Will you turn with me this morning to
Genesis chapter 43.
This is the continuation of the story of
Joseph.
Now the famine was severe in the land.
So it came about when they had finished
eating the grain which they had brought from
Egypt, that their father said to them, go
back, buy us a little food.
Judah spoke to him, however, saying, the man
solemnly warned us, you shall not see my
face unless your brother is with you.
If you send our brother with us, we
will go down and buy you food.
But if you do not send him, we
will not go down.
For the man said to us, you shall
not see my face unless your brother is
with you.
Then Israel said, why did you treat me
so badly by telling the man whether you
still had another brother?
But they said the man questioned particularly about
us and our relatives saying, is your father
still alive?
Have you another brother?
So we answered his questions.
Could we possibly know that he would say,
bring your brother down?
And Judah said to his father Israel, send
the lad with me and we will arise
and go that we may live and not
die, we as well as you and our
little ones here and our little ones.
I myself will be sure to for him.
You may hold me responsible for him.
If I do not bring him back to
you and set him before you, then let
me bear the blame before you forever.
For if we had not delayed, surely by
now we could have returned twice.
Then their father Israel said to them, you'll
notice incidentally that Jacob now is being called
Israel.
Israel is the name that stresses the fact
that he was a fighter for God.
But in contrary to the experience of Abraham,
whose name was changed from Abraham from Abram
to Abraham, and Moses thereafter generally used the
term Abraham, Jacob's name was changed, but most
of the time it has been still Jacob
until this chapter.
Then their father Israel said to them, if
it must be so, then do this.
Take some of the best products of the
land in your bags and carry down to
the man as a present, a little balm
and a little honey, aromatic gum and myrrh,
pistachio nuts and almonds, and take double the
money in your hand and take back in
your hand the money that was returned in
the mouth of your sacks.
Perhaps it was a mistake.
Take your brother also and arise, return to
the man.
And may God Almighty grant you compassion in
the sight of the man that he may
release to you your other brother and Benjamin.
And as for me, if I am bereaved
of my children, I am bereaved.
So the men took the present and they
took double the money in their hand and
Benjamin.
Then they arose and went down to Egypt
and stood before Joseph.
When Joseph saw Benjamin with him, he said
to his house steward, bring the men into
the house and slay an animal and make
ready for the men are to dine with
me at noon.
So the man did as Joseph said and
brought the men to Joseph's house.
Now the men were afraid because they were
brought to Joseph's house and they said, it
is because of the money that was returned
in our sacks the first time that we
are being brought in that he may seek
occasion against us and fall upon us and
take us for slaves with our donkeys.
So they came near to Joseph's house steward
and spoke to him at the entrance of
the house and said, oh my Lord, we
indeed came down the first time to buy
food.
And it came about when we came to
the lodging place that we opened our sacks
and behold, each man's money was in the
mouth of his sack, our money in full.
So we have brought it back in our
hand.
We have also brought down other money in
our hand to buy food.
And we do not know who put our
money in our sacks.
And he said, be at ease, do not
be afraid.
Your God and the God of your father
has given you treasure in your sacks.
I had your money.
Then he brought Simeon out to them.
Then the man brought the men into Joseph's
house and gave them water and they washed
their feet and he gave their donkeys fodder.
So they prepared the present for Joseph's coming
at noon, for they had heard that they
were to eat a meal there.
When Joseph came home, they brought into the
house to him the present, which was in
their hand and bowed to the ground before
him.
Then he asked them about their welfare and
said, is your old father well?
Of whom you spoke, is he still alive?
You know, preachers occasionally take texts out of
their context and preach from them.
Sometimes they preach truth.
And in spite of the fact that they've
not used very good hermeneutics and exegetical skills,
nevertheless the Lord blesses because the truth is
proclaimed.
But it's not a good idea to take
a text out of its context as a
general rule.
There was a preacher who once filled a
pulpit and he preached.
And when he finished, he asked the other
preacher who was there that morning what he
thought of his sermon.
He said, my dear brother, if your text
had had the smallpox, your sermon never could
have caught it.
Which was his way of saying, of course,
that the sermon had no connection with the
text.
Yesterday I was reading in a book by
J.
C.
Ryle and he was commenting on that same
thing.
And there was a preacher who gave out
a text, he that is so impoverished that
he hath no ablation, chooseth unto him a
tree that will not rot.
Isaiah chapter 40 verse 20.
Here he said, as a man by nature
impoverished and undone, he has nothing to offer
in order to make satisfaction for his soul.
What ought he to do?
Well, the text says he ought to choose
a tree.
So he ought to choose a tree which
cannot rock, rot, even the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ and proceeded to preach on
the atonement.
Well, this particular text here, verse 27, I
know you're wondering what's the connection between the
context of what I'm saying and this particular
passage.
Now, this particular passage says, you'll notice in
verse 27, your old father of whom you
spoke, is he still alive?
Well, now the authorized version renders that, is
your father, well, the old man of whom
you speak, is he yet alive?
Well, there was a preacher, that same preacher,
and so he took the text once, he
decided he wanted to speak on indwelling sin,
and so he took this text, the old
man of whom you speak, is he yet
alive?
But as you can see, this doesn't have
anything to do with indwelling sin.
Now verse 28, that's what Mr. Rouse said.
Now verse 28, and they said, your servant
our father is well, he is still alive,
and they bowed down in homage.
As he lifted his eyes and saw his
brother Benjamin, his mother's son, he said, is
this your youngest brother of whom you spoke
to me?
And he said, may God be gracious to
you, my son.
And Joseph hurried out, for he was deeply
stirred over his brother, and he sought a
place to weep, and he entered his chamber
and wept there.
Then he washed his face and came out,
and he controlled himself and said, serve the
meal.
So they served him by himself, and them
by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with
him by themselves.
Because the Egyptians could not eat bread with
the Hebrews, for that is loathsome to the
Egyptians.
Now they were seated before him, the firstborn
according to his birthright, and the youngest according
to his youth.
And the men looked at one another in
astonishment.
Evidently Joseph had seated those brothers in the
order of their birth, and they were amazed
at the fact that this was done, since
they didn't realize he knew anything about them.
And he took portions to them from his
own table, but Benjamin's portion was five times
as much as any of theirs.
So they feasted and drank freely with him.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
Our subject this morning is Joseph's brethren and
the disciplines of life.
Behind the scenes of the chapter that is
before us today is the continuing lesson of
the mingling together of the purposes of God
and his providential government.
Far in the background is God's purpose of
removing Israel from the evils of Canaan to
Egypt as a unified people.
Evidently the Lord thought that it might be
worthwhile for Israel and his sons and their
families to be moved to Egypt in order
to preserve them from the evils of the
Canaanites.
And so all of the events that are
transpiring before us as we read these chapters
are designed ultimately to be part of that
program by which Jacob is to be brought
down into the land of Egypt.
Now there is a problem, however, with this
plan, and that is that the brothers are
guilty of a very grievous sin, and being
guilty of a very grievous sin there cannot
be any unity in that people.
And if there is no unity in the
family of God as they move down into
Egypt, then it would not be long before
the disintegrating forces of sin should lead to
the assimilation of Israel with the Egyptians.
And so God evidently is very concerned about
in that problem that exists in Jacob and
his sons, and it is that sin that
they have committed against Joseph.
Now I say that sin is a disintegrating
force, it is a dividing force, it is
a separating force, and God does not overlook
sin.
The prophet Isaiah, speaking for the Lord God,
says your iniquities have separated between you and
the Lord God.
Sin is a separating force, and for that
reason it is a disintegrating force.
And because God cannot overlook sin, he must
have conviction, repentance, and conversion.
And therefore in the prime minister of Egypt's
life, Joseph, we have all of these events
transpiring together with the lives of Jacob and
his sons toward this one goal, that there
may be conviction of sin and repentance and
true conversion, and the brothers may be welded
together into a unified body, doing works meet
for repentance.
So what we have then in these chapters,
which may seem to be nothing more than
history, is history from a religious viewpoint, or
Hausgeschichte, the history of salvation, as biblical scholars
term it.
We have the testing of Jacob and the
brethren.
We have the revelation soon in chapters 44
and 45 of who Joseph is, and the
response that that brings with Jacob and the
sons, the development of Jacob and the sons
in the spiritual life.
And it is brought about by the discipline
of the famine which God has brought over
the whole of that part of the world.
Jacob's learning.
He's learning some of the things that God
intends for all of us to learn, and
finally in this chapter we read that he
submits to the will of God.
He says, For me, if I am bereaved
of my children, I am bereaved.
And so he seems to be learning submission
to the will of God.
But it costs, or it is necessary for
God to send affliction.
I remember a text that the prophet Hosea
writes.
He puts the words of God down on,
he speaks as the mouthpiece of God, and
these words of God in the light of
the apostasy of the nation are these.
I will go away and return to my
place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek
my face.
And then the prophet adds for the Lord
God in their affliction they will earnestly seek
me.
And then a text that I've quoted to
you before, Psalm 119 and verse 67.
Before I was afflicted, the psalmist says, I
went astray, but now I keep thy word.
So it is necessary for God to send
affliction.
Many of the afflictions that we experience as
believers are designed to teach us spiritual truths.
And then the afflictions that we have when
we are not believers are often designed to
prepare us for the exercise of faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is true in their affliction they will
earnestly seek my face.
Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but
now I keep thy word.
The sufferings that we have to undergo are
often the means by which God brings us
to faith and trust in him, either as
a non-believer or as a believer.
So we have here then a striking manifestation
of God's action and discipline, and we have
a striking manifestation of the nature of the
human character.
The writer of the Epistle of the Hebrews
has a great section on discipline of the
servants and saints in Hebrews chapter 12.
We find some of that illustrated here in
the life of Joseph.
And we have the discipline of the non
-believers, if we may call the brethren of
Joseph non-believers at this time in the
experiences that they must undergo.
So there are these lessons.
There are other lessons in this chapter too.
There is the recovery and victory of faith
as Griffith Thomas puts it, and we see
that in Jacob.
There is the moral power of the fear
of judgment.
You notice that over and over again the
brethren of Joseph fall into fear as a
result of the things that happen to them.
Why should we fear?
Why should we ever fear?
Well, in the first place from the divine
standpoint, fear is a blessing of grace.
It's one of the ways in which God
gets our attention.
And so the conviction that was deep down
in their hearts over their sin is brought
to the surface, and the response that they
have to their disobedience is fear, because they
sense somehow that they must appear before a
God who will set things straight ultimately.
That's why we have the fear of death,
all of us naturally.
We are fearful of death because it's appointed
unto men once to dine after this the
judgment.
And so men do fear.
They don't like to hear about divine things.
They don't rejoice when Sunday comes around to
go to hear the Word of God.
It's because of our sin nature and our
sins that have separated us from the Lord
God.
Fear then is one of those blessings from
God.
In this sense, the fear of God is
the beginning of wisdom.
And did you notice too as you read
through these chapters the naturalness and unconsciousness of
moral testing?
The brothers are largely ignorant of what's happening,
but even in the daily experiences of life
that seem rather insignificant, great issues are at
stake.
I'm sure that afterwards as the full import
of what was happening to them came home
to them, they must have discussed how even
such things as a famine, as that incarceration
in Egypt, as the fact that they had
a young brother who was also the daughter
of Rachel.
These are the little things of life, but
it is in the little things of life,
the hidden things of life that God often
tests us.
It's not in the big things.
We tend to think it's in the big
things.
It's not in the big things.
It's in the little things.
It's in the little ordinary experiences of life,
the things that only you and your family
know about that are often the means by
which God judges our character.
Gideon and the men with him were distinguished
by the way they drank water.
Just a simple little thing like that marked
the 300 out from the rest of the
thousands that had originally been with Gideon.
And it was 300 who drank the water
in a certain way that made the difference.
So those little experiences of our lives that
we think are so unimportant, those experiences in
our families, how we treat our husband or
how we treat our wife or how we
treat our children or how we treat our
friends or how we treat our neighbors or
how we reflect the faith that we profess
on Sunday in our daily life.
These are the things that really count, not
the big things.
And that's an important lesson for us to
learn, all of us.
Now remember the history.
Jacob and the brothers are in the land
of Canaan.
Joseph has been sold into slavery.
He there has come into contact with Pharaoh,
interpreted his dreams, and he has learned as
the Spirit has taught him that there would
be a time of prosperity and then a
time of famine.
Well, the prosperity has come and Joseph has
made it possible for Egypt to have food,
but other places do not.
And so finally Jacob sent to the land
of Egypt and came into the presence of
Joseph by the providence of God.
Joseph, guided by the Lord God it would
seem, retained Simeon, put him in prison, in
incarceration, because he wanted to ultimately have Benjamin
and finally Jacob.
And he sent them back, and as they
went back they found their money which they
had paid for the grain in their sacks
of grain.
And they feared because they thought, they must
have thought that we stole that money.
And now finally they need food again and
Jacob speaks and says that they are to
go back down to Egypt.
And Judah speaks, because Judah has now evidently
become the spokesman.
And Judah speaks and he says, well father,
remember the man said that we were not
to come unless we brought our youngest brother.
And he said there was if we came
without the youngest brother we would not even
see his face.
And so if you send our brother with
us we will go, but if you don't
send our brother with us, well we're not
going.
And so the inevitable go back my son
for food is debated by Judah who's become
the spokesman for the brothers.
Evidently some of the others have been disqualified
by the actions or by the fact that
they were separated like Simeon.
And Judah now emerges as a leader among
the brethren.
Joseph is, Jacob is still thinking about himself
though and so he says, why did you
treat me so badly by telling the man
whether you still had another brother.
It's very difficult for Jacob to speak from
the standpoint of the divine program.
He's thinking of himself and so his reaction
shows an inordinate self-concern.
But it was like a dagger in his
heart to think about Benjamin going.
Benjamin the youngest son, the son of Rachel.
And furthermore he didn't trust those brothers.
But Judah argues and as a result of
his very, his very impressive and his very
concerned argument that he would be sure to
for him finally Jacob yields.
And we read in the 11th verse, then
said their father Israel to them, if it
must be so then do this.
And acting very much as he did when
he was about to meet Esau, he asks
them to take a gift back, a present.
And after he has suggested that, he then
in the 14th verse says, and may God
Almighty grant you compassion in the sight of
the man.
Now that's an interesting statement because he appeals
to the God of the Abrahamic covenant, may
God Almighty.
Evidently Jacob thought that he could bind up
their safety with the purpose of God.
And so he calls upon the God of
the Abrahamic covenant to grant them compassion as
they go back down to Egypt.
And notice this was on Jacob's part an
expression of faith.
Not simply that he used the term God
Almighty, but it's clear that he thinks that
this God, God Almighty, the God of the
Abrahamic covenant is a God who is effective
in Egypt as well as in the land
of Canaan.
It was the custom in those days as
I've mentioned before to you to have tribal
deities, local deities.
And so there would be the God of
a particular place, like the God of Bethel,
or the God of Jerusalem, or the God
of Shechem.
And these gods were thought to have authority
and power in a very limited locale.
So the Egyptians had their gods too.
But it's clear that Jacob regards the God
of the Abrahamic covenant as a God who
has authority and power not only in the
land of Canaan, but also in the land
of Egypt.
And so that's an expression of his understanding
of the greatness of the God of Israel.
But the last words of verse 14 I
think are the most interesting of Jacob's words.
He says, as for me, if I am
bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.
Now that's not a complaint, but it is
a word of grief spoken in the spirit
of faith.
The old Jacob, the old supplanter, is now
on the way to becoming Israel a fighter
with God.
Now Luther has a very pithy way of
saying things, and he was once speaking about
1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 7, which
says, casting all your care upon him because
he careth for you.
And Luther said, oh that we could learn
this sort of casting.
But he who does not will remain a
man downcast, outcast, cast off, cast behind, cast
away.
And Jacob is learning to cast his care
upon the Lord.
As for me, if I am bereaved of
my children, I am bereaved.
There is the note of submission there.
There's something ironic about this though.
Here is a man, he is the patriarch,
he's had the experiences of Abraham and Isaac,
he's known some great experiences with the Lord
God, and here he is weeping over the
fact that he is going to lose Benjamin,
and that he's lost Joseph, and that he's
lost Simeon.
And he's weeping as it turns out at
the very things that are ultimately the means
of his great blessing.
Mary Magdalene wept over the empty tomb.
Isn't that an amazing thing?
Before the empty tomb, she was weeping.
Now of all the things before which you
should not have wept, it was the empty
tomb.
Because the empty tomb is the proclamation of
the resurrection and of the living Savior.
But in the presence of the empty tomb,
which is the token of victory, the token
of resurrection, the token that he is alive,
she's weeping.
But that's characteristic of human beings, is it
not?
We do not look at things from the
divine standpoint.
Soon, standing behind her, someone will say, Mary,
Rabboni.
She will reply.
And how much is contained in those few
words?
And how often is that not true, my
dear Christian friends?
You and I have experiences, and we think,
why has the Lord allowed this to happen?
It's amazing to me, really, it's amazing how
often we say things like this in the
amidst of the experiences that we have.
Why has this happened to me?
But our whys are answered by the Word
of God.
They ultimately are designed to be part of
the plan and program of God.
He works all things together according to the
counsel of his own will.
If we ask why, we must look for
answers in the Word of God.
He also works in such a way that
all things work together for the ultimate good
of those who are the called according to
his purpose, to those who love him.
And so, in the case of Jacob, he
is weeping over the fact that he's losing
Benjamin, and all the time, there's Joseph.
He's not dead, he's alive.
He's the prime minister in Egypt.
He furthermore has access to all of the
things that Jacob and the sons need.
And furthermore, he is the key figure in
bringing them into Egypt to preserve them from
the evil of the land in which they
are at the present time.
Everything is working for Jacob's good, and he's
speaking about being bereaved.
So characteristic of us.
We look at the empty tomb and we
weep, but in faith we see it really
is the sign of victory.
And I'd like to suggest to you, my
Christian friends, that no matter what happens to
you, and the ultimate things do happen to
us, we do lose our loved ones.
They do suddenly die.
They do suddenly pass from our presence into
the presence of the Lord.
We don't really have to ask, why has
this happened to me?
In the tone of a complaint, we may
want to be exercised by it and ask,
now what has God to teach me from
this?
But ultimately we know if we have truly
been brought by the Holy Spirit to a
trust in him, this is part of his
plan and program for me.
And now by the grace of God, I'd
like to adjust to it and respond to
it in faith.
While the brothers make their trip down to
Egypt, it's remarkable the things that Joseph does.
I do not know that there's anything in
these chapters that lets me know that Joseph
actually knew what was happening, but his actions
are so guided by the Holy Spirit that
it almost seems as if he knows precisely
what is taking place.
His actions are actions that are dictated by
inspiration, by the work of God.
He's not acting, he's not trifling with human
feelings, he's not following the dictates of his
own personal desires, but you sense as you
see what he does when he accuses them
of being spies and puts them in prison
and then puts only one in prison and
sends them back.
And then in a moment in the next
chapter when he will have put in the
sack of Benjamin that cup in order that
he may have Benjamin back there, that he
may get Jacob down into Egypt.
It's almost as if he knows precisely what's
happening.
He knows that God wants to bring conviction
and repentance and conversion to these brothers and
union to the whole of the family.
All of his actions seem to be guided
by the Holy Spirit, and yet it is
not said that that is what is transpiring.
It's almost as if it's supernatural.
Well, when they got there, they met Joseph
in the grain market.
He was there.
No doubt he had left instructions, if those
Jews ever come back here, you let me
know, because I want to be down there
in that marketplace when they're there.
And so he was there, and he saw
them.
And he said to his steward, now bring
them home to my house.
And when they heard that they were to
go to his house, they immediately feared.
We read in verse 18, now the men
were afraid because they were brought to Joseph's
house.
The steward, and they immediately begin to explain
how it happened that they had money in
their sacks, and the steward makes it all
sound as if it's supernatural.
He said, don't worry about that.
I had your money.
But he doesn't tell them how the money
got in the sacks.
It's almost as if he says, it's a
supernatural thing how it happened.
He left it that way.
And incidentally, the steward has evidently been taught
about the God of the Hebrews, because he
says, your God and the God of your
father, probably taught by Joseph.
And whether he had a true faith in
him or not, it does not say, but
he at least recognized him.
But the fear of the brothers is a
reflection of the fear that I was talking
about a moment ago.
It's that which began in the Garden of
Eden when man sinned, and when the Lord
God came down in the garden at the
end of the day in order to fellowship
with Adam and Eve, they hid themselves.
That fear that comes when the word of
the cross is preached in a congregation, and
there's someone sitting in the congregation who has
never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a fear deep down in the
heart.
And incidentally, if you're here this morning and
you have never believed in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the scriptures are unfolded, and the
scriptures are properly proclaimed as those that tell
us that we are sinners and headed for
a Christless eternity because we are guilty and
under divine condemnation, there is a fear that
grips the human heart.
We don't like to deal with the fact
that our lives are not under the sovereign
authority of the word of God.
And so we return, we reject, we flee,
we try to keep away from the hearing
of the word of God.
We don't even want to be in the
presence of those who are believers if we
can possibly help it.
So they were fearful.
And over and over again, that fear appears.
It's the fear of the lost man.
It's the fear of you, if you're lost
in this congregation.
And it's the fear of you, you Christian,
if it so happens that there is some
sin in your life that is harming the
communion that you ought to be having with
the Lord God.
Well they finally come into Joseph's presence at
his house, and twice it is stated they
bowed to the ground.
Notice the 26th verse.
They bowed to the ground before him, and
the verse 28, they said, your servant our
father is well, he's still alive, and they
bowed down in homage.
That's the unconscious fulfillment of the dreams that
Joseph had so long ago when he was
just a lad.
Back in chapter 37 we read, for behold,
as Joseph was telling his dream, we were
binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my
sheaf rose up, and also stood erect, and
behold, your sheaves gathered round and bowed down
to my sheaf.
Then his brother said to him, are you
actually going to reign over us, or are
you really going to rule over us?
So they hated him even more for his
dreams and for his words, and so he
told them another dream.
And this time even Jacob objected to the
dream.
What's this dream that you've had?
Shall I and your mother and your brothers
actually come to bow ourselves down before you
to the ground?
Twice over, and already before they've bowed themselves
down to Joseph.
Now in the conversation, this little interview that
follows, there are several very touching things.
We read in verse 29, as he lifted
his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, and
notice Moses adds the words, his mother's son.
What a touching thing that is, because Joseph
and Benjamin were blood brothers.
The others were the sons of Jacob, but
the sons of other mothers.
Joseph was the son of Jacob and Rachel,
and Benjamin was the son of Jacob and
Rachel.
As he lifted his eyes and saw his
brother Benjamin, his mother's son, he said, is
this your youngest brother of whom you speak
to me?
And then turning to Benjamin, and evidently at
this point there was a lump that was
beginning to rise in his throat, because immediately
he has to hurry out in order to
keep from weeping in the presence of his
brothers.
All he can get out is, may God
be gracious to you, my son.
And then the 30th verse says, and Joseph
hurried out, for he was deeply stirred over
his brother.
I'd like for you to notice that word,
deeply stirred.
That's a very stirring word, incidentally.
That's the Hebrew word kamer.
It's used in the Nephal stem in three
places, the very same form.
And this very same form, nichmeru, is used
in three significant places.
One of the places is 1 Kings chapter
3 and verse 26.
There Solomon is making that decision involving the
son of the two women who had come
to him.
They had evidently been sleeping together and they
had each an infant.
And during the night one of them rolled
over and rolled over one of the children
and it smothered to death.
And so they were having a debate over
the possession of the remaining son.
And finally they were brought before Solomon, the
king, for his judgment.
He listened to them and finally he said,
divide the son then and give half to
one and half to the other.
And you'll remember the scripture says something like
this, and the woman whose child the living,
and the woman whose child was the living
one, spoke to the king.
And she said to the king, oh my
lord, give her the living child and by
no means kill him.
But the other said, he shall neither be
mine nor yours, divide him.
Then the king answered and said, give the
first woman the living child and by no
means kill him.
She is his mother.
And they marveled at the wisdom of Solomon.
But I omitted one little phrase or clause.
The text says, then the woman whose child
was the living one spoke to the king
for she was deeply stirred.
I know there are lots of people that
think the authorized version is out of date.
In some ways it is.
But in some ways the renderings of the
authorized version are still very touching, at least
to me.
I'm sorry, but I do not think deeply
stirred says as much as the authorized version
rendering says.
The authorized version puts it very literally.
And it strictly says, her bowels yearned upon
her son.
There is hardly anything more expressive, it seems
to me, of the ultimate devotion than a
clause like that.
Her bowels yearned upon that son.
It's the very same word that is found
of Joseph's yearning over his brother Benjamin.
And when we read here that he was
deeply stirred, it's again his bowels grew warm
and tender.
For the word kamer means to grow warm
and tender.
The most expressive, the most significant use of
that verb, however, is in the eleventh chapter
of the prophecy of Hosea.
In a sense, this is the climax of
that great book.
It certainly, to my mind, is the greatest
chapter in the book of Hosea.
It's the book, it's the chapter in which
the love of God is set forth and
the prophet speaking for the Lord God tells
Israel how when Israel was a youth he
loved him, how he sent prophets to them,
how he taught Ephraim to walk, how he
healed them, how he led them with cords
of a man, with bonds of love.
He describes all of the experiences that express
love and affection.
He was like a husband to Israel.
He was like a herdsman to Israel.
And in addition, prophets were sent to them
to seek to get them to turn from
their apostasy.
And finally, God calls out in a kind
of puzzlement, how can I give you up,
O Ephraim, for righteousness and justice?
It would seem demands that Israel be destroyed.
How can I give you up, Ephraim, the
Lord God says?
How can I surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admar, one
of the cities destroyed when Sodom and Gomorrah
was destroyed?
How can I treat you like Zebulim?
And then God describes the feelings that he
has for Israel.
He says, my heart is turned within me,
all my compassions are kindled, all my repentings
are kindled together, and that's the word, deeply
stirred, the very same word, the very same
form in the Hebrew text that is used
of Joseph's love for Benjamin.
And so the word expresses the warmth, the
tenderness, the deep emotion of the covenant keeping
God for the nation Israel, the deep emotion
of a mother for her own son, the
deep emotion of a blood brother for a
blood brother, and you can add also, my
Christian friends, the deep emotion and the deep
love of a husband for a wife.
That's the kind of affection that Joseph has
for Benjamin.
It's no wonder that he hastened out of
the room, found his own room, and there
wept.
And after a time, he washed his face,
got control of himself, and came out and
said, serve the meal.
Well, the last few verses of the chapter
describe the feast for Benjamin.
You certainly learn something about the true greatness
of Joseph.
The tenderness, the pathos, the simplicity, the truthfulness,
all of these things make for the greatness
of a man, and Joseph is a great
man.
You may find many things wrong with Joseph,
but there is one thing that marks him
out as great, and that's this sense of
tenderness and responsiveness to Benjamin and to his
brothers.
Well, they sit at one table, and Joseph
and the Egyptians at the other, because it
wasn't a social segregation, it was a cultic
segregation.
To eat with the Hebrews was unclean, but
they're astonished that Joseph is able to seat
them in the order of their age, and
that must have also created the uneasy sense
of approaching judgment to them.
And all of this is designed, I say,
by the Lord God to bring them to
conviction and to repentance because of the sin
that still is upon their conscience.
When Joseph gives Benjamin five times as much
of the food as he gives to the
brothers, it also was not simply an expression
of his love for Benjamin, but it also
was designed to test them for jealousy.
Do they feel toward Benjamin as they felt
toward the other blood brother, Joseph?
And he learns through this that there has
been a change of character on the part
of the brethren, for they sit around and
they feast and drank freely and enjoyed the
time together.
Well, I think, and I want to say
just a few words in conclusion, we're impressed
by the prolonged discipline that God put those
men through.
One might ask, why does he put those
brothers through such a prolonged discipline?
Well, you see, it was important for the
future of Israel that these eleven brothers come
to a true understanding of what it is
to be saved, what it is to know
repentance, what it is to have an experience
of the grace of God.
If you're going to build a building, you
need a good foundation.
If you go down to the center of
Dallas when a skyscraper is built, they don't
just have a big, wide foundation, but they
have one deep, many stories down, because if
that building is to stand, it must have
a deep foundation.
And in spiritual things, that is true too.
If God is going to use an individual
in the service that he wishes, there must
be a deep work of grace.
And that is what is transpiring.
There are basically three reasons for the chastisements
of God.
One is retributive.
David experienced that.
After his sin with Bathsheba, God said, the
sword shall never depart from thine house.
Then there is preventive chastisement, and Paul speaks
about the thorn in the flesh, and he
said God gave him the thorn in the
flesh that he might not boast himself too
much.
That is, to curb his pride.
That's one of the reasons that we suffer
the discipline of God too.
But probably most often we suffer the discipline
of God for purposes of education.
Job experienced that.
He said he had heard of the God
by the hearing of the ear, but now
his eye seeth God.
Wherefore, he repented in dust and ashes.
The psalmist speaking about the way in which
God seems to treat the wicked.
They are prosperous, they have a good life.
And on the other hand, the saints are
suffering, and unable to understand, went into the
sanctuary of God and asked the Lord about
it.
He said this was a great problem to
him until he went in the sanctuary, and
then he learned what God was really doing
in the lives of individuals.
And he learned, and after he learned, he
speaks those wonderful words about the future that
God has for those who have truly trusted
him.
Luther said, my temptations have been my masters
in divinity.
There is a story about Paul Sangster, the
son of a famous preacher, W.E. Sangster,
which he tells about his father.
His father went to visit a little girl
in a hospital who was going blind, and
evidently the doctors could do nothing for her.
Mr. Sangster, Jessie said, that was her name,
God's going to take my sight away.
For a little while, Sangster didn't answer, and
then he said, don't let him, Jessie, give
it to him.
What do you mean, she said.
Well, try to pray this prayer, he answered.
Father, if for any reason I must lose
my sight, help me to give it to
you.
That's true submission to the will of God.
One thing that we fail to remember is
this.
God is very fair and loving and merciful
in the chastisements that he sends to us.
Now, our fathers are not always fair, but
our heavenly father is always fair with us.
I had many fights with my sisters in
my childhood.
In fact, that's generally the way I remember
my relationship to my two sisters.
It was a battle.
I was the oldest, and they were the
next two, and they were always conspiring against
me, so I thought.
My father, however, was usually very fair.
I always got the blame.
And sometimes I felt that he should have
been a little stricter with my sisters, particularly,
because I nourished a little resentment.
He loved, incidentally, to say if when he
found out that I had done something displeasing,
he loved to say, well, you just will
have to miss your supper tonight.
And they would often laugh when he would
say that as I had to leave the
room.
Incidentally, that's the reason I was so slender
when I left home.
I missed so many of those meals.
But he was generally fair, and the Lord
God is always merciful and good in the
midst of our chastisements.
They may seem very difficult, but we can
trust him to be fair in them.
It's very easy to misinterpret the Lord's dealings
with us, is it not?
Even a Jacob, even a patriarch, misinterpreted what
is happening.
He thought that he was being punished, but
God was disciplining him, educating him, bringing him
to full maturity, and not only him, but
his sons and also the nation Israel.
He was learning in experience that God works
all things together for good to those who
love him, to those who are the called
according to his purpose.
That's something we can rely upon in all
of the experiences of life.
It illustrates the fact that one thing is
truly necessary for fruitfulness in the Christian life,
and that is genuine repentance and faith.
Consciousness of sin is not enough.
Repentance involves not only consciousness of sin, but
works meet for repentance.
In the book of Acts we read, he,
Christ, is the one whom God has exalted
to his right hand as a prince and
a savior to grant repentance to Israel and
forgiveness of sins.
If you are here this morning and you
have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
many of the experiences through which you are
being put, if you're one of God's elect,
is to bring you to the place where
you will acknowledge finally that you are lost
and undone and only Christ can save you.
And he will, through the working of the
Holy Spirit, give you repentance and faith.
And the evidence, the definite, final evidence of
your conversion is that you do works meet
for repentance.
And if you're here as a believer, and
there is some sin that is hindering communion
with the Lord God, the experiences of life
are often disciplinary for you, designed to educate
you and to bring you into communion with
him.
And he will not rest, for he is
a heavenly father who loves his children.
He will not rest until even in affliction,
he will bring you to obedience to his
word.
Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but
now I keep thy word.
May God, if necessary, afflict us, that we
keep his word.
If you're here without Christ, come to him.
Believe in the one who offered the atoning
sacrifice and receive as a free gift everlasting
life.
Let's stand for the benediction.
Father, we are grateful to thee for the
lessons that we learn from the word of
God.
Thou art truly a merciful father.
Thou art God almighty.
Thou art the covenant-keeping God.
And Lord, if there are some here who
are still fighting, resisting, oh, by the grace
found in Jesus Christ, bring them to the
surrender that means faith in life.
For those of us, Lord, who know thee
and who are so often rebellious, deliver us,
oh God, from our rebellion.
Give us responsiveness to the word of God
and responsiveness to the experiences through which we
pass.
Enable us to be an influence for good
and not a reproach to thy name.
May grace, mercy, and peace go with us
for Jesus' sake.
Amen.