By doing it now, I think we can
save a little time in the time of
the ministry of the Word, so I hope
that you will pay good attention as we
read these particular verses that have to do
with the reconciliation of Joseph and his brethren.
Remember the story, the brethren have come back
to Egypt for the second time in order
to buy from Joseph and Pharaoh grain.
The famine has been in the land for
two years, and Jacob has sent them back.
They have refused to come, however, without Benjamin,
Joseph's uterine brother, and as a result, Benjamin
is with them.
And they have come, they have seen Joseph,
he has asked about Jacob, and then he
has had them come to his house, and
they have had a meal together.
Now beginning with chapter 44 and verse 1,
we read, Then he commanded his house stewards,
saying, Fill the men's sacks with food, as
much as they can carry, and put each
man's money in the mouth of his sack,
and put my cup, the silver cup, in
the mouth of the sack of the youngest,
and his money for the grain.
And he did as Joseph had told him.
As soon as it was light, the men
were sent away, they with their donkeys.
They had just gone out of the city
and were not far off, when Joseph said
to his house steward, Up, follow the men,
and when you overtake them, say to them,
Why have you repaid evil for good?
Is not this the one from which my
Lord drinks, and which he indeed uses for
divination?
You have done wrong in doing this.
So he overtook them and spoke these words
to them.
And they said to him, Why does my
Lord speak such words as these?
Far be it from your servants to do
such a thing.
Behold the money which we found in the
mouth of our sacks we have brought back
to you from the land of Canaan, they
referred to the first time they had come.
How then could we steal silver or gold
from your Lord's house?
With whomever of your servants it is found,
let him die, and we also will be
my Lord's slaves.
So he said, now this is the Now
let it also be according to your words.
He with whom it is found shall be
my slave, and the rest of you shall
be innocent.
Then they hurried each man, lord, his sack
to the ground, and each man opened his
sack.
And he searched, beginning with the oldest and
ending with the youngest, and the cup was
found in Benjamin's sack.
Then they tore their clothes, and when each
man loaded his donkey, they returned to the
city.
When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's
house, he was still there, and they fell
to the ground before him.
And Joseph said to them, What is this
deed that you have done?
Do you not know that such a man
as I can indeed practice divination?
So Judah said, What can we say to
my Lord?
What can we speak, and how can we
justify ourselves?
God has found out the iniquity of your
servants.
Behold, we are my Lord's slaves, both we
and the one in whose possession the cup
has been found.
But he said, Far be it from me
to do this.
The man in whose possession the cup has
been found, he shall be my slave, but
as for you, go up in peace to
your father.
Then Judah approached him and said, O my
Lord, may your servant please speak a word
in my Lord's ears, and do not be
angry with your servant, for you are equal
to Pharaoh.
My Lord asked his servant, saying, Have you
a father or a brother?
And we said to my Lord, We have
an old father and a little child of
his old age.
Now his brother is dead, so he alone
is left of his mother, and his father
loves him.
Then you said to your servants, Bring him
down to me, that I may set my
eyes on him.
But we said to my Lord, The Lord
the led cannot leave his father, for if
he should leave his father, his father would
die.
You said to your servants, however, Unless your
youngest brother comes down with you, you shall
not see my face again.
Thus it came about when we went up
to your servant, my father, we told him
the words of my Lord, and our father
said, Go back and buy us a little
food.
But we said, We cannot go down.
If our youngest brother is with us, then
we will go down, for we cannot see
the man's face unless our younger brother is
with us.
And your servant, my father, said to us,
You know that my wife bore two sons,
and the one went out from me.
And I said, Surely he is torn in
pieces, and I have not seen him since.
And if you take this one also from
me, and harm befalls him, you will bring
my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.
Now therefore, when I come to your servant,
my father, and the lad is not with
me, with us, since his life is bound
up in the lad's life, it will come
about, when he sees that the lad is
not with us, that he will die.
Thus your servants will bring the gray hair
of your servant, our father, down to Sheol
in sorrow.
For your servant became surety for the lad,
to my father, saying, If I do not
bring him back to you, then let me
bear the blame before my father forever.
Now therefore, please let your servant remain, instead
of the lad, a slave to my Lord,
and let the lad go up with his
brothers.
For how shall I go up to my
father if the lad is not with me,
lest I see the evil that would overtake
my father?
Then Joseph could not control himself before all
those who stood by him and cried, Have
everyone go out from me.
So there was no man with him when
Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians
heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard
it.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am
Joseph.
Is my father still alive?
But his brothers could not answer him, for
they were dismayed at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, Please come
closer to me.
And they came closer.
And he said, I am your brother Joseph,
whom you sold into Egypt.
And now do not be grieved or angry
with yourselves, because you sold me here, for
God sent me before you to preserve life.
For the famine has been in the land
these two years, and there are still five
years in which there will be neither plowing
nor harvesting.
And God sent me before you to preserve
for you a remnant in the earth and
to keep you alive by a great deliverance.
Now, therefore, it was not you who sent
me here, but God.
And he has made me a father to
Pharaoh and Lord of all his household and
ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Hurry and go up to my father and
say to him, Thus says your son Joseph,
God has made me Lord of all Egypt.
Come down to me.
Do not delay.
And you shall live in the land of
Goshen, and you shall be near me, you
and your children and your children's children and
your flocks and your herds and all that
you have.
There I will also provide for you, for
there are still five years of famine to
come, lest you and your household and all
that you have be impoverished.
And behold, your eyes see in the eyes
of my brother Benjamin, see that it is
my mouth, which is speaking to you.
Now you must tell my father of all
my splendor in Egypt and of all that
you have seen, and you must hurry and
bring my father down here.
Then he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck
and wept.
And Benjamin wept on his neck.
And he kissed all his brothers and wept
on them.
And afterward, his brothers talked with him.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
The subject for this morning in the exposition
of the book of Genesis is consternation, mediation,
and reconciliation.
We have been following in our studies in
the book of Genesis recently the activities of
Joseph as he, the hand of the Lord,
has sought to discipline the brethren who have
many years previously sold him into captivity.
We've been trying to make the point that
this was designed by the Lord God to
prepare them for the future.
He wanted to bring the nation Israel down
into the land of Egypt as a united
nation and to prepare them for their future
service to the whole of mankind.
And so it was very important that they
be brought into a place of unity, but
due to the sin of the eleven or
ten in sending Joseph into captivity many years
before, there was no unity among the twelve.
And consequently, Israel, if they had gone down
into Egypt without this unity, they would have
soon become part of the Egyptians and lost
as a separate servant of the Lord.
Now, whether Joseph understood all of this or
not, that is not really our major question.
It does seem at times as if he
did have an understanding of what was transpiring
because the things that he devised to bring
them to conviction and repentance were so apropos
and so successful that one gets the impression
that he must have realized that he was
the hand of God in bringing the brethren
back into communion with the Lord God.
Now in this chapter, chapter forty-five, we
reach the climax of the divine discipline of
Jacob and his sons, and it is reached
in a tender and tearful reconciliation of Joseph
and his brethren.
And the first thing that it testifies to,
so far as I'm concerned, is the perseverance
of the Lord God.
Francis Thompson is famous as a poet who
wrote the poem, The Hound of Heaven.
Mr. Thompson later said that he would like
to be known as the poet of the
return to God.
It's a remarkable poem.
I have it before me.
Many of the stanzas end on notes like
this.
Some of you may even remember the first
few words of the poem, which have frequently
been quoted by preachers.
I fled him down the nights and down
the days.
I fled him down the arches of the
years.
I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of
my own mind and in the midst of
tears.
I hid from him, and under running laughter,
upvisted hopes I sped, and shot, precipitated, down
titanic glooms and chasmed fears from those strong
feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate
speed, majestic instancy, they beat, and a voice
beat more instant than the feet.
All things betray thee who betrayest me.
And it's a poem in which is expressed
in very beautiful language the fact that God
pursues all men.
And ultimately, he will have all men at
his side, either in mercy or in judgment.
And for those who are followed after by
him and brought by efficacious grace into the
understanding of salvation, he's the hound of heaven
for mercy and for grace.
Most of you in this audience, no doubt,
know something of the grace of God, and
you know that it is God who has
sought you and who has caught you.
He pursued you for a long time, some
of you, and finally he caught you and
brought you to himself.
Others of you, he will continue to pursue,
and he will pursue until finally you are
in his presence.
And if you do not, of course, come
to the knowledge of the Son of God,
whom to know is life everlasting, you shall
feel in his presence the heat of the
great white throne judgment and ultimately the lake
of fire.
It is true, he is the hound of
heaven.
F.
B.
Meyer has called him the sleuth of heaven,
and I think that he must be speaking
about Mr. Thompson's poem when he uses that
expression.
And he remarks on how it may take
years to run you down, but it will
never leave the trail until it has discovered
your hiding place and found you out.
Be sure your sin will find you out,
he says.
Tens of years may pass over your life,
and like these brethren, you may be congratulating
yourself that the sin is forgotten and you
are safe.
And then a train of circumstances, little suspected
but manipulated by a divine hand, will suddenly
bring the truth to light and write God's
sentence in flaming characters upon the walls of
the house in which you rot in careless
ease.
The unforgiven sinner is never safe.
Now, I think the brethren of Joseph understood
that fully.
Judah certainly did when he said, what can
we say to my Lord?
What can we speak?
How can we justify ourselves?
God has found out the iniquity of your
servants.
Mr. Meyer also speaks about an incident that
occurred when John Donne was the preponderary of
St. Paul's Cathedral, and there was some excavation
going on in the cathedral yard nearby.
And as the men were working, finally there
was a skull that came to the surface
with a nail in it.
And Mr. Donne happened to be standing by,
and he asked the old sexton who had
been there for many years if he knew
to whom this skull belonged.
And he said, yes, it's the skull of
a very old man who died very suddenly
some years ago.
His wife is still living.
She married again soon after his death.
Well, Mr. Donne suspected something because the nail
was in the head, and he went to
the old woman's house, and he confronted her
with the skull.
And he said the woman turned deadly pale
and confessed that she had taken her husband's
life and that she had no rest since
by day or by night.
It is true, God is the sleuth hound
of heaven, and all of us must eventually
face him in mercy or in judgment.
The pursuit of Joseph's brethren was for the
purpose of their repentance.
His pursuit of the lost is for judgment.
If sin is not brought home to us
in this world, it will be in the
world to come.
The cross is the only escape.
Now, the picture before us in Genesis chapter
44 and chapter 45 is a picture that
is also profoundly typical.
It points us forward to the reconciliation of
the Lion of the tribe of Judah with
national Israel.
The weeping over the brother they have rejected
will render pale that of Joseph and his
brethren.
And what a glorious and touching day it
will be when Israel the nation recognizes the
Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah and responds
in weeping as one weeps for an only
son when they see him whom they have
pierced.
And then there shall be a national reconciliation,
an opening up of a fountain for sin
and uncleanness, and Israel shall be saved.
Well, we'll say more about that later.
I want to briefly run through this story
which we have read in our Scripture reading,
and we begin with Joseph and the brothers'
consternation.
Now, Joseph believes evidently that the time has
come for the master stroke.
And so his strategy is now to be
responsible for that, to bring it to pass,
and to bring those brethren face to face
with their sin.
They've been convicted of their sin.
He has sensed that.
He's heard them say to one another that
their sin is the reason for some of
the things that have happened to them.
But now he wants to bring them finally
to a genuine repentance that issues in works
that are meat for repentance.
The threat to Benjamin is a thrust to
the heart.
It's a thrust to the heart of Jacob,
but it's a thrust to the heart of
those brothers who have brought Benjamin down to
Egypt, knowing that Benjamin is dear to the
heart of Jacob, and Judah has become surety
for him.
And so this threat that Joseph has mentioned
and now brings to its fruition to Benjamin
is something that will reveal the heart of
these brothers.
And the question, of course, that was on
Joseph's mind, no doubt, is, are these eleven
men still the same fierce men that they
were when they sold me into captivity?
Are they still the same cruel brothers who
threw me into the pit, and while I
was crying to be delivered, sat down and
ate a meal right by the side of
that pit?
And in a master stroke, he's going to
find out.
Would they abandon Benjamin as they did Judah,
as they did Joseph?
Because now they have the opportunity, when the
cup is found in Benjamin's sack, they have
the opportunity to say, well, we'll turn Benjamin
over to you and we'll go on back
to Canaan.
And so you can see what a master
stroke this is.
Joseph will find out about his brethren, and
so will we, for that matter.
It's rather interesting to notice that Joseph had
a silver cup, and this cup is said
to be for divination.
Now, we should remember, of course, that the
prohibition against divination that one finds in the
Mosaic law has not yet been written at
this point.
But then it's also possible that Joseph was
simply posing.
After all, he was speaking in the language
of the Egyptians.
He was not using their language.
We've already seen that.
He was also speaking brusquely and roughly to
them, and so this may have been something
of a pose.
He may have called it a cup of
divination, or it may be a reference to
the fact that Joseph was an interpreter of
dreams.
And we've already seen that he was very
skilled in that, but he himself said that
he got his interpretations from the Lord God.
At any rate, as the men left early
in the morning, they had just gotten out
of the city, and Joseph evidently did not
want them to put their hands in that
sack and find that cup before the house
steward arrived, and so he sent him to
them just as they were outside the city.
And they came, and the house steward told
them that someone has stolen the silver cup
used for divination, and the brothers are startled
and thinking that surely this could not be
one of them.
They've even offered to give the life of
the one with whom the cup is found,
and the rest offer to be slaves.
Well, the house steward does not accept that.
He says, no, the person in whose sack
the cup is found will be the slave,
and the rest of you can go free.
And he began to search.
And he began to search at the oldest,
and so you can just imagine as the
house steward searched, each of the sacks found
the money still there, but no silver cup,
that they became more and more confident that
nothing would be found until finally they came
to Benjamin's sack, and out came the cup.
And we read in verse 13, then they
tore their clothes, and when each man loaded
his donkey, they returned to the city.
Isn't it interesting that they don't even ask
any explanation from Benjamin, so far as the
text is concerned.
They don't say, Benjamin, why did you do
it?
Or did you really do it?
They don't even suspect any kind of deception.
They do not even say, well, someone must
have put that cup in there, because we
did not.
Benjamin does not even speak, so far as
the text goes.
It's almost as if they are thunderstruck, and
they cannot speak at all.
It almost is as if they sense that
there is a higher hand in the operation
of these affairs.
It's almost as if they sense that this
is something that has been brought about by
the Lord God, and they cannot say anything.
And will you notice also, too, that the
brethren do not say, well, Benjamin, we are
sorry, and we'll see you.
But they immediately put their load back on
their donkeys and returned to the city, because
they have committed themselves to Benjamin.
Now, you can already see a change in
the brothers.
And so they go back, and then when
they come into the presence of Joseph, the
submission, the helplessness, is seen most vividly in
the threefold question that Judah asks.
What can we say to my Lord?
What can we speak?
How can we justify ourselves?
God has found out the iniquity of your
servants.
Behold, we are my Lord's slaves, both we
and the one in whose possession the cup
has been found.
Now, whether Judah is speaking as the representative
of the eleven or not, and whether he's
speaking only about the guilt of this cup,
whether he goes far beyond that and speaks
about that ultimate guilt which so bothered them,
about which they had spoken before in the
presence of Joseph.
Surely we are guilty concerning our brother, because
we saw the distress of his soul when
he pleaded with us.
We don't know.
But many of the students feel that there
is more in this than the guilt of
the cup.
In other words, Judah and the brethren, sensing
the hand of God in their experience, have
come to realize that finally divine retribution has
caught up with them.
The sleuth hound of heaven has finally them
in his grip.
There is some evidence from this account that
Judah is a converted man.
He has confessed his sin.
There is evidence of concern for Jacob.
There is a noble sacrifice of himself.
He wants to take the place of Benjamin
and let Benjamin go free.
There are the things that we might say
were evidences of a conversion experience.
Someone has said that true penitence, as distinguished
from remorse, is marked by a sorrow for
sin that does not regard the consequences of
it.
That seems to be true of Judah at
this point.
But at any rate, he comes forward now,
and that last section of Genesis chapter 44
is one of the most magnificent sections in
all of the Old Testament.
This appeal that Judah makes to Joseph for
Benjamin, I don't think anyone who ever ponders
it can ever forget it.
I remember when I was reading Hebrew for
the first time in theological seminary and we
were reading this section, and I can still
remember the professor speaking about what a tender
appeal this was.
At the time, reading it in Hebrew and
wondering if the professor was going to call
on me at the next verse to translate
it, I did not really catch the full
force of this.
But through the years, it's made an impression
upon me.
It truly is a magnificent appeal.
Listen to what some of the commentators say.
Leupold, the Lutheran commentator who so often tells
us we can't preach on chapters in Genesis,
says this is one of the manliest, most
straightforward speeches ever delivered by any man.
For depth of feeling and sincerity of purpose,
it stands unexcelled.
What makes it most remarkable, however, is the
fact that it comes from the lips of
one who once upon a time was so
calloused that he cared nothing about the grief
he had caused his father.
Another commentator writes, Judah offered the most moving
address in all the word of God.
Here was the eloquence of true love.
Indeed, this speech has been called the greatest
example of natural oratory in all literature.
Still others have said the speech of Judah
in behalf of his young brother Benjamin has
been fittingly characterized as one of the masterpieces
of Hebrew composition.
One of the grandest and fairest to be
found in the Old Testament, another commentator has
written.
A more moving oration than ever orator pronounced,
still another.
One of the finest specimens of natural eloquence
in the world, still someone else has said.
It's characterized first of all by humility and
simplicity.
And Judah, you can just imagine the scene.
They are in the presence now of the
man who is equal with Pharaoh, the man
who is the representative of Pharaoh throughout the
whole of the Egyptian kingdom.
And the ten brothers are there, and before
them stands the prime minister, who happens to
be the twelfth brother, but they do not
realize that.
And there they are on the ground, bowing
down before him, and one of them has
moved forward and stands in front of the
prime minister and makes his appeal.
It's a very touching picture.
And notice the humility of it.
Exquisite tact.
He says, Oh my Lord, may your servant
please speak a word in my Lord's ears,
and do not be angry with your servant,
for you are equal to Pharaoh.
There is a true lowliness here as well.
And he goes on to tell the story
of the situation, to explain what has happened.
And he reminds Joseph of the preceding interviews
that they have had.
And then comes the pathos in verse 27
through verse 32.
Notice the 28th verse.
And one went out from me, and I
said, Surely he is torn in pieces, and
I have not seen him since.
Joseph's sadness, Jacob's sadness and sorrow.
In verse 30 he says that the life
of Jacob is bound up in Benjamin.
In verse 29 and verse 31 he says
that if we do not take Benjamin back,
we'll bring down his, the gray hair of
your servant, our father, to Sheol in sorrow.
And then climaxes it in verse 32 with
the fact that he has become surety for
the land.
And if I do not bring him back
to Jacob, then let me bear the blame
before my father forever.
And having said that, then in the final
two verses, his mediation is a mediation of
the offering of self-sacrifice, a kind of
sublime heroism, in which this man now who
incidentally had taken the lead in the bondage
of Joseph.
For remember, if you'll turn back to Genesis
chapter 37, it was Judah who said, after
they put Jacob, Joseph down in the pit,
What profit is it for us if we
leave him in the pit to die?
Let's sell him to the Midianites who are
passing by, and that way we'll get some
money out of the deal.
So it was Judah.
This is the same individual.
And now he says, and Joseph of course
is learning a great deal about what's happened
to the heart of Judah since then.
Now therefore please let your servant remain instead
of the lad a slave to my Lord,
and let the lad go up with his
brothers.
For how shall I go up to my
father if the lad is not with me,
lest I see the evil that would overtake
my father?
That is a sublime heroism.
It's a beautiful offer of vicarious sacrifice.
He'd rather perish than see the sorrow of
his father Jacob.
Noble Judah, someone has said, thou art he
whom thy brethren shall praise.
That is the word of Jacob, which Jacob
will pronounce later on in Genesis chapter 49
concerning Judah.
So it's a beautiful self-forgetful magnanimity that
one sees in Judah.
It's doubtful that it's ever been eclipsed and
seldom rivaled.
And of course when you think about the
union of this family now, you can see
that this family is a united family.
The eleven brothers, one standing for the other
one, and they all stand for Jacob.
Joseph, if he were analyzing and assessing the
situation would know at this point that the
conditions are ripe for the revelation of himself
as their brother.
And the pain of the love that he
has for them and the rapture of the
love that he wishes to express for them
can no longer endure restriction.
Alexander McLaren in a very beautiful study of
the reconciliation of Joseph and his brethren has
this to say about the incident.
He says, if the writer of this inimitable
scene of Joseph's reconciliation with his brethren was
not simply an historian, now of course we
believe he was simply an historian.
He was simply recording what actually took place.
But Mr. McLaren says if he was not
simply a historian, he was one of the
great dramatic geniuses of the world, master of
a vivid minuteness like Defoe's and able to
touch the springs of tears by a pathetic
simplicity like his who painted the death of
Lear.
Surely theories of legend and of mosaic fail
here.
It's a magnificent picture, and its magnificence is
a testimony to the truthfulness of it.
This is what happened.
Now someone has said that the first step
toward reconciliation between two people should always come
from the individual who is injured, not the
one who did the injuring.
And in this case, that is what happens.
Incidentally, that is the case in the reconciliation
of us with our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is we who have wronged God, and
the first step in reconciliation is the step
that comes from him.
And so this incident is true to that.
The first step toward reconciliation does come from
the injured, and it is Joseph who speaks.
Joseph could not control himself before all those
who stood by him, and he cried out
at this point.
His heart was full, and his throat, no
doubt, was very constricted.
If you've ever been in a situation like
this on the point of tears, and you
know the lump that comes in your throat,
it must have been large in the throat
of Joseph.
And I would imagine that he could hardly
get out the words, have everyone go out
from me.
Now, if we see something good in the
character of Judah here, we certainly see a
great deal in the character of Joseph.
There is a brilliant constellation of heavenly virtues
and graces manifested in this great man.
Fraternal affection, that's something admirable.
Fraternal affection today is something admirable.
It's not something to be ashamed of.
Filial piety, the love of a son for
a father, the love of a son for
a brother.
And then doctrinal good sense.
He had theology.
He was the kind of man who understood
things, and therefore he could be the kind
of person that he was.
I must confess I was rather disappointed this
week in one of my former students.
And in fact, one of my former students
who used to attend Believer's Chapel, I read
an article written by him.
He had reached the age of 40, and
he was talking about how he had now
rethought certain things.
And what he was doing at this midpoint
in his life, how he was reexamining things.
In one of the sentences he said, the
article was a good article, many good things
in it, all in all a good article.
But one thing, I must confess, it disturbed
me.
He said, I've learned at this stage in
life that theology is not quite so important,
and that other things are not.
I'd like to know where he got that
theological statement.
Because that itself is a theological statement.
But if there is anything that is true,
it is this, that the more that we
understand of the truth of God, the better
able we are to cope with the experiences
of life.
Why just take Joseph here.
If he did not know the truth concerning
the relationship of iniquity to the Lord God,
if he did not know the truth of
divine providence, if he did not know the
truth of the sovereignty of God and the
guidance of his saints, how could he possibly
have become the man that he became?
Why, he explains here why he was able
to carry on as he was under the
blows of misfortune that struck him from the
time that he was a youth, seventeen years
of age, until he became the prime minister
of the land of Egypt.
So he had doctrinal sense, and he had
exquisite sensibility in his emotions as they expressed
themselves in tears and tears of love.
Have everyone go out?
His doubts are now answered concerning the brethren.
He knows that they will not treat Benjamin
as they treated him, for their hearts have
been transformed.
And he can no longer damn the flood
of forgiving love.
And incidentally, he doesn't flaunt his emotions.
He doesn't do like a lot of people
get up and cry and weep tears in
front of a crowd in order to gain
the impression that you are a man of
emotion and that you really care because you
weep before big crowds.
No, he says, let them all go out.
The time for tears is the time of
prophecy.
And so they all go out.
Well, he couldn't control himself.
He began to weep and sob so that
outside with the doors closed the Egyptians heard
something that was going on and word even
ultimately came to Pharaoh.
He said to his brothers who were standing
before him, I am Joseph.
That's the pathos of simplicity and the simplicity
of pathos.
It's a question, and there's a question that
follows that reveals his agitation.
It's almost as if he could not say
simply, I am Joseph, fearing that they might
have even been struck in a way that
would be too sharp, too severe.
He says, I am Joseph.
Is my father still alive?
Now he's asked that question before and I
must confess I've puzzled a little over that.
Perhaps he means, is he alive and well?
That is, is he in good health?
But it's a natural question that reveals his
own agitation and perhaps a desire to relieve
them to some extent.
I am Joseph.
Is my father still alive?
And they were dismayed.
They couldn't answer him, dismayed at his presence,
conscience stricken silence.
Finally, the sleuth hound of heaven has caught
up with them and they cannot even speak.
While there isn't a man in the world
who could pick up a pencil and describe
this scene as it ought to be described.
You could talk about the profitlessness of crime,
the profitlessness of trying to flee from the
Lord God, but you cannot say anything more
than is said right here.
They were dismayed at his presence.
And so he spoke to him again, please
come closer to me.
And they came forward almost in a trance.
I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold
into Egypt.
And there the words are spoken.
But he goes on to explain.
Now I think it's important that we know
what he says.
He says, and now do not be grieved
or angry with yourselves, because you sold me
here for God sent me before you to
preserve life.
You sold, God sent.
Would you put those two little clauses together?
You sold, it was God who sent.
What's the first cause?
Well, the first cause of course is God.
He's the one who sent, but you sold.
Now in a moment he will say, God
sent me before you to preserve for you
a remnant in the earth.
He will say in the eighth verse, it
was not you who sent me here but
God.
And so the ultimate cause is the Lord
God.
The primary cause is the Lord God.
The secondary cause is the action of the
brothers.
Now this capacity for ignoring secondary causes is
one of the means by which we know
that Joseph was a great man.
And it's one of the means by which
we know that he was a theologian who
knew how to put his theology into practice
and who knew how to live by it.
It is also one of the things that
sustained him for those twenty years or so
in the land of Egypt.
It was the sense that he was an
instrument of God even though he had been
wronged by his brothers.
So this capacity for ignoring secondary causes is
tremendously important.
Three times he traces his captivity to the
Lord God.
And I want to say to you my
dear Christian friends, if we do not reach
the place where we are able to ignore
the secondary causes and remember the primary cause
of our existence as a Christian brother or
sister, then we shall not have the greatness
of Joseph nor shall we have the humility
of a Joseph.
Have you noticed as you read the Old
Testament how often the psalmist says something like
this?
He will say something like, well it was
men's hand, men did this to me but
men were in the hand of the Lord
God.
Over and over he will make statements like
that.
In the New Testament the apostle Paul will
be in prison and he will call himself
not a prisoner of the Romans, but he
will call himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
He will speak from the standpoint of the
ultimate reason for things.
It's well for us to remember that when
we have become a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ and have received the evidences of
the hand of God upon us, then we
should remember that all of the things that
transpire are the things that are given us
by the hand of a loving God.
He makes all things work together for good
to them that love him, to them who
are the called according to his purpose.
Now there was a reason for all of
this and he expresses it.
God sent me before you to preserve for
you a remnant in the earth and to
keep you alive by a great deliverance.
It was all to fulfill the promises of
the Abrahamic covenant as they pertain to the
four hundred years of captivity in the land
of Egypt and then the great deliverance that
would transpire even greater than the deliverance of
Jacob and the men who came down with
him.
So he was sold as a slave but
he was sent really to be a savior
for the remainder of the children of Israel.
Well he gives Judah and the brethren a
commission, the impatient love of a long absent
son says, hurry, hurry, twice, hurry, get on
with it, bring Jacob back.
No elevation of office, no matter how a
man reaches in life is sufficient to prevent
him from remembering that he is the son
of a particular man forever and Joseph loves
Jacob and wants to see him.
Well the chapter, that section concludes with the
kisses of full reconciliation and the frank communion,
tears answering to tears as they fall on
each other's necks.
Reconciliation has taken place.
You can certainly see in this incident the
benefits of the divine discipline.
Peace finally comes to the brethren after twenty
years of having Joseph's crime upon their hearts.
Conviction has come and now finally repentance and
works meet for repentance are done.
And the result is they find themselves in
the hands of a loving God who gives
them peace, who gives them protection through the
prime minister who will supply all of their
needs.
That's one of the things that happens to
us when we try to fight the Lord
God as believers, fighting him, failing to confess
sin, continuing in a way that is contrary
to the teaching of the Word of God
until finally that sleuth hound of heaven catches
up with us and there comes the conviction
and the repentance and the restoration to communion
and we discover that we are blessed.
For the one thing that we naturally feel
is that if we do the will of
God we're going to suffer for it.
That's part of the sense of the principle
of sin that dwells within.
I'd like to say just a word about
the typical nature of this incident because almost
all of the students of the book of
Genesis have commented upon this.
It's such a universal thing that one gains
the impression that it is the teaching of
the Holy Spirit.
Joseph and the brethren form a typical picture
in two ways.
First of all, it is a picture of
individual sinners and their restoration.
The brethren in their crime against Joseph suggest
the natural condition of the ungodly who are
rebellious, who do not seek after the Lord
God, who are under sin and under guilt
and condemnation and lost.
And Joseph illustrates our Lord Jesus Christ and
the restoration and reconciliation illustrates the reconciliation of
the lost to the Lord Jesus.
And then I think this is a typical
picture nationally.
For just as the brethren are national Israel
and stand for national Israel, so their rebellion
against Joseph, their crime against him, their rejection
of him, their sending of him into captivity
suggests the action of national Israel a couple
of thousands of years ago when they rejected
their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and have
been scattered to the four corners of the
earth under divine discipline.
But the greater Joseph is still working towards
their ultimate reconciliation.
He is still moving the events of this
world in such a way that finally they
will be forced into dealing with their spiritual
condition.
And he will finally bring them face to
face after conviction with the Messiah, the Lord
Jesus Christ, at his second coming when they
shall look upon him whom they have pierced
just as these looked upon Joseph whom they
had rejected and they shall hear him say
to them, I am Jesus, your Messiah.
And there shall be weeping, as Zechariah puts
it, as one weeps for an only son.
And the spirit of grace and supplication will
reduce that nation to tears and those tears
will be tears that far surpass the tears
of Joseph and his brethren.
What a magnificent reconciliation still awaits this world.
One of the greatest of the joys of
the Christian believer is the realization that we
are going to have an opportunity to see
that great reconciliation.
If you are here this morning and you
have never believed in our Lord Jesus Christ,
you are like the brothers.
You are in rebellion.
You have committed a great crime.
All sin is ultimately a sin against the
Lord Jesus Christ.
All sin has in its essence and in
its principle the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Every particular sin finally is traceable to that.
As the Bible says, it is really unbelief
in him.
And if you are here and you have
never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, your
state is the state of condemnation, the state
of guilt, and the state of judgment.
And the sleuth hound of heaven will not
rest until you stand before him.
And if you refuse to come to him,
you must stand the heat of the judgment
of the great white throne.
May God forbid that.
We invite you to come to him who
has offered the atoning sacrifice, whose blood was
shed on Calvary's cross that you might be
saved.
Come to Christ.
Come to him.
Confess your sin.
Confess your lost estate.
Receive the free gift of everlasting life.
That death of Jesus Christ is sufficient for
the sins of this whole world.
Come to Christ.
Your sins are not too deep.
They are not too terrible that the blood
of Christ is not able to wash them
white.
Come to Christ.
Put your trust in him.
For believers, it's possible that some sin in
your life has prevented restoration and communion.
Come to Christ.
Receive the forgiveness that he freely offers.
Shall we stand for the benediction?
Father, we are grateful to thee for these
ancient events which so beautifully illustrate spiritual truth.
We thank thee for our greater Joseph, who
has loved us and loosed us from our
sins in his own precious blood.
If there are some in this audience who
do not know him as their own personal
Savior, O Father, through the Holy Spirit, in
efficacious grace, draw them to him.
May they confess their own unworthiness and sin
and guilt and condemnation and receive as a
free gift everlasting life.
Hasten the day, Lord, when Israel shall be
reconciled to him who is their Messiah, and
we shall enjoy the fullness of the blessing
of the triune God.
May grace, mercy, and peace be ours in
Jesus' name.
Amen.