In The Crucible of God’s Testing
Gen 43:1-45:15
Last weekend I was in Wasilla, AK for the start of the Iditarod. The Iditarod is a sled dog race over 1049 miles of frozen wasteland. It is approximately the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles. Temperatures can drop to 60 below zero. Sixteen sled dogs pull 400 pound sleds consuming 12,000 calories per day per dog. The Musher is lucky to get four hours of sleep per night. Somewhere between 8 and 9 days after the start the winner crosses the finish line in frozen Nome, AK. It is a herculean test of endurance and the ability to push one’s self. In the Iditarod the elements test the musher. Today’s story is also about testing. But it is not the elements that do the testing. God tests Joseph, and Joseph tests his brothers.
A few weeks ago we watched as God tested Joseph. Just when he thought freedom from Egyptian imprisonment was in his grip, the Cupbearer forgot Joseph. Our hero languished two additional years in prison. His faith and trust in God was radically tested.
To save time we didn’t read chapter 43. Let me quickly summarize. Judah and his brothers decided to return a second time to Egypt for grain. Joseph has kept Simeon as a hostage guaranteeing that Benjamin would come with them when they returned. Judah, who has now assumed leadership of Jacob’s sons, talks his father, Jacob, into letting Benjamin go down to Egypt with them.
When they arrive, and Joseph sees his full brother Benjamin, he breaks down. He hasn’t seen him in over twenty years. To save face he leaves the room. Then he throws a banquet for his brothers, conspicuously giving Benjamin a larger portion than the others. Joseph eats separately because it is an abomination for Egyptians to eat with Hebrews. Today’s reading began on the morning after the banquet. Joseph has dispatched his brothers back to Canaan with their sacks loaded with grain.
Today’s text has two story lines. The first is Joseph’s desire to test his brothers. He wants to see if they have changed. Can he trust them? Or, are they the same jealous, selfish, small-minded men that sold him into slavery?
The second story line is God’s testing of Joseph. Will he forgive his brothers and embrace them? Will he put his faith in the sovereignty of God silently working all things (including evil) for the ultimate blessing of Abraham’s family and ultimately, the world?
A. Joseph Tests His Brothers
Joseph is 39 or 40. He was 17 when his brothers sold him into slavery. He spent fourteen years in slavery and prison. At age thirty he became Egypt’s Prime Minister. Seven years of abundance followed. We are now in year two or three of the seven years of predicted famine.
To understand Joseph’s motives we need to remember bacon on why his brothers sold Joseph. They were jealous. He was the favorite son. They acted with meanness of spirit and overt cruelty. Joseph wants to see if his brothers have changed.
Benjamin has replaced Joseph as the favorite son. It must have grieved the remaining nine brothers when their father, Jacob, seemed willing to let the entire clan perish in the famine rather than let his ten brothers take Benjamin down to Egypt. He let the sons by his less loved wives go to Egypt. The truth was obvious. He didn’t care that much about his sons from Leah or his concubines. It was Benjamin, the remaining child of his favorite wife, Rachel that he cared about.
The brothers must have felt massive rejection from their father. If they were jealous of Joseph, they must have been hyper-jealous of Benjamin.
Jealousy is a terrible sin. It is much worse than covetousness. Coveting just wants what someone else has. It wants their mate. It wants their money. It wants their possessions. It wants their happiness. It wants their popularity, etc. But jealousy or envy goes further. It is much worse. It doesn’t just want what another has. It also wants to destroy the happiness of the person who has it. This was the sin of Joseph’s brothers. They were jealous.
Joseph doesn’t trust them. He wants to know if they have changed. So, he arranges a test. He puts his silver cup for divination into Benjamin’s bag of grain and sends the brothers home. Then he sends his steward after them with the goal of imprisoning Benjamin on trumped up charges of theft.
Will his brothers treat Benjamin like they treated him? Will their they jealousy of Benjamin’s status control them? Will they treat Benjamin like they treated Joseph? Will they abandon him to Egyptian enslavement and return home without him? Will they consign a second brother to Egyptian slavery? If so, Joseph will forget them and keep his full brother with him.
Joseph tempts their jealousy by giving Benjamin a conspicuously larger portion of food at the banquet.
The first clue that things have changed is in Judah’s plea to Joseph after Joseph discloses his plan to keep Benjamin.
(Genesis 44:14–16) "14 Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house while he was still there; and they fell to the ground before him. 15 Joseph said to them, “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that one such as I can practice divination?” 16 And Judah said, “What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants; here we are then, my lord’s slaves, both we and also the one in whose possession the cup has been found.”
Judah and his brothers are convinced that their troubles stem back to God’s displeasure with them for their betrayal of Joseph. “God has found out the guilt of your servants.” Of course they have no idea that Joseph knows about their guilt.
Guilt can be productive or destructive. God intends guilt to turn us to him in repentance so that we can be washed and cleansed of our shame. Or, guilt can be terribly destructive. It can cause us to run from God and turn inward in self-centered self-hatred. In the case of Joseph’s brother’s, their guilt is turning them back to God in repentance. It has motivates Judah to go out of himself in love.
Judah takes the lead. He explains that Jacob will die if they return without Benjamin. The climax to the entire dialogue occurs in verse 33.
(Genesis 44:33) "33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers."
Judah offers himself as a substitute. This is remarkable. In twenty years Judah has gone through a remarkable tranformation. In chapter 38 Judah married a Canaanite, had three sons, promised them to Tamar, then reneged. In addition, he slept with a temple cult prostitute. It was a low point. We leave chapter 38 disgusted with Judah’s slimy character.
Bob Dylan was asked in a recent interview if he had a best friend. Dylan replied, A best friend is someone who will give their life for you. They will die for you. If that is the definition of a best friend I don’t think I have one.
Judah is proving himself not only a best friend to his little brother, he is also acting like the Messiah who will someday proceed from his family tree. He is willing to be a substitute for his brother. Love was his motive. Probably love for his father. By loving his brother, Benjamin, he also probably loves an enemy. Benjamin is the pampered, favorite son. Judah probably doesn’t like him. But he loves him. He is willing to die for him.
This is the transformation in Judah’s character that qualifies both himself and his descendants to be the lead tribe in Israel. He is Jacob’s fourth son. His three older brothers have disqualified themselves. Reuben, the oldest, committed incest. Simeon and Levi, second and third sons, ruthlessly murdered the citizens of Shechem in cold blood. But Judah has changed. He is becoming more and more like Christ. From this point on Judah will be the lead tribe in Israel. From Judah the Messiah will descend.
Judah’s willingness to take Benjamin’s place breaks Joseph open. Judah and the brothers have changed. Not only are they not willing to betray Benjamin, not willing to act on their jealousy, Judah is even willing to trade places with him. With this revelation Joseph falls apart.
(Genesis 45:1–3) "1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence."
What was Joseph feeling? Probably something like this. “Alright God, you’ve got me. They have changed. I wasn’t expecting this. And the change is dramatic. They are not the same men that betrayed me. I must forgive them. It is time to get reconciled.”
This brings us to test two.
B. God Test’s Joseph
God is testing Joseph’s faith in God’s sovereignty.
God wants Joseph to look beyond his immediate hurt to the bigger picture. Joseph sees that God has used the evil intentions of those around him for good. God wants Joseph to acknowledge this, and to rejoice in it. To bring Joseph to this point God orchestrates some special circumstances. After Benjamin’s arrest the brothers rush back to Joseph’s house
(Genesis 44:14) "14 Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house while he was still there; and they fell to the ground before him."
This is the fourth and final time that Genesis describes Joseph’s brothers bowing down to him.[1] Four repetitions of the fulfillment of Joseph’s dream speaks to Joseph loudly. It says, “God wants you to focus on the certainty of God’s plan and timing. When you were 17 God gave you a dream. You saw your brothers bowing down to you. God is absolutely sovereign. What God said would happen has happened. It did not happen haphazardly. It did not happen as you expected. God foresaw exactly what would happen because God was in absolute control of all that would happen.
God used the jealousy of your brothers, he used the slander of Potiphar’s wife, and he used the selfish forgetfulness of the Cupbearer to bring all of this to pass. God wants you to know that the dream has come true. Their continual bowing is God’s emphasis. God wants you to see his sovereignty over all of these events. It is not about a private grievance between you and your brothers. God is doing something bigger. He is using their evil against you for good! Can you see it?”
All of this brought Joseph to the response God wanted. Joseph lifted up his eyes and looked beyond his personal hurt to the bigger picture of God working all things for good. He put his eyes on God, not his brothers, and with the eye of faith he saw something much bigger at work. He saw God using his brothers to bless him and all the world, and only as he did so was he able to forgive his brothers.
(Genesis 45:4–9) "4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 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."
In this text Joseph repeats the lesson three times. Vs 5 “God sent me before you to preserve life.” Vs 7 “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth.” Vs 8 “It was not you who sent me here but God.”
The more Joseph looks at God and his purposes the easier it is for him to forgive his brothers.
“All the episodes in the Joseph story contribute to demonstrating how God’s purposes are ultimately fulfilled through and in spite of human deeds, whether or not those deeds are morally right…The Joseph story and the rest of Scripture insist that both divine sovereignty and human responsibility are true…It nowhere excuses…sins or pretends they can be forgotten; rather, they needed to be acknowledged and repented of.”––Wenham, pg 432-33
C. Application
1. God is in the Business of changing people
Joseph watched as God did the utterly unexpected. He changed his brothers. He also changed Joseph.
Expect God to change your spouse.
Expect God to change your children.
Expect God to change your parents.
Expect God to change yourself.
Some of you have lost all hope in God’s power to change you.
God changed Judah. He can change you also. None of us change as fast as we would like. It is two steps forward and one step back. However, to the degree that we keep our eyes fixed on Christ we will change. “Christ in you the hope of Glory to come.”
2. Look beyond people to Christ
Look beyond personal hurts and grievances and start thanking God for how he is using personal injustice against you. This persepctive empowers forgiveness. It empowers joy. Joseph Tson was a Romanian pastor in the 1970s serving behind the Iron Curtain. It was illegal to preach the gospel in Romania. Pastor Tson was arrested, but he overcame his enemies by looking beyond them to Christ.
“When the secret police officer threatened to kill me, to shoot me, I smiled and I said, 'Sir, don't you understand that when you kill me you send me to glory? You cannot threaten me when my hope is in sharing God’s glory.’ The more suffering, the more troubles, the greater the glory. So, why say, 'Stop this trouble’? Because the more [suffering], the greater the glory up there.”