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The sermon reads Joseph’s experience as a type of Christ and a pattern for believers who suffer opposition. Joseph’s moral strength, especially in resisting sexual temptation, is presented as a gift from God rather than merely human courage. Christ fulfills the pattern as the Shepherd who was attacked, rejected, and crucified, yet became the cornerstone through divine exaltation. Christians should therefore resist sin, endure hostility without sinful retaliation, and remain confident in God’s covenant grace and sustaining power.
Theological center: The sovereign and sustaining power of God is revealed supremely in Christ, the rejected Shepherd and Stone whom God exalted.
Applications: Flee sexual temptation · Endure hostile opposition · Take courage from Christ · Consider God-given strength
Primary texts: Genesis 49:23-24 · Matthew 5:11 · Acts 4:11
“The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel).” Genesis 49:23-24 IT MUST have been a fine sight to see the hoary-headed Jacob sitting up in his bed whilst he bestowed his parting benediction upon his twelve sons. He had been noble in many instances during his life—at the sleeping place of Bethel, the brook of Jabbok, and the halting of Peniel. He had been a glorious old man, one before whom we might bow down with reverence and truly say, “There were giants in those days.” But his closing scene was the best. I think if he ever stood out more illustrious than at any other time, if his head was, at any one season more than another, encircled with a halo of glory, it was when he came to die. Like the sun at setting, he seemed then to be the greater in brilliance, tinging the clouds of his weakness with the glory of grace within. Like good wine which runs clear to the very bottom, unalloyed by dregs, so did Jacob, till His dying hour, continue to sing of love, of mercy, and of goodness, past and future. Like the swan, which (as old writers say) sings not all its life until it comes to die, so the old patriarch remained silent as a songster for many years, but when he stretched himself on his last couch of rest, he stayed himself up in his bed, turned his burning eyes from one to another, and although with a hoarse and faltering voice, he sang a sonnet upon each of his offspring, such as earthly poets, uninspired, cannot attempt to imitate. Looking upon his son Reuben, a tear was in his eye, for he recollected Reuben’s sin. He passed over Simeon and Levi, giving some slight rebuke. Upon the others he sung a verse of praise, as his eyes saw into the future history of the tribes. By and by his voice failed him, and the good old man, with long drawn breath, with eyes pregnant with celestial fire and heart big with heaven, lifted his voice to God and said, “I have waited for thy salvation, O God,” rested a moment on his pillow, and then, again, sitting up, recommenced the strain, passing briefly by the names of each. But oh! when he came to Joseph, his youngest son but one—when he looked on him, I picture that old man as the tears ran down his cheeks. There stood Joseph, with all his mother Rachel in his eyes— that dear-loved wife of his—there he stood, the boy for whom that mother had prayed with all the eagerness of an eastern wife. For a long twenty years she had tarried a…