Genesis 45:21-24

Provision for the way

Divine provision for human wants

I. But for the provision Joseph sent them for the way, Jacob and his sons’ sons and daughters could never have crossed the hot desert. But the impossible had been made possible by the command of Pharaoh and the love of Joseph. The journey was accomplished successfully, the desert was traversed without peril, without excessive fatigue, by means of the waggons sent out of the land of Egypt. When Jacob saw the waggons his heart revived.

II. Let us apply this to our Lord and to ourselves. Jesus Christ, the true Joseph, remembers us in His prosperity, and He sends an invitation to us by the desire of God the Father, who loveth us. He dots not bid us come to Him in our own strength, relying only on the poor food which a famine-struck land yields--does not bid us toil across a burning desert, prowled over by the lion, without provision and protection. There are sacraments and helps and means of grace, which He has sent to relieve the weariness of the way, to carry us on, to support us when we faint, to encourage us lest we should despair.

III. Let us not despise the means of grace. We may not ourselves want them, but others do. Go in your own waggon, or on your feet, if you can and dare, but upbraid not those who take refuge in means of transport you have not tried, or do not require. Those sacraments, those means of grace, those helps, ever new, yet old as Christianity, have borne many and many a blessed one along to the “good land,” who is now resting in Goshen and eating the fat of the land. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)

Joseph equips his brethren for their journey

I. HIS RESPECT AND HONOUR FOR HIS FATHER. This is seen--

1. In the portion he gave to Benjamin

2. In the portion he sent to his father.

II. HIS SHREWD WISDOM (Genesis 45:24). (T. H. Leale.)