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Explaining the story of Nazi officials during World War II who never got caught and therefore never faced immediate justice for their crimes. They assimilated into ordinary life all over the world in order to not face the punishment due for their crimes against the Jewish people during World War II.
It hasn't been until recent years that these men have been identified as those involved in the concentration camps in the event known as the Holocaust. And I pointed out that these men are in their 90s today, those who are still living.
So even if they are convicted of their crimes, and many of these have been brought to trial, even if they're convicted, they won't serve any prison time because they're too old. They're gonna pass not too long into the future.
So therefore, people wonder, well, did they get away with their crimes? Because they're not gonna serve any prison time here on earth. And what we saw last week is that the answer is no, because we know that God is the judge of all the earth and he is going to right every wrong and he will do so in this case as well if these people do not find their refuge in Christ.
Now, the reason I shared this story a week ago is because we are looking at a similar story in Genesis 42 right now. Last week, we looked at the first 22 verses of the chapter and that was point one. And this sermon today is point two.
To give you a little background of what we saw in the sermon last week, there was a great famine in Egypt and not only in Egypt, but this famine was also over the whole world as Genesis 41, 57 told us.
We've already seen over the last several weeks that Joseph has risen from rags to riches as he went from being in prison to the second most powerful man in Egypt. Only the Pharaoh is more powerful than him.
And he rose to this position because he was able to do what the magicians and the wise men of Egypt were unable. That is, he interpreted Pharaoh's dreams that Egypt would experience seven years of plenty be followed by seven years of famine.
Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph and the chief cupbearer vouched for his accurate interpretation that Pharaoh appointed Joseph to be the one to manage the crisis of famine in Egypt. So the seven years of plenty where the crops were growing and the food was plentiful came and passed and then the seven years of famine started.
And so when the Pharaoh was thinking about who am I going to appoint over this position, the only person he could think of was Joseph because of what he had shown him. And since this famine was not only in Egypt, but over the whole world, the land of Canaan was also affected by it.
But unlike Egypt, the land of Canaan wasn't ready for it because they didn't have a man like Joseph who was there to help with the crisis. And what we saw last week is that Jacob sent his 10 sons leaving his youngest Benjamin behind and he sent his 10 sons to Egypt so that they would live.
They needed food. And what we saw is that they stood before the governor Joseph to get food. But while Joseph recognized them, they did not recognize him. The text told us that Joseph spoke to them roughly and accused them of being spies from a foreign land.
So he gave them a test to see if they were telling the truth. The test was that one brother would stay back in Egypt while the other nine would go to Canaan. And what they would do is they would retrieve the younger brother Benjamin and bring him back to show whether or not they were telling the truth.
Now we know that Joseph knew they were not spies. He had a deeper motive in this and we saw that last week. And the deeper motive is he was trying to prick their conscience. Because what happened with Joseph's brothers here?
They said, this man believes we are spies and these horrible things are happening to us because of what we did to Joseph 20 years earlier. We plotted to kill him. We threw him into the pit. We sold him into slavery.
And now look what's happening to us. And the interesting part about this is that as they're having this conversation, the very person they committed this crime against is standing right there before them and they have no idea.
So their sin is being exposed. The main idea that we saw last week and the main idea for today is to cover an egregious sin is never worth it. To cover an egregious sin is never worth it. And the sermon has two reasons why.
The first reason we saw a week ago is that your conscience will never stop haunting you. Your conscience will never stop haunting you. And we saw that in verses one through 22. Now we turn to the second reason why this morning in verses 23 through 38.
And that is that God will deal with your sin either now or later. He will deal with your sin either now or later. So this two-part sermon is titled Old Sins Brought to Light. And we're gonna focus on point two today.
God will deal with your sin either now or later, verses 23 through 38. Now what is interesting is that in verse 23, Joseph is listening to his brothers and let's see how he was able to. In verse 23 of chapter 42, and if I haven't told you already, I encourage you to turn there with us.
I think it's in page 42 or 43 of the Red Pew Bibles. But let's look at verse 23 together. They, Joseph's brothers, did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. So let's stop right there.
So Joseph's brothers, they're talking, they're saying, look, this horrible has, things have come upon us because of what we did to our brother in the past. And they're speaking a different language. They're speaking the Hebrew language and since they're from the land of Canaan and Joseph speaks a foreign language since he is an Egyptian.
Now what they don't realize, of course, is that Joseph is one of them. He understands them perfectly clear as they're having this conversation before them. And this scene was too much for Joseph. Let's see this in the first half of verse 24.
Then he turned away from them and wept. We have to put ourselves in Joseph's shoes here. These same brothers who tried to kill him and ruin his life are standing before him. Can you imagine how difficult this would have been?
It would have been very hard for him to restrain himself from asking them, why did you do this to me? And he holds his tongue and all he can do is weep. These brothers wanted him dead and they're standing right there before him.
After pulling himself together, he carries out the proposal that he made to them. The remainder of verse 24 and verse 25. And he returned to them and spoke to them and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.
And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them. So Simeon is the lucky brother who gets to stay behind in Egypt or the unlucky brother, however you want to look at it.
Now you may remember Simeon from the story of Dinah and Shechem. It was Simeon and Levi who slaughtered Shechem because remember Shechem violated their sister Dinah and in revenge, what Simeon and Levi did is they slaughtered Shechem and the whole family.
Now you will notice in verse 25 that Joseph gave orders for the brothers' bags to be filled with grain. They would have needed food to survive as they went back on the journey. We also see that provisions were given for the journey but in the middle of verse 25, we see something very important that we might miss if we're just reading through this quickly.
The middle of verse 25 says that Joseph replaced the money in each man's sack. So think about this. In order to get the grain, they needed to pay for it but what does Joseph do? The very money they just paid for the grain with is put back in to their sack.
And I was looking at several interpretations as to why Joseph did this. Some believe he gave it to help while others believe he gave it to show them as thieves. He already accused them of being spies and now he's going to accuse them of being thieves.
It may be that he's doing both. He wants to help his family. He still loves them even though they tried to kill him and he wants to help his dad and his brother back home who he dearly loves. And so it may be two things here.
He might be trying to say, you guys are thieves and he might be trying to help them. And this was a wise strategy on Joseph's part. Even though his brothers brought harm on him, he cared for them and he not only cared for them but he cared for his father and brother Benjamin back home.
But the other reason he did this is the same reason he accused them of being spies. That is he wanted to prick their conscience. He wanted to bring their guilt before them. Now in chapter 44, as we'll see in a couple weeks, Joseph would later secretly insert money to his brothers and he did it there again to expose their guilt.
So I think by looking at that and by looking at this, I think we can make that conclusion. Once Benjamin came to Egypt, Joseph tested them to see whether they were truly going to love their youngest brother or not.
And we'll see that down the road in a few weeks in chapter 44. But it is clear here without question that he's trying to bring their sin to the surface, to expose them. They can't run from this any longer.
It's staring them right in the eyes. So the brothers thought they paid for the grain. So you can imagine the terror that came over them when they realized that they still have the money, the money that was supposed to go toward the grain.
Verses 26 through 28, let's see their reaction. Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed and as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack.
He said to his brothers, my money has been put back. Here it is in the mouth of my sack. At this, their hearts failed them and they turned trembling to one another saying, what is this that God has done to us?
This was a terrible discovery for them. This is like going to a gas station, filling up your gas tank and realizing that you forgot to pay. Have you ever done that? One time my brother and I were at a gas station and my brother, he purchased a bag of Skittles.
This is in my head. He also paid for gas. He paid for the Skittles, but he didn't pay for the gas. And so he's in his car, he takes a big handful of Skittles, he puts it in his mouth and as the cashier comes out and knocks on the window and as he turns to him, he's got a mouthful of Skittles.
And the guy says to him, you didn't pay for your gas. And so it was an accident, he didn't do it on purpose, but I was talking to my mom. So my brother, when he was younger, when he was a toddler, he took something from the store and again, accidentally took it out and then took it back.
And I usually ask people if I can use them as an illustration before I tell them, but I figured it's my brother, he's not gonna care. So, but maybe you've done that in your life and maybe took something by accident and kids do that fairly often.
But if you do it when you're an adult, you feel very silly because the person in that moment doesn't know if it was an accident or not. They maybe have thought that you very much stole something from them.
So we can imagine what this would have been like for Joseph's brothers. Now the brothers make it clear, they think that God is punishing them for their egregious sin of the past. At the end of verse 28, they say, what is this that God has done to us?
Remember, the sin that they did to Joseph was 20 years ago and now it's brought to the surface. In our first point, they only talked about their guilt and the fact that their conscience was pricking them.
Now they talk about how God is causing this to happen. And you may wonder, what do these people know about God? They're godless people. They demonstrated that throughout their life. We know that up to this point, these were not God-fearing men, but they knew who God was from their family line.
Their ancestor Abraham followed the Lord. So did their grandfather Isaac and father Jacob. Now they realize, you know, this God that my ancestor just talked about, He means business. And He's bringing our sin to the forefront.
He's not going to let us hide from this forever. So He's making it so that they are forced to face their sins of the past. What we need to recognize is God's grace towards Joseph's brothers in this narrative.
You might look at this and you might say, well, the fact that they're getting caught, that's not a good thing. That can't be grace. But we need to see this as God's grace in their life. He's gracious in causing their guilt to catch up with them.
The Lord is not letting them run from this forever. One of the most famous stories of the last 50 years of someone whose guilt caught up with him is Chuck Colson. He would tell you that the Lord was gracious to him by exposing his sin.
For those of you who don't know who Chuck Colson is, he was the special counsel for Richard Nixon while Nixon was president in the early 70s. And he was known as Nixon's hatchet man. He was one of the seven people in Nixon's administration who was busted during the Watergate scandal.
He was guilty of obstruction of justice as he and others in the administration tried to cover up tampering that took place by Nixon's people when they tampered with the Democratic National Convention.
Now, Colson spent some time in prison, and while in prison, he became a follower of Christ. And people wonder, oh, is this a real conversion? Well, we know, yes, it was a real conversion because you can see how much his life changed.
He started a prison ministry known as Prison Fellowship International, and he authored numerous Christian books. This would not have happened if the Lord did not bring him to face his guilt. He could no longer run, and Colson responded the exact right way.
He gave his life to Christ, and his sins were forgiven, and he's now with the Lord. He died in 2012, and he's in heaven right now. You can imagine how grateful he is that he was exposed, because it forced him to deal with his sins.
And there's people with stories like that all over the place. Maybe that's your story. Your sin was brought to the light, and you had to face it, and you're so grateful that the Lord did that. God is showing Joseph's brothers here, you know that sin you did in the past?
I haven't forgotten about it. You need to deal with it. You need to repent. No one will ever run from their sins forever. There's an old quote, right? Your sins will find you out.
And that's true.
How much better to deal with them now by bringing them to the Lord rather than facing God on the judgment day, never having dealt with your sins. Every sin is either paid for in hell or at the cross of Jesus Christ.
And so if you run from your sins forever, and you never come to Christ, then you are gonna pay for your sins instead of having Christ pay for them as your substitute. And this is why Scripture urges us to find our refuge in Christ today and not to wait.
As a person goes through life, the heart hardens, and it may harden until one has no opportunity to repent. The greatest example in Scripture is the example of Esau. We saw that a few months back. He was so deep into his sin that he reached a point where he was unable to repent.
And that's why Scripture tells us in verses like Hebrews 3, 7, and 8, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Nobody knows when the point of no return might be. And you can think of this in your evangelism.
We don't know when, we should be evangelizing right up to the point that someone is dead. However, they may reach a point where they can no longer believe. And so therefore, share the gospel with that person.
And we don't know when that is, right? The thief on the cross, he believed right before he died. But in Esau's case, he was still living and he was beyond the point of repentance. So if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
That should urge us to get the gospel out. And if you're here today and you don't know Christ, it should urge you to find refuge in him. Now that Joseph's brothers have been confronted by their sin, they arrived to tell their father what Joseph told them to do.
So let's look at verses 29 through 34. When they came to Jacob, their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, the man, the Lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land.
But we said to him, we are honest men. We have never been spies. We are 12 brothers, sons of our father. One is no more. And the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. Then the man, the Lord of the land, said to us, by this I shall know that you are honest men.
Leave one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households and go your way. Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies, but honest men. And I will deliver your brother to you and you shall trade in the land.
Now, after they explained to Jacob the instructions that Joseph gave them, they all make the same discovery as that first brother made. Their money is still with them. So verse 35, as they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack.
And when they and their father saw their bundles of money,.
They were afraid.
Could you imagine this? They're thinking, we're toast. One brother finding him is toast enough. Now we're really toast. And each of the brothers come to the realization that they're equally in trouble.
It looks like they stole the grain. Now, as you might imagine, Jacob, their father, is greatly troubled by this. Remember, he sent them out because they needed food and he kept Benjamin back because the last time he sent out his youngest son, look what happened to Joseph.
At least he thought. Remember, Jacob thinks Joseph is dead. I'm not going to send Benjamin out too. And so now as his sons come back, he probably thinks these are probably the least smartest people in the history of the world that they let all these bad things happen to them.
And so as they come back, he's not happy, as you might imagine here. He's thinking, you lost Joseph. You want to take Benjamin. And Simeon, he's stuck in Egypt. He's probably done. And so here's verse 36.
In anger, Jacob puts the blame on his sons in verse 36. And Jacob, their father, said to them, you have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more. He's already given up on him.
And now he would take Benjamin. All this has come against me. He tells them, look what you've done. You've bereaved me of my children. Now the oldest son, Reuben, gets desperate. Remember Reuben, a little background here.
Reuben was the one who told them not to kill them. So he was the one noble brother. He's the oldest brother. And he stepped in and said, let's just throw him in the pit. And Reuben's plan was once his brothers go away, he was going to come back to the pit, snatch him out, and then take him back to Jacob, to the land of Canaan.
So Reuben speaks up here in verse 37. And of course, as you might imagine, he's thinking, look what you guys did.
It's your fault.
So here's what he says, verse 37. Then Reuben said to his father, kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands and I will bring him back to you. So Reuben has a strong plea here.
He tells him, I will make sure that Benjamin is safe. Because of course, they know the only way they're going to be able to get food in the future and the only way they're going to get Simeon back is if they bring Benjamin with them.
And Jacob is holding on to him with a stranglehold here. And he's saying, you can take the life of my children if Benjamin does not come back safely with us. But Jacob stands his ground on not letting Benjamin go with him.
Verse 38, but he said, my son shall not go down with you for his brother is dead. And he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
So Jacob tells his sons that if Benjamin dies, that Jacob, he says, I'm going to go down to Sheol. Sheol was the realm of the dead. It's a Hebrew understanding of the realm of the dead. He says, I'm going to die and I'm going to go to my resting place depressed.
I'm going to go to this place in deep sorrow. Jacob said the same thing in chapter 37, verse 35, when he heard the news that Joseph died, supposedly. So Jacob and his sons are placed in a difficult situation.
But the focus of this point is Joseph's brothers realize that God has brought their sin before them. They can't run from this anymore. And what we will see is that at the end of the narrative of Joseph, in chapter 50, probably later on this summer, in verses 16 and 17, there is evidence that their repentance was real.
But this would not have happened unless they were confronted with their sin and realized the wrong they did, as we saw today. To continue to cover and agree to sin is never worth it. God will deal with your sin either now or later.
So to summarize the sermon of the last two Sundays, to continue to cover and agree to sin is never worth it. And we've seen two reasons why in this text. Your conscience will never stop haunting you and God will deal with your sin either now or later.
And when you are confronted with your sin, you must face it in the right manner. The most miserable people on planet Earth are those who have done something in the past, but have never brought their sin into the light.
We talked about the Nazi workers, the horrible crimes they committed, watching people die right before them and doing nothing about it. And some of them even wanting these people to die. Could you imagine living with that guilt your whole life?
The guilt itself is punishment enough how much better to bring that before the Lord and to unload the guilt of your past and give it to Jesus Christ who bore it for you at the cross. Now this sermon is for both Christians and non-Christians.
And let me say one thing about non-Christians here. How minor it is to get in trouble with those on Earth than with Almighty God. Because think about it, the reason people hide the guilt of their past is because they're trying to hide it from other people.
You might be hiding it from family members or friends, or sometimes people do something so bad that if they were to tell someone, they would probably serve time in jail. And so people hide and they say, well, I don't want that to happen.
But how much better to serve a little time in prison or to face the consequences for your sins here than to face God one day who would sentence you to an eternity in hell and you'd have to bear that punishment forever.
So if you do not know the Lord today, my call to you, my urge to you is that you would find your refuge in Christ and that you'd be free from your sins. Not only will you feel free because the guilt will be gone, but also you have eternal life.
You won't have to face the punishment in the future. Now, if you're here today and you know Jesus Christ, that you might say, well, is this sermon for unbelievers only? Well, no, it's for believers too because we still sin.
We sin every day. And we sin way more than we would ever realize. And the more you know God, on Wednesday nights we're doing the study on the holiness of God, the more you know God, the more you realize how sinful you are.
And the more you realize how amazing the grace of Jesus Christ is, that God the Father sent His Son to die on the cross. Remember, He died for His enemies. If you know the Lord today, you were once His enemy, but now you're His friend.
And so this sermon today, well, what it's teaching us is that we need to be repentant people. When you come to faith in Christ, that is repentance.
Absolutely.
That's the first repentance. But the Christian life is one of continual repentance. One of my old professors, Gene knows Dr. Bauder, he said, talking about John 13, because the narrative of John 13, Jesus says to His disciples,.
You are clean.
That's the bath.
Okay, if you're saved, you've had the bath. But washing His disciples' feet, that's repentance. That's continual repentance throughout your life. So the big repentance doesn't have to happen anymore because you already did that.
And your sins have been paid for and you never have to pay for your sins. But there does need to be a continual sorrow for your sins because we know that Scripture tells us that you will not be free from sin completely until you meet Christ in the future.
So we need to be people who are continually those who are repenting. And the thing is, if you don't commit a sin, you don't have to repent of it later on, right? So we should be those people who are motivated to live holiness now so that we don't have to repent, whether either to God or to even confess our sins to someone else if we've harmed them in some way.
So I hope that makes sense that we wanna be people who are quick to repent and people who don't have to repent because we're obedient from the start and walking in holiness. So we need to live out that way.
We all know what it's like to carry guilt with us. It's a miserable experience. It truly is. I know that from experience. However, how wonderful it is to be free. Remember what Jesus said in John 8? The truth will set you free and you will be free indeed.
And He was talking to the Pharisees in that passage who were slaves to sin. But if you know Christ here today,.
You are free.
And what a wonderful reality that is.
Now next week,.
We are going to see the saga continue between Joseph and his brothers as his brothers head back from Canaan to Egypt. They will meet with once again the brother they threw into the pit as they return.
And what we're gonna see here is this man who sent them back to Canaan and as they stand before them, we're gonna see how much power he has. And we're gonna see once again their sin brought to the forefront.
And so I look forward to looking at that with you.
Let's pray.
Father in Heaven, I thank You for the Word of God. I thank You for the Word of God that it's living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. And in the Bible, we find the most precious truths there are.
We find out, Lord, that there is a plan of redemption. Lord, it truly is amazing that there have been two rebellions in history. One by the angelic forces and one by humanity. There is no redemption plan for angels.
However, there is for us. And what a precious truth that is. And how amazing Your grace is that You have sent Your Son to be an image-bearer, to be a human, in order to save humans, in order to save Your image-bearers.
What a precious truth that is. And Lord, I pray that every one of us here would understand how amazing Your grace is and that You will do right with all sins and we don't have to fear You for our sins because You already sent Christ to die in our place.
And so I pray, Lord, that everyone here would be right with You, first off, and that as Christians here, that we would be those who turn from our sins,.
Who are quick to repent.
And quick to be those, Lord, who bring our guilt before You, and that we would always remember 1 John 2 .1, I write these things to You that You may not sin, but if You do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and in that, Lord, we rejoice.
And so, Lord, I pray that we would respond in the way that we are supposed to. Each person here, in Jesus' name, Amen.