Sunday Night, March 1, 2020 AM

You the glory and and humble us before you. Now, Father, I pray that you would help us as we look at this story about Joseph and his brothers and that you would help us to make a right application of it and to have the right understanding of it as we look to Christ.

We pray these things in his name. Amen. Well, Genesis 44 needs a little bit of context. It's important to remember that Joseph, at 17 years of age, unknowingly walked into a trap. But, in fact, it was a trial.

It was a trial given by God to accomplish some great good. And what Joseph thought was an awful injustice, because it was, God used for the good of all the families of the earth. Joseph had to be brought to his lowest point before he was ready for what God had for him.

And what God accomplished through Joseph was the rescue of starving multitudes and, eventually, the realization of his dreams. Now, Joseph's brothers, 22 years after sinning greatly against God and Joseph, they're going to walk right into a trap.

But, actually, it was a test, and it was crafted by Joseph in the wisdom given to him by God to accomplish great good. And what they're going to consider an awful injustice, God will use for the good of their whole family.

They needed to be brought to their lowest and most desperate point before they were ready for what God had for them. And what God accomplished in them was their repentance from sin against Joseph and even reconciliation with their brother, the one they called that dreamer.

So Genesis 44 is important, if for any other reason it's this, it contains the longest speech of the whole book. And the speech, of course, is not given by any of the heroes we would think of in Genesis.

We would think of Adam and Noah and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even Joseph himself. No, the longest speech in the book of Genesis is given to the ancestor of Christ, Judah. And Judah is going to sketch out in crude form what his royal descendant, Jesus, accomplishes in full reality, because Judah is going to plead for one in peril.

Joseph's Test and the Trap for Benjamin

Well, let's begin with Joseph's test and the plan, and this is beginning in verse 1. Then he commanded his house steward, Joseph commanded his house steward, 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.

Remember that Joseph and his brothers had just finished a great big meal. They don't know who he is yet, but he has greatly blessed them with this meal. He's returned Simeon to them, who had been imprisoned, and now they're going to head home with the food.

And he says, put their money back in their sacks. And then here comes the twist. Verse 2, 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 this not 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. Joseph, last time, had planned this generosity.

He wouldn't take any money from his brothers. He puts their money back in their grain sacks, and sends them on their way. But this time, this time, he lays a trap. Even as his brothers had schemed against him, he schemes for them.

Their intentions had been sinister. His was for their well-being. Joseph desires to be reconciled with his brothers. There's a difference between forgiving someone and being reconciled with them. And of course, you can forgive someone, and you can resolve to let go of the offense.

You can forgive someone, you can pack that offense up in the suitcase, and hide it in the upper closet of the house, sell the house, and move to a different state. You can act towards this person as if the offense had never happened, and choose to forgive them daily, relating to them according to a forgiven offense.

But that doesn't mean that everything's reconciled. For reconciliation to occur, there needs to be the repentance of the sin, and there needs to be the turning around of the person who has done the sin, and there needs to be a coming together of the two offended parties.

And forgiveness is mandated of all Christians, and it's something we're all required to do, but reconciliation is not always possible. What Joseph is laboring for right now is not forgiveness. He's forgiven them, and in fact, he is treating them out of a deep love for them.

He has forgiven them, which allows him the freedom to now work on this scheme. And the whole scheme is about reconciliation. They need to come to grips with their sin, they need to come to grips with what they have done to him and their father, and they need to repent of that sin so that reconciliation can truly take place.

Well, his brothers need to come to grips with what happened 22 years ago, and we see that what Joseph has been doing so far has begun to work on them. They've gone from being calloused about the matter, to becoming frightened that they are under the judgment of God because of what they did, this long-hidden sin, but they need to actually repent.

Not just feel bad or guilty, but really repent. And repentance involves a change of mind. Metanoia is the term in the Greek. It's an actual turning of oneself. It's imperative in repentance that you take God's side of the matter against your own sin, that you agree with God about your sin.

Say, you know what, God, you're right, I'm with you on this one, even if it means being against my own self. That's what really repentance is, that's the kind of change, that's the kind of turn that is involved in repentance, and that's why it's a grace of God.

Well, Joseph is working on this for him. Now, at any time, Joseph could have revealed himself to them. At any time, he could have said, I am your brother, and proven it easily. But revelation, revealing himself, was not the primary objective.

Revelation can take place without reconciliation, and Joseph wanted the reconciliation. And that's the way it is with salvation, isn't it? God reveals himself in a grand, magisterial fashion in his creation.

Who who can sanely deny God after witnessing the grandeurs of creation? To deny the Creator after beholding the creation is an act of insanity. But this revelation of God in the created order is not enough for a sinner to be converted, to be saved, to be reconciled to the Creator.

And so, this is the way it is with the brothers and Joseph. They have sat at his table, they have dined with him, they have feasted upon his abundance, and this is the case with every sinner who has dined at the Creator's table and enjoyed his bread and water and the very breath that he has, but he still does not know God.

He still is not reconciled to God. God's name is reconciliation, and this means repentance. This necessitates repentance, the turning of the sinner away from the sin and toward God to seek forgiveness.

And anytime any sinner turns to God and seeks forgiveness, that sinner will find forgiveness already accomplished in Christ's atonement on the cross for them. Now, what does Joseph do? He orders at his divination cup, which is an item common as a kind of a status symbol in Egyptian royalty.

He has it placed in Benjamin's sack. Benjamin's sack. His favorite brother. He's wanting to isolate Benjamin. He's going to put Benjamin in peril, and then he's going to see what his ten older brothers are going to do about that.

He wants to see if his ten older brothers are going to demonstrate repentance or the same self-serving attitudes that they've had in the past. So he sends a steward now to catch them in the act of stealing, and the steward catches up, and we have the prosecution in verse 7 and following.

God, the, I'm sorry, verse 7, chapter 44. So, verse 6, he overtook them and spoke these words to them. Then 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. How then could we steal silver or gold from our 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 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. Verse 11, then they hurried, each man lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack.

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. 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?

You see Joseph playing a part here, what they would expect to find in an Egyptian ruler. They're awful confused and entirely troubled about the situation. But you can imagine that Joseph's elder brothers had been feeling pretty good.

I mean, the brothers had been very suspicious and feeling guilty when they first arrived in Egypt and were told to go to Joseph's house. They were fearing that some evil would befall them, and so they were trying to talk to the steward and trying to get him to be on their side.

But they hadn't even had to beg to get Simeon out of prison. He was brought to them before they even had to ask about the matter. They sat at the prince of Egypt's own feast tables. Every courtesy was provided for them.

Perhaps they're thinking, man, father really knew what kind of gift to give him. He really liked those pistachios and that honey we gave him. Boy, that really paid off, and he gave us this big feast. Water was given for their travel-weary feet.

They washed their feet. Food was given for their donkeys. This ruler spoke kindly to them. Everything had gone well. Weird things had happened. Somehow he knew the oldest to youngest and sat them all in their order at the table, and five times as much food was given to Benjamin as the rest of them, and that was a little bit odd.

But overall, things were going very well, very well. Despite all their worries, it seemed that they were going to get out of Egypt without having to face any reckoning for their past sins. And then the steward catches up.

The accusation is made. Thieves! And oh, how they protest. They say, certainly not. I mean, maybe in the past, but you know, we've been so worried about this possible judgment. How could we even be interested in committing anything like what you say?

He says, we're honest men. They told Joseph that. We're honest men. And they forgot that their newfound honesty was driven by fear instead of virtue. They cite their returning of the money as evidence of their honesty.

How dare the steward accuse them of impropriety? They consider themselves moral men, men of principle. They have been scared straight. They're so confident in their righteousness. They say, whoever has the cup, you can kill, and all of us will be your slaves.

But then the tension increases, doesn't it? They start with the oldest. The steward starts with the oldest sack. Each older brother opens up their sack. All their money's in there, which they probably were a little bit surprised about.

Again, the money's back in there. But no cup, no cup, oldest to youngest. The rank of Benjamin is here emphasized, because he is the youngest. And by doing this in this way, the responsibility of each older brother is emphasized to the younger brother in whose sack the cup is found.

The one thing they wanted to avoid, the one thing they wanted to avoid, the one thing their father was most insistent not happen, that Benjamin be placed in peril, the very one thing that has troubled them and kept them from sleeping well at night, just happened.

This is all coming apart. You know, these men were very confident in their own morality. We can sometimes be confident in our own morality, our own intelligence, our own community. We can even begin to think and begin to believe that we deserve some element of our blessed condition.

So much so that when something is said or done that makes us look bad, we can pridefully flare up. We can be like Joseph's brothers. We can brashly defend our honor, protest our innocence, criticize those who would disparage us.

But whenever that may happen, even if we are falsely accused, dearly beloved, we don't deserve anything we've got. We haven't merited it. The blessings we have, Christ merited. It's what Christ has won for us.

And whatever strength or virtue that we have by which we now possess what we have in terms of our blessings, all of it was won for us by Christ on his cross. All of the goodness that we possess because of Christ and his new life that was born in us.

So when we are accused, when our integrity is called into question, what kind of response should we give? Well, we should make our boast not in ourselves, but in Christ. We should boast in Christ as our response.

We should boast in the sovereignty of God, being glad it doesn't depend upon us. We should boast in the long-suffering of God and his patience, his mercy towards us, that he's continually teaching and training us as a good father does his children.

We have to boast in the gospel of Jesus Christ, humbly resting in the grace of God. Well, Joseph's trap is now sprung, and this leads to the critical moment, Judah's sacrifice. So in verse 16, Judah 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. Behold, we are my Lord's slaves, both we and the one in whose possession the cup has been found. But he said, Joseph 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. It would have been easier to stay in slavery than go back and face dad without Benjamin.

See, Judah has... Remember, Judah was the one who promised to make himself surety for Benjamin. I will be exchanged for him. He promised his father that. And he said, if I don't do this, then I will bear the shame of it forever before you.

So Judah is the one who steps up here and begins to talk. He's the one who is taking leadership right now. It's up to Judah to take responsibility. He takes it for all of them. He says, God has found out the iniquity of your servants.

What's he talking about? He says, Confucius all get it. I don't know how that cup got in his sack. He knows he didn't steal it. How in the world did that happen? But he figures this is the providence of God.

This is God bringing upon their heads disaster for what they did to Joseph. He says, this is recompense due. This is God bringing judgment upon us for what we have done. He didn't let Benjamin to stand there and stammer the unbelievable defense.

I have no idea how that cup got in there. Yeah. Who's going to believe that? He didn't let Benjamin stand there alone. He got up and he took the lead and says, look, this is God's judgment on us. Now, Joseph is not going to allow Judah to be so self-sacrificing so easily and volunteer all the brothers to stay there as slaves.

No, no. Joseph recreates the atmosphere in which he will come to know if his brothers are indeed ready to reconcile. Have they truly repented? Have their hearts been changed? He offers them a way out.

He says, I'm not going to judge all of you for something only one of you have done. I'm just going to enslave this youngest brother here. Just the youngest one. And all of you return in peace. Return in shalom to your father.

But let this younger one go into slavery as the price for your freedom. And you can go home and explain it to your father again. Right? Again. Back to your lands, back to your families, back to your freedom.

Just forget about your younger brother. That's haunting, isn't it? It's the exact same thing. It's the exact thing they did to Joseph. But the price was higher at this time, therefore more tempting. It wasn't 20 shekels of silver divided 10 ways.

No, no, no. This was freedom. This was freedom to go back to their families, back to their lands. This time there was real possible cause to abandon a brother. After all, he did have the cup in his sack.

You wouldn't even have to lie to father this time. Just tell him the truth. I don't know what happened. It was in his sack. Well, I don't know what happened. I mean, you know, obviously he put it there.

So everything was tilting toward their old way of acting. So the question was this. Would they yet again send a favored son of Rachel into slavery at the expense of their souls and the expense of their father's heart?

Would they do it again? God is gracious to bring before us opportunities to truly repent. The moment where we failed before is often repeated later on in the same day, same week, same month, same lifetime.

But if we have responded to the truth of God, if we really have been rebuked by the Word of God and corrected by it, instructed by it, God often will give us the opportunity to joyfully choose the right way, to truly repent, to not go back to the old ways.

Judah's Plea and Substitution for Benjamin

Judah acts faithfully here. Verse 18, this is a long section. I'm going to read all the way, verse 18 through the end here. Now this is the long speech. 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? We said to my Lord, we have an old father and a child, 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 lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die. He said to your servants, however, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.

That's what came about when we went up to your servant, my father. We told him the words of my Lord. Our father said, Go back, 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 youngest brother is with us.

Your servant, my father said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons, and the one went out for me. And I said, Surely he is torn in pieces, and I have not seen him since. 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 us since his life is bound up in the lad's life, and when he sees that the lad is not with us, 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, for fear that I see the evil that would overtake my father?". Judah puts himself in between the judgment of the prince of Egypt and the one accused.

Judah would replace himself. He pleads for his brother, and indeed pleads for his father's sake. He says, do not let this thing happen. He focuses the attention on the nature of the prime minister's relationship with him so far.

He speaks of the condition of his father Jacob. He's putting all the facts before the prince of Egypt so that he would see the full case and accept Judah as a substitute for Benjamin. So here, Joseph is witnessing the very brother who proposed the selling of Joseph.

Judah is the brother who proposed to sell Joseph to the Midianites. This very same man is now vigorously defending Benjamin, his little brother, volunteering himself in his place for slavery, doing so for the sake of his father, out of the love for his own brother.

Judah is putting himself in the place of the one accused in order to take upon himself the punishment due to another. And in this way, the ancestor of Christ is foreshadowing what is to come. Judah's evident compassion for Jacob and readiness to substitute himself for Benjamin in slavery overwhelms Joseph.

You peek ahead to chapter 45 and Joseph breaks down. He can't hold it any longer. He reveals himself to his brothers. Reconciliation is accomplished here, but it's a reminder that we see the labor, the patience, the detail that Joseph went through to be reconciled to his brothers.

And God's way for us to be reconciled to one another is harder, but it is better than the way of the world. Worldly love is a love that is felt only in being made much of. If you love me, you will make much of me.

In all the different ways that I am, whatever that is, you only truly love me if you make much of me, right? That's worldly love. And very often, if we do not love in that way, if we do not treat someone in that way and just make much of them whoever they are, they will accuse us of being unloving.

But godly love is pure and higher, the kind of love we're called to in the scriptures as God's people. Godly love makes much of God, and it is a commitment, a devotion to be for another's benefit in the right way, even at our own expense.

By this we know, love, that Christ laid down his life for the brethren, so also should we. And so love is a righteous and sacrificial devotion, where we commit ourselves, we devote ourselves to another's true benefit in the right way, and we do so even at our own expense.

That's godly love. And we see that Joseph does that for his brothers, to be really reconciled to them. Godly reconciliation happens when we labor for the one who has offended us, or if we labor because we are the one who offended someone else, when we are laboring to come to the point where not only is it that we've forgiven the one who has offended us, but that we come to the point where we're agreeing with one another, agreeing with one another from God's point of view, about the nature of what broke our relationship in the first place.

Yeah, that was it. We both see it clearly now. Here is where I sinned, here's where you sinned, this is what broke us apart. We see this now, and this is not what God wants for us. Here's how we proceed.

And Joseph brought his brothers to that point, and by God's grace they saw it. By God's grace, we have Judah's plea in behalf of his brother, where we see a complete turn of mind, a complete repentance on the part of Judah, doing the exact opposite of what he had done to Joseph 22 years earlier.

22 years, that's a long time to wait for reconciliation. But you read the story in chapter 45, oh wow, it's worth it. And then we see how much good God worked through the pain and the suffering of that fallout that happened in that family.

All right, well that's Genesis 44. Any questions or thoughts about that chapter? No, I don't know how he used his divination cup. I don't think he actually used it, but he was playing a part, a role, hiding behind it to accomplish his task.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, he was the guy. Yeah, let's close with a thing of doxology, and we've saved our fellowship time for the end, because I think there's cake.