Joseph No.10 The Grace of Exposure - Caught out

Continuing the story of Joseph and his brothers. Verse one, when Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you just keep looking at each other? He continued, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us so that we may live and not die.

Then ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with the others because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel's sons were among those who went to buy grain, for the famine was in the land of Canaan also.

Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the one who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them.

But he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. Where do you come from, he asked. From the land of Canaan, they replied, to buy food.

Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. And then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, you are spies. You've come to see where our land is unprotected.

No, my Lord, they answered. Your servants have come to buy food. We're all the sons of one man.

Your servants are honest men, not spies. No, he said to them, you have come to see where our land is unprotected. But they replied, your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man who lives in the land of Canaan.

The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more. Joseph said to them, it is just as I told you, you are spies. This is how you will be tested.

As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of your number to get your brother. The rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are telling the truth.

If you are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies. And he put them all in custody for three days. On the third day, Joseph said to them, do this and you will live, for I fear God.

If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified, and that you may not die. This they proceeded to do.

They said to one another, surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen. That's why this distress has come upon us.

Reuben replied, didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen. Now we must give an accounting for his blood. They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter.

He turned away from them and began to weep, then turned back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon take from them and bound their eyes. Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man's silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey.

After this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left. At the place where they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of the sack, his sack. My silver has been returned, he said to his brothers.

Here it is in my sack. Their hearts sank, and they turned to each other trembling and said, what is this that God has done to us? When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them. They said, the man who is lord over the land spoke harshly to us and treated us as though we were spying on the land.

But we said to him, we're honest men, we're not spies. We were twelve brothers, sons of one father. One is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in Canaan.

Then the man who is lord over the land said to us, this is how I will know whether you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers here with me, and take food for your starving households and go. But bring your youngest brother to me, so I will know that you are not spies, but honest men.

Then I will give you your brother back to you, and you can trade in the land. As they were emptying their sacks, there in each man's sack was his pouch of silver. When they and their father saw the money pouches, they were frightened.

Their father Jacob said to them, you have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me.

Then Reuben said to his father, you may put both of my sons to death, if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back. But Jacob said, my son will not go down there with you.

His brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow. And as we come to our tenth address from this life of Joseph, I want to subtitle it, The Grace of Exposure, Caught Out, or The Grace of Exposure.

That's rather curious, isn't it? Just shake your head a moment and let the old cogs get working at the back of your brain, because I appeal first to the mind from this pulpit. By the grace of God, I hope I go beyond the mind to the whole man. The grace of exposure.

When you're caught out, when you're found out, have you ever thought of that in terms of a grace? As something that's really valuable and not on a long-term basis to be shunned. You see, those folk in Kata Tura, they got my mind thinking on Wednesday, Thursday. A typical African sort of approach.

Tell the speaker what to speak on about three minutes before he arrives. They blanketed the township and chosen an address that I would never have preached on, at least not the way that they wanted me to come at it. Why at least 10 men in Kata Tura will go to hell? That's pretty blunt, isn't it? And to discover when you're faced with a full church that that's what they've come to listen to.

You see, we'll all stand before the judgment of God. The Bible says in Numbers, that's an Old Testament book, be sure your sin will find you out, all right? So, there are two things that I can confidently say from the Word of God. One, that you will be found out either in time or you will be found out in eternity.

One thing is absolutely certain, found out you will be. Thus, if you follow my logic, the reason for my subtitle, the grace of exposure, far better for you to be found out now in time than in eternity. Far better for you to have your sin dealt with now, than to go and face the consequences in eternity.

Jesus in the eighth chapter of John's Gospel is confronted with, and so often they dug his footsteps, those who were against him. And he uttered one of the most somber things that ever fell from his lips. He said to the Pharisees, that's the religious establishment of that day, you will die in your sin.

And I say that there is no more stern word that fell from the lips of the gentle Jesus than those words. You will die in your sin. You will be found out on the day of judgment.

Far better for you to be found out this side of eternity. There's a lovely verse I was reading in the plane. I very often read Scripture, it helps me when I'm in a plane and the journey's gone on for so long, I'm ready to open the door and jump out.

Ecclesiastes 12, 6, remember him before the silver cord is severed. That's a beautiful Hebrew metaphor. The silver cord, you see, is the cord of your life.

Not now it'll stretch, maybe it's already stretched, 20 years, 30 years, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, perhaps, but one day the silver cord will be broken. And thus the wisdom of the preacher whose name actually was wisdom, remember him before the silver cord is severed, is broken. 22 years, it's a long time, isn't it? A long time to be living a life of deception in front of your aged father, for that was the situation of these sons of Jacob, you recall.

In one sense, sin finds you out, whether you're Jacob as an old man or his sons as much younger people. You see, he'd done double dealing, hadn't he? You remember with Isaac? Nasty piece of work that was when he deceived his father who was virtually blind and passed himself off as being Esau, his father's oldest son. Well, what you sow you reap.

And it's the same thing in principle, his sons have deceived him and they've lived with deception for 22 years. Joseph, the bloody coat, obviously savaged by a beast, you remember the story before he got the food supplies that you so kindly sent to us, dad? And it seemed as though Jacob half believed and half disbelieved the report of his sons. But for 22 years, at least ostensibly, they had deceived their father, they'd lived with guilt.

A terrible thing to live with guilt, I really mean it. If I were to itemize one thing that causes me more pastoral cases of folk to come and see me and talk to me than anything else, I would use that one word, guilt, can create devastating consequences in a person's life. 22 years of deception.

And now when you move into this 42nd chapter of Genesis, you will see how they were caught out. You will discover here set out for us the grace of exposure. And first of all, as I try to summarize what was a very long but very well-read passage, as I try to summarize it, let's first start with the crisis which emerged.

The first five verses of this particular passage, you find the information readily available. God is working in the lives of Jacob and his sons as he was working in the life of Joseph in Egypt. And the spotlight is on this old geriatric father, Jacob, as he brings his sons together and as he starts to talk to them.

You see, this famine that befell Egypt has also stricken the whole of the known world. And Palestine, the land God gave to Abraham, has not been exempt in terms of its devastating consequences. And so here's the elderly man, Jacob, and he's talking to his lads and he says, why are you just looking at each other? Why don't you do something about it? I've heard there's grain in Egypt.

Why don't you show a clean pair of heels and get off down there that we might have food and not die? When God is going to bring to the surface of your life that which needs to be dealt with, he'll sometimes do it by allowing what you see here. A serious situation to emerge which compels the acknowledgement of a serious fact. The Achilles heel, so to speak, of Jacob and his sons has been their prosperity.

But this prosperity has been taken from them as the sun has burnt and burnt for seven long years, there's been no rain, and as a result the reason for their prosperity has diminished. There is no grain, there is no food. They have to acknowledge a serious fact.

But in the very acknowledging of this serious fact, you'll discover the unearthing of a deeper flaw. It's not just food that these sons of Jacob need as ultimately they leave for Egypt. Moses will tell them and Jesus will tell you decades, centuries later, man cannot live by bread alone.

You see, there are two famines amongst the sons of Jacob. There's the literal famine. They have no food.

It's a real crisis. But there's an even more serious thing that they're utterly unaware of. They have no integrity.

And when a man's lost his integrity, though he has such food that would make old mother Hubbard glow when she opened her cupboard, do you remember? If you don't have your integrity, then you're worse off than the people in Sudan and Mozambique who hunger for real bread. There's a crisis that emerges. There has to be the acknowledgement of this serious fact, but the unearthing of a deeper flaw.

When you see Jacob's sons setting off for Egypt, remember this, that they represent what at least is the condition of many people in Europe and perhaps your own condition. Trying to live just on bread alone, never really having come to terms with the fact that you've been double dealing in your life, that there are things that have affected other people that you ought to have put right but you never did. Continuing, is it for a decade or two decades with a guilt complex, wondering why it is that you don't have the peace that you ought to have? There is no peace unless you have made your peace with God at the perpendicular level and your peace with ordinary people at the horizontal.

Be sure your sin will find you out better in time than in eternity. The psalmist says, before I was afflicted I went astray, but the psalmist was glad of the affliction. Sometimes God takes the bread away, the physical support of life, he ruffles the nest, he creates a disturbance, he's got a variety of ways to do it but they all boil down to the same principle as drove these brothers of Joseph to Egypt.

He's got some way of bringing a critical situation into your life and he does it not because he is a God who takes delight in the hurt that results from ruffling you, treating you in a harsh fashion, but because he's so concerned about the ultimate and he has to bring you to your senses. He engages in the grace of exposure, the crisis which emerged, go down and buy some food for us so that we may live and not die. But there's more, there's the analysis it compelled, the analysis it compelled.

I discover that from the sixth verse through to the 26th. Watch them merge will you with the other travelers. You see as they go down to Egypt they will emerge wiser men as a result of their stay in Egypt.

They couldn't have known no more than their brother knew 22 years earlier when he set off to bring their packed lunch that the whole of their lives would be changed as a result of what's going to happen in the next few days. You remember my metaphor from the world of computers? God played a wild card as far as Joseph was concerned. The context was different.

He had Joseph promoted to be the most influential man next to Pharaoh in the world. It was something that Joseph in his wildest dreams, and he knew what it was to dream, could never have conceived. God does occasionally go through all the systems and play a card in your life and as a result of that particular experience is that you're different from that moment on.

And he's got a few cards in the pack as far as Joseph's brothers are concerned. Jesus has a problem you know. Is that almost too much for you to take? My suggesting to you that the Lord Jesus could have a problem he did in his ministry? I've got a multitude of problems that is represented in this pulpit.

Me personally to start with and folk with whom I deal. What was the great problem of our Lord Jesus? Well it was this. He said those who are whole don't need a physician, only those who are sick.

Now there is a sort of gentle humor in that because from the perspective of Jesus there is no one who is entirely whole. We're all sick. We've all come short of the glory of God.

The difference in humanity is at this level. There are those who recognize that they're short and there are those who are short on the glory of God and they don't recognize it. And even God's almighty son when he was on planet earth said those who do not need a physician, I can't help.

Here you see are these lads and they desperately need help. But they can only gain help if they are brought face to face with who they are. Know yourself.

That's what they said in the Greek philosophy, the Greek academy in Athens as would be philosophers came along for the intensive training that they had. I'm talking about centuries ago. Know yourself.

You can never be a philosopher if you don't know yourself. I go further. You can never be a Christian unless you know yourself at this bottom level that you need God.

You need to have those things that you have done in your life that are wrong forgiven. But before that can happen there has to be the prior working of God's spirit. There has to be the grace of exposure.

There has to be the adjustment of circumstances so in some degree God brings you to an end of yourself, a crisis that emerges. When that crisis emerges very often it causes self-analysis. To thine own self be true.

When those brothers set off and went on that path to Egypt it seems to me that spiritually they represent many, many thousands of people who will respond to our Lord Jesus who said come unto me all you that labor and heavy laden and I will give you rest. There's only one place to come. It's to Jesus.

These brothers set off not knowing what's going to weight them in Egypt but ultimately they will discover that God has his hand upon their lives and he will remove from them the guilt that at the moment they bear in an unconfessed way. How will he do it? Well first of all there will be an awakening of memory, not so? Joseph recognizes them but they don't immediately recognize Joseph. But what happens is it seems to me in a very remarkable way a rerun of what they did to Joseph 22 years earlier.

What did they say of Joseph? Do you remember when the brother came? Here's the dreamer. But why did they despise Joseph? Well because he took tales of them to their father because they behaved in such a disreputable fashion. He was a spy.

Funny isn't it? At one level when Joseph now a mature man wearing Egyptian gear therefore totally unrecognizable to the brothers, when he sees them he says the same thing. They're spies. Life has a peculiar way of sort of producing again, this time serving it at us what we have served at others.

As you would that men should do to you do he also to them. It has a double fulfillment. What did they do to Joseph? They threw him into a pit What does Joseph do to them? He lets them sweat it out in jail for three days, not so? Now don't misunderstand me.

There's no vindictiveness in Joseph. Joseph catches something of the sunshine of our Lord Jesus and there's no vindictiveness in Jesus. But you see he's dealing with a hard calloused attitude amongst the brothers and this has to be dealt with.

It'll not be got rid of overnight. This is no light sin. 22 years of deception and delusion and this has to be brought to the front of their mind so that they'll hate sin as much as Paul when he talks about the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

So he has them for three days sweating it out and those three days they bring back don't they? They bring back memory. They're not dull boys these lads of Jacob. The Jews are the most remarkable incisive people on God's earth.

Whatever your position theologically about the Jews is concerned. However much they may have been despised there's not a nation on God's earth who's been greater than the Jews and produced so many intellectuals. Memory needs to be awakened.

Spice we thought that once in prison we put him into a pit. You see that there has been an awakening of the memory even before they get into jail. Your spies know we're not.

We're ten sons. Our youngest brother is still back home and one is not. That's a euphemism.

See what is a euphemism? Well the Americans will tell you they don't call their cemeteries cemeteries they call them memorial parks. Sounds softer you see. Anything to sort of cover up what you're really getting at.

One is not. It's not a question of is not. Look what you did to him.

So they sweat it out in jail and the memories reawaken. But there's not just an awakening of memories there's a livening of conscience. Look at verse 13.

Your servants were twelve brothers the sons of one man who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father and one is no more. And when they reflect on what has what is meted out to them in terms of punishment.

Verse 21. They said to one another surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life.

But we would not listen. That's why this distress has come upon us. You see memory has to be rekindled.

But with the rekindling of memory comes the awakening of conscience. It does sometimes in your life. Not so.

That's why you want to forget some things. But unless they have been dealt with I tell you it's perilous to forget them. Forget them yes when God has given you absolution.

But until that has occurred then to forget unpleasant things is absurd psychologically as well as spiritually. An awakening of memory, a livening of conscience. But there's something else you see because here is not just the judgment and the justice of God.

Here is the mercy of God. There is the emerging of a counselor. Look at verse 23.

They did not realize that Joseph could understand them. Since he was using an interpreter. They thought that this sort of public confession as they come out of their three days in jail as they were talking to one another.

Well it wasn't so public. That was a misuse of a word to describe the narrative. They thought that they were privately speaking to each other and using the Hebrew tongue.

Therefore this prime minister of Egypt couldn't understand what they were saying. But he could. And he's going to be the one who can resolve their problems.

But at the moment he can't act. So what does he do? He weeps. As Jesus wept.

I was thinking about a condition in the heart of God earlier this morning. I call it God pain. I was thinking about that because I gave a lecture on Islam just a couple of weeks ago in a seminar outside Johannesburg.

And one thing can be said about Allah, the God of the Muslims, is that he's impassionate. Dispassionate. He has no feelings.

But the God and Father of Jacob has feelings. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus has feelings. Jacob, Joseph had feelings and so does Jesus.

And Joseph who at this point cannot help his brothers because they're not in a state to receive the help that he wants to bring, he goes and weeps. But there's the emerging of a counselor, you see. One who can do for them what no one else can do.

Who can bring guilt to the forefront and then can exorcise the guilt. The awakening of the crisis, the emerging of the crisis is following, followed by an analysis. They review what they've been doing in their lives and they recognize that they've acted wrongly.

They've had this sin, this terrible sin and it's been unconfessed for such a long time. The crisis leads to analysis which in turn finally it brings us to the process which is commenced. The process it commenced.

Verse 27 through to 20 through to the end of the chapter. You see Joseph has now come on the scene and he said to these fellows, we'll not have nine of you in jail and send one back to Jacob and then bring Benjamin to prove that what you have said is correct and you're not spies. We'll do it differently.

We'll have one of you, perhaps the ringleader. I'm saying this sort of privately to you as my congregation. Perhaps Simeon was the ringleader.

Perhaps he was the one who had been responsible for the incarceration of Joseph some 22 years ago, if so it served him right. He can stay. He can be the sort of trump card that I have that will guarantee that you will come back to me ultimately with your brother and then the situation might dawn when your old father can come and the whole family and you can dwell in the land of Egypt and trade.

It's an incredible thing that the Prime Minister was saying but these boys are so guilt-ridden that they're not really spiritually perceptive to see that he's got more understanding of their situation than human reasoning would allow at that level. The process, it commenced. They returned to Palestine and you discover that there is what I will call the re-education of themselves.

Look at verse 27. At the place where they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sight to get feed for his donkey and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. My silver has been returned, he said to his brothers, here it is in my sack.

Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, what is this that God has done to us? See what I mean? The re-education of themselves. They were beginning to interpret their circumstances with a back cloth of God's intervention in their lives and if ever you're going to know the blessings of sins forgiven, you'll have to engage in what I've called this process of the re-education of yourself, reading God into your circumstances. And then it seems to me there's the rehabilitation of the family.

They come back home to their aged father. They repeat what has happened and he is somewhat despairing. Jacob, I'm referring to the news that they have brought him.

They've spoken, again euphemistically, about the brother who is not. It's Jacob who mentions the brother of Joseph, not his sons. But in God's grace there is a beginning and no more than that, let's not carry Scripture further than what it will allow, there is this process of re-education, there is this process of rehabilitation, of rehabilitation of the family.

God ultimately will bring this family into unity again because that's God's purpose for families and it's been severed by the harshness of the treatment of these brothers years ago towards Joseph. The re-education of themselves, God is at work. The rehabilitation of the family, ultimately this will come about and what's more, this will bring with it the rejuvenation of their father.

Now again, you don't see it here but you've got an anticipation of it. Verse 36, their father Jacob said to them, you have deprived me of my children. You see how he puts that as though he's not finally convinced that it was really as they said in terms of the demise of Joseph, not just an animal that tore upon him, you have deprived me of my children.

Joseph is not, Simeon is not and now you want Benjamin. See how the faith of this man is being tested, this old geriatric Hebrew and yet I tell you that the process is being commenced whereby rejuvenation shall come to him. For years ago, Jacob has been told that God is God almighty, God is the shadow under which he comes to find refuge.

Jacob is God's friend and he's not going to let Jacob, Israel, go to the grave under the delusion that Joseph, his beloved son, is not. And so the brothers come home after these incredible fallouts of events in Egypt and a process has begun, a process of re-education, a process which will lead to the tightening of that family bond, rehabilitation, a process by which Israel, the old man in the final years of his life shall discover a new zest and a new purpose as God restores him to fellowship with his beloved Joseph. Remember him before the silver cord is severed.

The grace of exposure, it's got to come if it's not already in your life. There will be a crisis that will take you back down memory lane, for memory will be awakened and conscience will be activated. There will be an analysis, you will turn in on yourself, surely I shouldn't have done this and I am being judged by God as a result.

But don't be too harsh, the God who's judging you is judging you in time and not in eternity and his judgment is such that it will compel a process that will start with your re-education, maybe your rehabilitation and certainly your spiritual rejuvenation. Thank God if he's found you out, thank him for the grace of exposure that he did it this side of eternity before the silver cord was severed. Father we offer ourselves to you, we're grateful for your grace, you make the poor to be rich, you make the ignorant to be wise, you do it out of your grace and not as a result of that initiative.

We're grateful, help us to act on your word if it finds us out and help us to give to you the unknown glory that's due to your name. Amen.