the law of sin and death keeps us from meeting the requirements of God’s perfection.  So the only way that God can deal with us is in a gracious way, or through His grace.

Now the curse came on the world.  We know the story of Cain and Abel.  We have Genesis 5, which gives the genealogy down to Noah.  Let’s come down to verse 28.  This tells us a little bit about Noah.  But Noah actually, his name has the meaning of God’s favor, not grace, but God’s favor. Because God did something with the birth of Noah that perhaps maybe we’ve overlooked before and we haven’t quite understood in this light.

“And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: and he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us [it means comfort or favor] concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath curse.”  So God lifted the curse at this time that was on the land because of the curse of Adam and Eve.  “And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.  And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Gen. 5:28-32).

Now look at what happens here in God’s intervention concerning the flood.  “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).  And that’s a result of the laws of sin and death.  Only evil continually.

Now, are there good acts and things that people can do?  Well sure there are.  Yes there are but there are things that are good that are not motivated from goodness.  They can be good on the surface.  But you see when you get right down to the final analysis, and I’m going to summarize quite a few of these thing cause we’ve covered them in the past, when Jesus said, “Don’t call Me good there is none good but God.”  So even though a person can do good things, and do right things, and do responsible things that doesn’t make them good as God is good.  They’re good by human standards, ok.  So here God looks down on the earth and the thought of everyone was only evil continually.

“And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.  And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth [in other words, let’s just end all this nonsense]; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (vs. 6-8).

Ok, now why did Noah find grace?  Well, partly because of the things that he was doing, but partly because of the choosing of God.  And that’s how we find grace, by God’s choosing.  That’s the whole point to remember concerning God’s grace.  And we will see this all the way through the Old Testament.  It is by God’s choosing.  Just a case in point.  Remember when Hezekiah was told, “Set your house in order, you’re going to die.”  And he wept and he cried, and asked God, “Please remember the things that I have done…”, and whatever his full repentance was, and God chose to be gracious to him, didn’t He?  And so He sent Isaiah back and said, “Hezekiah, you have 15 more years.”  That is an act of pure grace.  Did Hezekiah deserve it?  No.  Did he earn it?  No.  Did he beg that his life be spared?  Yes.  Was he repentant?  Yes.  But his begging and his repentance didn’t earn it.  God chose to do it.

Just like, what does it say is going to happen at the lake of fire?  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  The weeping and gnashing of teeth is not going to earn the grace of God because they’ve already rejected the graciousness that God was going to give them.  So grace is something that God gives to us.  Noah found grace.  So then you know the whole story of the flood.

Alright, let’s come over to Genesis 12:1 and we’re going to see something very interesting.  Just quite a parallel here.  “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:” (Gen. 12:1-2).  Now this is a pure act of grace.  That is why Abraham is called the father of the faithful.  God chose him, which is an act of grace.  And God’s  calling for us is an act of grace.  So here He chose Abraham.  Notice what He said.  “I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.”

Now just drop back here to chapter 11 and verse 4, and let’s see the attitude that they had at the tower of Babel.  They said, “…Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name…”  So they wanted to make a name for themselves strictly out of their own doings, out of their own works, out of their own rebellion, out of the things they were doing themselves.  And so what happened?  They didn’t make a name for themselves.   So what did God do?  He chose Abraham.

Now Abraham was probably a reject in his society.  Now if you read Josephus you will find that he was a reject in his society because he wouldn’t bow down to idols.  He was a reject.  So here God calls a reject and says, “Alright, now that you’re rejected get up and completely get out.”  And I think there are some parallels for us, you know.  One of the reasons God called us, well, I don’t think we were necessarily “in like Flynn” with the world, I don’t believe.  I don’t recall in my circumstances I ever was.  I wasn’t a rebel but you know, surely anything but righteous.  Surely anything but however you want to measure by the world’s standards.  And I think we could all say that about ourselves.  Sure we could.  So here God says He’s going to make a great name for Abraham.

And what is the thing that still motivates so many people in the world today?  To make a great name.  I mean that’s the whole thing behind the great sports thing, isn’t it?  It sure is.  Make a name for themselves.  They love to be called bad, and you know.  What was this one they had.  Who was the Raider player that was so hard hitting?  He was just…I forget what it was…Dr. Doom come along and club you in the back of the neck and give you a concussion, you know.  A great name for themselves.  Same way with politicians.

Let’s continue on here with Abraham and see what He told him He would do.  “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee…”  And that’s still true today.  The nations of the world can’t figure it out.  All they do is curse us and they end up with drought and famine.  Those who bless us and do good to us, well they get blessings too.  See, it goes right along.  You know, and part of the thing it says, “…and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (vs. 3).

Now part of our faith in God, part of our acceptance of God, because we do have to accept God.  He has to accept us, but we’re accepted in Christ.  But we do have to accept God.  We have to answer the calling.  And God takes us as we are and forgives our sin but there’s sure one thing that is true:  we aren’t going to change God so that means we have to accept Him for what He is, and what He has done.  So we can’t tell God, “Oh yes God, we love You because You gave Your grace to us and You have called us.  But then I don’t like the way that You’re doing to the rest of the world.  I don’t like it that you’ve blessed the descendants of Abraham.”  Or would you like God to lie to Abraham?  Of course not.  And there are some people who feel that way today.  In fact that is the very reason for a lot of the race problems  that we have in the world.

Now, let’s go to Genesis 18 and here we will see God’s grace involved in it.  And here is when we find that Abraham was asking that he found favor.  Genesis 18:1, “And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in Thy sight pass not away, I pray Thee, from Thy servant: let a little water, I pray You, be fetched, and wash Your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree…” (Gen. 18:1-4).  So then he prepared this meal for the one Who was the Lord God of the Old Testament and apparently two angels with Him.  So Abraham did find grace in God’s eyes, didn’t he?

Now notice what position this put him in.  And notice all the way through this incident where He told him what He was going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah.  So Abraham came and he reasoned with God.  Now notice how he reasoned with God.  Here, just hold your place here and go to Isaiah 1.  Very important because if we are within God’s grace, and within God’s mercy, and are in a repentant attitude, which we can see that Abraham was there, then this puts us in a totally different relationship with God.

Isaiah 1:16, it says, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil.”  So there’s something we can do, and that is to quit doing evil.  “Learn to do well [we can do that]; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.  Come now, and let us reason together…” (Is. 1:16-19).  You know, within this relationship of God when there is repentance and the acceptance of God’s grace we can reason with God to a certain degree.  Not to go against His will, not to change His plan, but we can reason on the basis of mercy.  And you can just remember when it was James and John when they came to Jesus when they didn’t receive Him in the village and they said, “Well, let’s call fire down from heaven.”  He said, “You don’t know what manner of spirit you are in.”  You can always reason with God concerning mercy.  So therefore you know one thing:  if you have an enemy, don’t go pray that God will destroy him because God won’t do that.  You pray for that enemy that God maybe could be merciful to him.  Now isn’t that the hardest thing in the world to do?  Oh, that is the hardest thing in the world.  But if you found yourself in dire circumstances wouldn’t you want God to be merciful to you?  Ok, here’s then how we can reason with God.

“…Let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.  If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land…”  You see what a tremendous gracious thing that God does for us.  Then it says, “But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” (vs. 19-20).

Ok, let’s go back here to Genesis 18 and let’s see how this actually was the way that Abraham reasoned and dealt with God, and God was gracious, wasn’t He?  He would be gracious to all the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 50 righteous.  So Abraham came here and he said…  Let’s begin in verse 23.  “And Abraham drew near, and said, wilt Thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?”  See how he was reasoning with God.  This is face to face.

“Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city…”  Now what does this also tell you about Abraham?  It tells you that Abraham was also a merciful man.  Yes it does.  It tells you that he was concerned for the shedding of innocent blood, as well as concern for his cousin Lot and his family.  And he knew that Lot was there, so he said what if there would be 50 within the city.  “…Wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?  That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked [so he’s talking very boldly, very directly to God]: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  Now if he was speaking wrongly He would have told him, “Abraham, you’re out of order” (vs. 24-25).  Because He just did to Sarah, didn’t He, when He said, “Sarah you’re going to bear this time next year.”  She laughed and snickered and said, “Well no, I didn’t laugh.”  And He said, “Yes, you did laugh.”  So if Abraham were wrong, if Abraham made the statement, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”, if he were wrong He would have said, “Well, Abraham what are you saying this for?”

“And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.  And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes…”, notice his attitude.  He realized, just dust and ashes because just in the snap of a finger that’s exactly what he could become.  “Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of  five?  And He said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.  And he spake unto Him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there.  And He said, I will not do it for forty’s sake.  And he said unto Him, O let not the Lord be angry…” (vs. 26-30).  Notice the attitude that he had toward God.  This is a perfect example of reasoning with God for what?  For mercy, which he was doing.

And then you know the rest of the story.  He said don’t be angry.  Peradventure there be thirty.  God said He wouldn’t do it for thirty.   “And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there.  And He said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.  And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once [one more time]: Peradventure ten shall be found there.  And He said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake” (vs. 31-32).  And of course they didn’t find ten, but what happened?  God saved Lot and his family.

But also what else happened?  His wife did not believe the goodness and mercy of God and she looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.  But notice, when they were leaving…  Let’s pick it up here in Genesis 19:17, “And it came to pass, when they had brought them [that is the two angels] forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.  And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight…”  So he knew that this was a gracious act of God.  He knew that he, you know…  Did Lot do anything to earn it?  No, he actually got out because of the pleading of Abraham.  “…And thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die” (Gen. 19:17-19).  So God allows even for our own peculiar little difficulties and problems we have.

You know, here Lot was right in the middle of being saved.  He knew he found grace, he knew he was getting out of it, and he had the little peculiarity - he was probably afraid of wild animals up in the mountains, and he said, “Hey, I don’t want to go up there.”  “Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.  And [the angel] he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also…” (vs. 20-21).

So there’s a little more reasoning and latitude with God.  But what does it all depend upon?  It depend upon our acceptance of God’s grace and our recognition of our own human weaknesses and frailties.  Now that is why when we come to the prayer in Luke 18, when the Pharisee came and said, “God I thank you I’m not like other men.”  See the difference in the attitude?  And the sinner said, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Alright let’s go on.  Let’s go to Genesis 32:5, and here again we see the grace and favor of God.  This has to do with when Esau was coming back and he was going to meet Jacob.  And Jacob was coming with his two wives and two concubines, and all of his sons, and all of his sheep, and all of his cattle.  He thought, well Esau was going to take them.  So here in verse 5 he sent a present out to Esau and said, “And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.”  Now Jacob also knew the value of how he should treat his own brother.  Remember that Jacob, even though he did get the birthright the way he did from Esau, he still didn’t despise his brother.  He came and treated him very kindly.  He came and said, “If I’ve found grace in your sight.”  And of course Esau at that time was probably more powerful militarily and could have really done Jacob in.  And he thought, “Well boy, if this guy still really hates me for stealing the birthright I better be very careful.”  So that’s what he did.  He was very careful.

Genesis 33 goes through the whole episode of Jacob and Esau meeting, and I just want to cover one verse here in particular.  Let’s pick it up in verse 10.  “And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: for therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me.  Take, I pray thee, my blessing, that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.  And he urged him, and he took it” (Gen. 33:10-11).

Now there’s another thing that’s very important, is also very true.  And this ties in with the parable in the New Testament.  If you have received a gracious treatment and mercy, how are we to treat others?  The same way.  Remember the parable of the lord whose servant was demanded to pay 10,000 talents.  He said, “Lord, I don’t have it to pay with.”  When he commanded that he be sold and his family and everything, so he forgave him.  And then the one who was forgiven went out and choked his servant who owed him 100 pence, and then you know what happened when God found out about that.  So here’s a very good example in the Old Testament.  Now I think you’re going to be, as we go through, we’re going to see a unity and a consistency in the whole Bible, rather than just divided Old Testament/New Testament in the traditional way that is normally done by most people, yet there is that division.  There is the Old Covenant, the New Covenant but the basic principle of grace is true in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.  Only the graciousness of God to us has the ramification of eternal life, which is absolutely fantastic.

Let’s go on.  Genesis 39:4.  Here’s another kind of grace and favor that God can give, and it has to do in relation with others.  And it also is a reward of God.  Not strictly speaking.  It is an extension of His grace because I would hate to put it in the form of a reward because you cannot earn grace.  So I would have to say that is semantically not correct, though apparently on the surface it is.  It is an extension of God’s grace because of your relationship with Him that He will extend His grace into the relationship that you have with others.

And here’s the case of Joseph.  He was brought into Egypt.  He was sold, especially after the way that his brothers treated him.  You talk about a family argument.  I just imagine we would be shocked if we had the recording of all the arguments that the 12 brothers had between each other [laughter] and the arguments they had concerning Joseph.  “And this upstart with that coat and that smart-alec”, you know, telling them the dream.  “So we’ll fix his hide.  We’ll take him out here and we’ll do him in.  Let’s get this…”  You know, they were going to kill him.  And then Rueben said, “No, spare his life.”  “Ok, we’ll sell him to the Arabs.”  And then go through the whole charade of killing a goat, putting the blood on it, taking the jacket back to Jacob and saying, “Well you know, Joseph is gone.”  And they had to live with that lie for how long?  You know, and did Joseph have cause that he could be bitter?  Well, yes, sure he did.

So he was brought into Egypt.  He was sold.  And verse 2, “And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.  And his master saw that the LORD was with him…”  In other words, just one of these things that the master could see that there was something special about Joseph.  So it’s written here “the LORD was with him”.  “And that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.”  That’s an extension of God’s grace, ok?  “And Joseph found grace in his sight [tremendous favor, tremendous blessing], and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand” (Gen. 39:2-4).  And so you know the rest of the story, that it’s the only case that’s recorded in the Bible where a man turned down an illicit affair.  One of the few recorded, but nevertheless then he went through all the things of being in the dungeon.  Then he found grace and favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, because he told him what the dream was, and put him in charge of all Egypt.

And then what happened?  Joseph then returned that grace and favor when his brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain because of the famine.  And he had a little trickery in it too but that made it kind of intriguing and nice when you go through and read the whole story.  But can you imagine how they all felt when they were all together when Jacob was there and Benjamin and all the sons were there in Egypt after everything was discovered.  You know, who they were and what was going on.  And Joseph said, “Well, it’s by the hand of God that He sent me here.”  So he didn’t even say, “Hey brothers, I want you down here to apologize to me for what you did to me.”  Didn’t even say that.  Didn’t do it.  Didn’t seek any vengeance.  He said, “I’m here by the hand of God, and He’s blessed me so let’s receive the blessings of God.”

Then we go through the rest of the story and we come to the time when the children of Israel were then the captives or the slaves in Egypt.  Now they went through and they suffered quite a few things.  And of course we would have to say that the calling of the children of Israel out of Egypt was a gracious act.  And remember the whole beginning of the Passover as it relates to Christ, and it’s through Christ that we have grace.  Just relate that all together.

Now let’s go to Exodus 33.  Exodus 32 was the sin where they made the golden calf.  Then Exodus 33 is really a fantastic chapter when you realize it.  “And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware…”, and so forth.  That’s after he stood between God and the people and said, “God, don’t kill them.”  So then He said, “I will take you to that land, only these are a stiffnecked people.”  And then we have the occasion where Moses asked to see God in His glory and God told him, “Yes, you can see My glory, but stand here in the rock and I will show you My back part.”  Because no one can look on the face of God and live.

So we come to Exodus 34:5, which has to do with what it is that God delights in and what it is that God emphasizes more than anything else.