Villa Rica 5/1/05
Genesis 37:3-36
It ought
onto surprise us that God has a plan. A God of infinite wisdom and power
will surely surpass men in careful planning and execution of his
purpose. If sinful men can make minute drawings of their buildings
before they are constructed and them construct them according to a
predetermined plan, if lawyers can build with logic a legal brief, if
business men can plan ahead for years that have not yet arrived, if the
farmer can map out his desired goals ahead of time and then implement
those goals in what he plants and raises, how much more will God have a
plan for his created universe and a purpose which is predetermined for
his ultimate goal
A God who
would be dependent on chance and caprice would not be God at all. If God
be God then He must be a God who reigns supreme and who brings to pass
whatsoever it pleases him to do.
Before we
begin to discuss Joseph, however, let us refer to an event in the life
of Abraham recorded in the 15th chapter of Genesis. The
Scripture tells us that following a promise of God to Abraham that he
was his exceeding great reward and that his descendants would be as
numerous as the starry host of heaven that Abram worshipped the Lord and
that when the sun was going down,
12
a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great
darkness fell upon him. 13God said to Abram, “Know for
certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not
theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
14“But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and
afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15“As for
you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good
old age. 16“Then in the fourth generation they will return
here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” Gen.
15:12-16
We see then that God revealed his
plan and purpose to Abraham many years before Joseph was ever born. In
fact Abraham and Sarah were still childless when this promise and
revelation came to him
Now see Joseph, the great
grandson of Abraham, in the 37th chapter of Genesis it is
recorded that he had two different dreams, both with the same message.
In his first dream he is with his brothers were binding sheaves in the
field and his brothers’ sheaves made obeisance to his sheaf. In the
second dream the sun and the moon and eleven stars bow him down to him.
When he tells these dreams to his brothers his brothers despise him.
They already hated Joseph because his father preferred him above his
other sons. He had made him a coat of many colors and this had created a
terrible resentment among the other brothers.
Now see what happens: the brothers are
off tending the flocks in Shechem and Jacob sends Joseph to see if all
is well. As he goes searching for his brothers they are not at Shechem
but it so happens, by chance, or so it seems, he gets directions from a
stranger that his brothers had gone to Dothan. Had this stranger not
told Joseph where his brothers had gone, which he happened to overhear
them say, then he no doubt wouldn’t have found them.
Now keep in mind as we move along that
God who sees and knows all things would have known the evil attitude of
Joseph’s brothers toward him. Had God wanted to overrule Joseph finding
his brothers he could have easily done so by providentially guiding
elsewhere the man who knew where they had gone.
Now see what happens as Joseph
approaches his brothers.
18When
they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they
plotted against him to put him to death. 19They said to one
another, “Here comes this dreamer! 20“Now then, come and let
us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, ‘A wild
beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams!”
Gen. 37:18-20
But Rueben, the oldest brother,
didn’t like that idea. He prevailed on them not to kill him, just cast
him into a pit. The scripture tells us that Reuben planned to come back
and rescue Joseph. And so they threw him into a pit without water. But
just a little while later a caravan of Midianite merchants was coming
through. So Judah suggested that instead of killing Joseph that they
make some money by selling him as a slave. Then they killed a goat and
dipped Joseph’s coat into the blood and took it to their father and
suggested that a wild animal had killed Joseph and devoured him.
Here we see how God presides
over evil in such a way that his own holy character is not a party to
the evil of wicked men but that he directs it all to an end he has in
mind which fulfills the divine purpose spoken to Abraham years before
any of them had been born.
The control of the universe
includes “whatsoever comes to pass” otherwise there would be some things
coming to pass that he had not designed or purposed
-- which is incredible and which would
also defeat the purposes he had formed in reference to other things –
which is equally incredible.
“The control of the greater must
include,” says E G. Smith in his book The Creed of Presbyterians,
“the control of the less, for not only are the great things made up of
little things, but history shows how the veriest trifles are continually
proving the pivots on which momentous events revolve. The persistence of
a spider nerved a despairing man to fresh exertions, which shaped a
nation’s future. The God who ordained the course of Scottish history
must have planned and presided over the movements of the tiny insect
that saved Robert Bruce from despair.”
And so Joseph, in the
providence of God, is sent to Egypt by the evil intent of his brothers
and the slave trading merchants.
1Now
Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer
of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the
Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. 2The LORD was with
Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his
master, the Egyptian. 3Now his master saw that the LORD was
with him and how the LORD caused all that he did to prosper in
his hand. 4So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his
personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that
he owned he put in his charge. 5It came about that from the
time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the
LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the LORD’S
blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.
6So he left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him
there he did not concern himself with anything except the food
which he ate.
Ah, but now consider that the wife
of Potiphar begins to eye and ogle handsome Joseph. She began to
continually tempt him to come and lie with her. But Joseph refused. He
would not submit to her incessant temptations. But she would not be put
off so easily. Finally one day, when none of the household servants were
in the house, she was so insistent that she grasped his garment and pled
with him to lie with her but he fled leaving the garment in her hand.
She was so enraged at his
rejection she determined to get her revenge on Joseph. She falsely
accused Joseph before the household servants of attempting to lie with
her and when her husband came home she charged him with attempted rape.
Gen. 39:19-23
19Now
when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him,
saying, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned. 20So
Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the
king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail.
In Genesis chapter 40 we read that
the baker and the chief butler to Pharaoh were put in prison for
offenses against Pharaoh. And after a long time they both had dreams in
the night and the next day Joseph noticed that they were sad. He said to
them, Why
are your faces so sad today?” 8Then they said to him, “We
have had a dream and there is no one to interpret it.” Then Joseph said
to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me,
please.”
So the chief butler told Joseph his
dream and Joseph interpreted it to mean that he would be restored to his
former position.
16When
the chief baker saw that he had interpreted favorably, he said to
Joseph, “I also saw in my dream, and behold, there were
three baskets of white bread on my head; 17and in the top
basket there were some of all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh,
and the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” 18Then
Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets
are three days; 19within three more days Pharaoh will lift up
your head from you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat
your flesh off you.”
20Thus
it came about on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday that
he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the
chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants.
21He restored the chief cupbearer to his office, and he put the
cup into Pharaoh’s hand; 22but he hanged the chief baker,
just as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23Yet the chief
cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
Two years later Pharaoh had two
dreams that troubled him greatly and his wise men and magicians were not
able to interpret his dreams. So now the chief butler remembers Joseph
and his interpretations and tells Pharaoh. So Pharaoh sends for Joseph
and he accurately interprets both dreams, which had to do with seven
good years and seven lean years in Egypt. Because of his interpretation
Pharaoh makes Joseph second in command over all of Egypt and he stored
up much grain during the seven good years and then dispensed it out
carefully during the seven famine years.
Time will not permit me to recount
all of the events that forced Jacob and Joseph’s eleven brother to go to
Egypt for grain during the famine and finally be brought with all their
families to Egypt by Joseph. This will require another sermon. Let me
simply say at this time that when their father Jacob died in Egypt and
was buried we read in the last chapter of Genesis:
15When
Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if
Joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the
wrong which we did to him!” 16So they sent a message
to Joseph, saying, “Your father charged before he died, saying, 17‘Thus
you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression
of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.”’ And now,
please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your
father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18Then his
brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are
your servants.” 19But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid,
for am I in God’s place? 20“As for you, you meant evil
against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about
this present result, to preserve many people alive.
The scripture narrative is but an
inspired account of how God governs the world always and everywhere. The
intricate happenings that issued in the migration of God’s chosen people
to Egypt were but the orderly fulfillment by providence of God’s
predetermined purpose.
There is a saying abroad in
the earth, whatever will be will be. But this is not the Christian
concept. The Christian concept is, Wherever God has decreed and
purposed shall be. The first statement attributes the course of
events to blind mechanical necessity, the other to the intelligent
purpose of a personal God. The one is fatalism, the other
foreordination, predestination, providence. The Bible does not say,
whatever must be must be. It says in
Isa. 14:24
24The LORD of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have
intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will
stand.
How God can be sovereign and yet man
be free, how God as supreme Ruler can decree events beforehand and bring
them to pass exactly as decreed without interfering with the freedom of
human agents, is a question man cannot answer. But God can and does it.
God knows how to govern the natural world by fixed laws, the brute
creation according to their instincts and human beings agreeably to
their nature.
For example, Jacob’s
preference for Joseph, the wise and good child of his beloved Rachel,
above the ten coarse and brutal sons of Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah was the
natural prompting both of his judgment and his heart. Here is free
agency; but here also is foreordination; for this partiality, as the
result showed, was the first step in the fulfillment of God’s plan for
saving thousands of human lives.
Joseph’s brethren hate him and
sell him into slavery, seeking to carry out the free and unrestrained
impulses of their jealous hearts; and the Ishmaelite merchants are
naturally delighted to secure a young and handsome slave for a mere
trifle. Here is free agency, attested in the conscience smitten cry: We
are verily guilty concerning our brother; but here also is
foreordination; for these people, while free agents, were also entirely
God’s agents that the scripture says it was God that sent Joseph into
Egypt to preserve life.
Potiphar’s wife was free in
seeking to carry out her lust and revenge toward Joseph; the royal
butler was free in carrying out his courtier like impulses toward
Pharaoh; Pharaoh was free in carrying out his humane and statesmanlike
impulses toward his famine threatened nation; Joseph was free in
carrying out his filial impulses in sending for his beloved father. Here
in each case was the most unquestionable free agency; but here also was
the most unquestionable foreordination; for the result of it all was the
exact fulfillment of a purpose which God had revealed to Abraham 200
years before, that not Canaan but fertile civilized Egypt should be the
nursery of the chosen people.
And Joseph displayed a most
commendable faith in all of his circumstances. When his brother bow down
to him and demonstrate their penitence, he says,
20“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God
meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to
preserve many people alive. Gen. 50:20
Surely, he was a true man of faith,
who with patience waited for God’s promises and goodness in all of his
sufferings and trials, who believed that all things work together for
good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose.
Over sin as over all else, God
reigns supreme. His sovereign providence orders and governs.
It is a doctrine unspeakably
precious to the Christian heart amid the storms and darkness of this
earthly pilgrimage to know that every trial, every burden, every
bereavement, every sorrow, has been foreseen and fore appointed by a
wisdom that cannot err and by a love that cannot change. To all of his
enemies who do him evil, the Christian can say with Joseph,
As for you,
you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
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The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review and
distribution. We only request that proper
web page attribution be provided if
distributed for any reason. Please be
gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word.