Whom The Lord Loves He Disciplines
Genesis 42
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Pastor Alan Morse
First Baptist Church of South Lake Tahoe
Joseph’s Brothers Bow Down Before Him
Sin and guilt and devastation are the consequences of our pride and rebellion
against God. God allows it to take its full course in us so we can see where it has
taken us. He allows us to get as low as we possibly can get so we will reach out for
His mercy and grace in Jesus Christ in utter brokenness for what we have done. He
wants us to turn to Him for salvation and the forgiveness of our sins in our
unworthiness for Him to save us out of it.
In the discipline of God’s love and grace, Joseph’s brothers have to reach the
bottom, and so do we in our sin, and be broken over it before we are ready to reach
out for the grace of God in Jesus Christ to save us from the mess we have made out
of our lives.
Jacob hears that there is corn down in Egypt and sends his sons to buy food
because of the famine down there.
In the sovereignty of God in sending the famine, God is moving Heaven and earth
in the nations to get His chosen people, Israel, down into Egypt where for the next
400 years He is going to build them into a mighty nation through the furnace of
affliction. God is using a famine in the land to do it. When Joseph and his sons get
down there, it will be 70 souls in all, but it is there that God, for the next 400 years,
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will multiply them into a nation of at least 2 million Jews. This is the beginning of
God’s promises made to Abraham and at the end of 400 years, God will, by an act of
His divine sovereignty and power, bring them up out of Egypt in the miracle of the
Exodus and bring them into the Promised Land of Israel.
God has sent Joseph already down there ahead of them and he is governor over
all the land.
“ 6 And Joseph was the governor over all the land and he it was that
sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brothers came and
bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.”
The prophetic dreams that Joseph had, 13 years ago at 17, are being fulfilled
before his very eyes. Even in the most prolonged suffering, when everything is going
against our faith around us, when we trust in the Lord, we will see eventually the
day when God will reward our faith. What a day of joy that is set before us that we
are constantly moving toward everyday in great hope and expectation. By faith we
in our suffering in this world endure it and wait for the joy to come in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ to come for His Church.
Throughout the story of Joseph there are flashes of Jesus to be seen in him, and
his future glory to come.
In God’s plan of salvation, God has sovereignly placed Joseph on the throne of
Egypt and has brought all things under his authority and made him governor over all
the earth.
As with Joseph, so with Jesus at the end of the times of the gentiles, so God will
place His Son on the throne ruling over all the nations that have raged against Him.
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In Psalm 2 Jesus is going to reign in His coming kingdom in the land of Israel as King
of kings and Lord of lords. His brothers, the Jews, who rejected and crucified Him,
will repent and be saved, and all the nations who rejected Him will one day bow
before Him and confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus taught us to pray: “… Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done”. When the Lord
answers that prayer in that day to come at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, He
will reign for 1,000 years in His coming kingdom over all the earth from the city of
Jerusalem, in the land of Israel, and His promised people, the Jews, will reign with
Him over all the nations of the earth. All nations will come up to Jerusalem on the
Temple Mount to worship the King of the Jews.
A gentile shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew and say, We have heard that God is
with you, and have come up to worship with you.
In Joseph reigning over Egypt, we see in him the flash of Jesus reigning over the
world at the coming of Christ.
Joseph Disciplining His Brothers
“ 7 And Joseph saw his brothers, and he knew them, but made
himself strange unto them and spake roughly unto them and he said
unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of
Caanan to buy food. 8 And Joseph knew his brothers, but they knew
him not. 9 And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of
them…”
We see a flash of Jesus clearly unto us. When Jesus came into the world at His
first coming, He came unto His brothers, the Jews, as their Messiah, but they knew
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Him not. They refused the Scriptures concerning Him and refused to recognize Him
as their own Messiah.
John 1:11,12 “He came unto His own, and His own believed not on
Him, 12 but as many as have received to them gave He the power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believed on His Name.”
At the first coming of Christ the Jews rejected Him and “…by wicked hands they
crucified Him, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because
it was not possible that He should be holden by it.” Acts 2:23, 24
“… 36 therefore let all the house of Israel know for sure that God hath
made that same Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Jesus is Lord! He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God!
Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery, thrown into a pit to die, raised up,
sold unto the Ishmeelites going down into Egypt, sold to Potiphar, office of the
guard to Pharaoh, accused falsely by his wife for acts of indecency toward her, put
into Pharaoh’s prison on death row, raised up in the sovereignty out of death and
placed at the right hand of Pharaoh.
The Lord Jesus Christ was sold out by His brothers, the Jews, thrown out to die,
crucified, raised up by the Father from the dead, and is exalted by God, where He
sits today at the right hand of God.
Jesus is coming again for His people as Lord of lords, and King of kings. The Father
has given unto Him the kingdom to come and He shall reign forever and ever.
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Joseph, a flash of Jesus is a man of great wisdom. In the wisdom of God he is
going to discipline his brothers and teach them the hard way a lesson, and the
consequences of their sins. In his love for his brothers, he has begun the process of
bringing about their repentance and restoring them to himself and God.
It is through God’s discipline in our lives, and some times of scourging if
necessary, in God’s love for us that He builds character in His children (Heb. 12:3).
Joseph hides his identity from them for a short time and steps back from them
rather than to go unto them. They are not spiritually ready for that yet to receive
the blessing. Joseph speaks roughly to them and accuses them of being spies.
“ 13 And they said, Thy servants are 12 brethren, the sons of one man
in the land of Canaan; and behold the youngest is this day with our
father, and the other is not.”
Finally his brothers, who have been liars and murderers, are beginning to tell the
truth. They think Joseph is dead, and he is standing right in front of them. What a
powerful God we serve.
Often times we think the worst, and that things that we had hoped for are never
going to happen, and the next thing we know, there stands the answer right in front
of us in power and glory to God.
And Joseph puts them to a further test, and ups the bar to test their integrity.
He tells them to bring their youngest brother which is Benjamin and by this they
will prove they are not lying, but telling the truth.
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By this time the consciences of Joseph’s brothers are eating them alive with guilt
for having sold Joseph into slavery and to death.
“ 21 And they said one to another, We are very guilty concerning our
brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us,
and we would not hear: therefore is this distress come upon us”.
What they did to Joseph and their utter cruelty toward him and the hideous
suffering they caused him to bear is now happening to them.
God never lets His people that He loves get away with their sin, but confronts us
with it to get right with Him. God is going to show us our guilt and let happen to us
what we did to others. He’s going to bring us to honesty before Him, confess our
sins and bring us to repentance every time. Do you and I see the anguish in the faces
of those whom we have mistreated? Do we see our hatred and unforgiveness of
what we have done to others, and when we should have shown mercy and
forgiveness we showed none? Sin has consequences until we confess it and forsake
it, and it is always going to come back to bite us until we make things right with God
and those we have offended and have been offended by.
Joseph has stepped back, and for a short time has concealed who he is from his
brothers until he has brought them to repentance. They are beginning to move in
that direction, but have a way to go.
In this time in the history of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, Jesus has
stepped back and stepped away from the nation of Israel and is allowing them to
suffer terribly at the hands of the gentile nations. God is chastening His people for
having crucified His Son, their own Messiah and Savior, and they will suffer through
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the Great Tribulation until they see their guilt and receive “The Christ” at His Second
Coming.
Today, the House of Israel is in a state of mourning and deep insecurity, and in
bitterness of soul. They think God has forsaken them, but He has not. He has loved
them with an everlasting love, and with strong chords of love will bring every last
one of His chosen people in the House of Israel to salvation at His Second Coming.
“And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in thy hands
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And He shall say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of
my friends. And they shall say, The Lord is my God, and He shall say,
You are My people.” Zech. 13:6,9
Zech. 13:1 “And it shall come to pass in that day” there shall be a
fountain opened to the House of David, and to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness”.
This is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and sinners
plunged beneath that blood shall be cleansed from every stain. Rom. 11:26 “As it is
written, the Lord will send a Deliverer from Mount Zion, and the whole House of
Israel shall be saved.”
Zech. 14:8 “And it shall come to pass in that day that living waters
shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and
half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and winter it shall be.
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And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall be one
Lord, and His Name One.”
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Joseph’s Love for His Brothers
Vs 24 And Joseph “turned himself about from them and wept.”
When Jesus went to the top of the Mount of Olives just before His crucifixion, He
wept over the city of Jerusalem and said, Only if thou hadst knew this day the things
concerning thy peace, but now they are hidden from you because you knew not the
time of your visitation.” Luke 21:44-48
Jesus loves the Jewish people and us, the Gentiles in His Church with an
unconditional love, and will come again for His people.
The Brothers of Joseph Thought God Was Against Them
Joseph sent his brothers away to go bring again their brother Benjamin to him.
He had their sacks filled with money. They saw it and were terrified. They thought
Joseph was playing a trick on them to put them into slavery forever.
“28 And they said, What is this that God hath done to us?”
They thought God was against them. It is their consciences at work double time.
But it really was Jesus at work through Joseph in the great grace of God to bring to
them His unconditional love and forgiveness.
When the brothers of Joseph get back home and tell their father, Jacob, what
had happened to them and how they had a brother still alive, and a younger brother
of 12 sons, Jacob was angry at them for telling the truth.
“36 And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have you bereaved of
my children; Joseph is not, and Simmeon is not; and ye will take
Benjamin away: all these things are against me.”
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No they’re not, Jacob. God is really for you, you just don’t know it yet, that the
best is yet to come.
Joseph’s brothers have told the truth, and are feeling guilty for their sins of what
they did to their brother, Joseph, Jesus.
They are just a step away from finding forgiveness in Joseph, Jesus, and from
their lives being changed forever in peace with God.
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