Joseph No.11 Jacob's Lament

Now we're in Genesis chapter 42 and we begin reading at verse 29 and we hear about Jacob is reacting to the news that for further food to be supplied in Egypt he must let Benjamin go. 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 are honest men, we are 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 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 patches they were frightened.

Their father Jacob said to them, you have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and 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're taking, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow. Now the famine was still severe in the land.

So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go back and buy us a little more food. But Judah said to him, the man warned us solemnly, you will not see my face again unless your brother is with you. If he will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you.

But if he will not send him, we will not go down because the man said to us, you will not see my face again unless your brother is with you. Israel asked, why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother? They replied, the man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. Is your father still living, he asked us.

Do you have another brother? We simply answered his questions. How were we to know, he would say, bring your brother down here. Then Judah said to Israel, his father, send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die.

I myself will guarantee his safety. You can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life.

As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice. Then their father Israel said to them, if it must be, then do this. Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift.

A little balm and little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds. Take double the amount of silver with you, for you must return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.

Take your brother also and go back to the man at once. And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.

Here's Jacob and he's speaking to his sons. Genesis 42 verse 36. 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. Eventide the last years of life must bring with it its own peculiar strains and pressures. And even if you don't judge yourself to be there at present, one day by God's grace you will.

So whether you place yourself in the category of youth, middle age or in the realm of senior citizen, perhaps you ought to plug in to what I have to say from Scripture, because this is bound to have relevance to you at this moment or ultimately. I'd like to congratulate Princess Diana. I think she did a good job this past week.

She made reference at the anniversary of the children's work in this country. She made reference to the need for families. Now she knew what she was speaking about, of course.

She comes a broken family. And although it's true to say that not every family circle is perhaps all that it should be, a child is much better positioned for and trained for the future if he knows mum and dad and if it's a warm background. Have you ever thought that the first book of the Bible is actually a book of stories of families? I mean you start off, don't you, with Adam and Eve.

You move through to Noah. And then soon across the page comes Abraham and Sarah and the drama of their child. And then ultimately Isaac and his bride.

And then you move to Jacob and Joseph and all the things that were involved in looking through at this moment. But the truth of the matter is that the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, is primarily the relating of one family saga after another. God is concerned about families.

That's why anyone who threatens family life is actually taking war against the purposes of God. And the savage attacks being made today. Now as I've conceded, I appreciate that every family circle isn't perhaps as good as it should be.

We're all less than ideal. And there are some families that only just hang together. But thank God even if they hang together.

And here in this particular incident that we're looking at, we're concerned, are we not, about the family of Jacob? In fact the story is a fantastic one because spotlighted, as you read through the chapters, and those of you who are familiar can just do a little bit of research in your memory at the moment as I'm sharing this, spotlighted in the various chapters are individuals or the collective family of Jacob. You meet the old man don't you to start with. As he gives sandwiches for his son Joseph to take to his other sons and so the spotlight's on Joseph.

And then the spotlight moves from Joseph to the brothers. And then from the brothers back to Jacob and the horrific tale that they told of the death of Joseph. And then you go to Egypt to Joseph again and you know what Jacob doesn't know.

And then the spotlight comes back on the brothers who have to go down to Egypt themselves to get food. And you've got that fantastic account, marvelous piece of history of them being interviewed by Joseph and not knowing the identity of their brother. And then the spotlight's back on their father again.

It really is tremendous drama. TV authorities would be doing good if they concentrated on this sort of story and brought out its principles rather than some of the soap opera rubbish that they put across in these days. And now family life is perhaps the best circle for education.

I mean you may not go all the way with Bernard Shaw but there is truth in the fact that his education was only interrupted by his school days. I mean really the best psychologist I ever came across was my mother. She never learned it in any books.

A very humble education actually. But she did accumulate a great deal of wisdom just by being a mother. And the same can go with good fathers too.

And it's in the arena if you like, in the theater, in the college of the family when you learn a great deal. And God can use incidents in the family to train you to an understanding of who he is and a further development in terms of spirituality as far as you're concerned. Now you may be having a rough ride in a family at the moment but one thing I assure you of this is that God is interested in you and your family and its circumstances.

And some of you are like towards the even tide of life. You've still got some education yet to go through. God is not through with you yet.

Heaven is not yet prepared. There's still wallpaper in your room. He wants you down here for a little longer because there are certain adjustments that he has to make to your personality.

Certain insights that he wants to give you about him so that you're well prepared to enjoy eternity with him. Now as I say it's really an educational process that these brothers are going through as well as their father. Certainly theologically the brothers like Joseph earlier have had to rethink certain things haven't they? You remember how they were back with Joseph not knowing who he is and they are treated in the most disagreeable fashion.

This Prime Minister seems to have it in for them. Retains one of the brothers and sends the rest of them back and when they open their sacks you recall they discover the money that they've actually paid for the corn that's available in Egypt but it's not available in Canaan because well those of you who are here you know the story but some don't. There's a famine in Canaan.

But they come to this conclusion that God is actually trying to teach them something. Full marks they need to be taught and God's a good educator. But it's not just Joseph's brothers that need to be taught.

It's Jacob his father also. I don't find Jacob to be a very pleasant man. I sometimes quip from this pulpit I wouldn't have bought a secondhand camel from him.

Yet the fact of the matter is that God drew alongside this individual. I understand the God of Abraham. That is God linking his name in with Abraham don't you? I mean he's a great man was Abraham.

He had some weaknesses of course but on the whole he he stood head and shoulders high. He was the Everest proportion spiritually. The God of Abraham yes that squares.

The God of Isaac well maybe Isaac didn't do as well as his father but nonetheless I can understand God associating himself with Isaac. And the God of Joseph actually scripture rarely uses that expression. I'm not too sure that it does.

But I can appreciate that because Joseph is a sterling man of great qualities. But what gets me is this. More often than not you discover in the Old Testament God describes himself as the God of Jacob.

Far more times than the God of Abraham. Now it shocks me. It also helps me.

Because it seems that this great God is is concerned to draw alongside folk who sometimes can be quite slippery in the way that they react to such circumstances. The sort of person who might be in a nightmare in the church membership because you can't really rely on them. And yet Jacob in some degree.

I don't want to do him down and I'll give you his credits in a little while. But in some degree he was like that wasn't he. And so it's even the more surprising and encouraging that God comes along and he identifies himself with with Jacob and calls himself the God of Jacob.

Now there are certain things that Jacob knows about God. But there are also some things about which he's totally ignorant. I mean you take this particular verse in which he indicates that he has been dealt with very, very poorly indeed.

Everything is against me. I mean he's really bleak in his depression. Now if you're a trigger-happy evangelical and assuming that you've got the New Testament scriptures ready to fire which one would you have shot across his bowels? Romans 8 28.

All things work together for good. Hold on Jacob you're gonna be all right. I don't think actually he would have been very receptive to that text at that particular point in his life.

There are times when be when if I may requote something I said a little earlier in these studies there are times when you and I can't cope with that text. It remains true but it's hard to cope with it. All things work together for good says says Jacob.

Everything is is against me. And so he's lacking is he not in the idea of the sovereignty of God. That means that God is ruling even in these circumstances when it looks as though he's threatened with the livelihood of two more of his children.

Now as I say he's an old man. God's not finished with him yet. He engages in this lament of some of you may be lamenting because as I said a little while ago advancing years do bring their pressures don't they.

Some of you kids in the gallery you really need to be more sensitive towards older folk. See someone to be stripped of the fellowship of a loved one with whom you've shared your life for years. That's that's a dire problem.

Or to be like some of my older colleagues in the tab to see your peer group dwindle away and you're in your 90s and those that you loved and associated with are no longer around. We should have a great deal more patience towards some of our older folk because of the strains and the pressures that they have that some who are of more tender years don't have. But having said that there is also a fashion in which all the friends are to encourage themselves in in regard to this great God and not slip into a dirge that Jacob was in for that's how I would describe it.

His lament everything is against me. That wasn't quite true was it. It's not quite true when you sometimes are plunged into a depression as you look on your life and come to the conclusion that God really has let you down because there are evidences that you find hard to bring into the forefront at that moment that actually contradict the general assessment that you've made.

Listen to this about old age. See that your last days be your best days and so you may die in a good old age which may be best done when you die good in old age. Now that sounded like the Daily Telegraph crossword.

Let me have another run at it. See that your last days be your best days and so you may die in a good old age which may be best done when you die good in old age. What was it that was really ruining the testimony of Jacob at this moment.

Forgive me some of you older friends but you know one of the things that's possible for you to grow as the years go by. It's a streak of stubbornness a streak of stubbornness. You see here are these brothers and actually they're trying to deal quite kindly are they not with their elderly father as they rehearse what's happened in Egypt.

They tell him the truth. They don't mess around. This is the way that we were treated and Jacob he responds very very bleakly to what they have to say and especially when indication is given that more food will only be granted if they take their youngest brother along with them.

And now Jacob becomes very stubborn. It's the first thing that he's heard about the possibility of Benjamin having to be taken down to the to the land of Egypt and and he makes a categorical denial. The first time he hears this bad news and so he he doesn't put it within context rather the stubborn streak comes forward.

No but man you're gonna have to qualify your words in time because the fact of the matter is this you who are so concerned for Benjamin's welfare unless the lad goes down he'll starve in Canaan. You see sometimes with the advance of years you're not always as wide thinking as you need to be and at this particular point Jacob was really dependent upon the advice and the reaction of his sons who felt only love and respect towards him. But in his stubbornness he says everything is against me.

And you know when you're in this sort of self pitying condition the possibility is that you'll exaggerate the nature of your difficulty. That occurs with younger folk as well as older folk doesn't it? Simeon is no more. Who says he's no more Jacob? All your sons have told you is that Simeon is being held as a sort of hostage if you like.

He's in bond in Egypt until Benjamin comes down. And the way that you're talking you would feel that surrendering Benjamin to the safe custody of his brothers so that they could take him to Egypt is identifying the situation with his immediate execution. Nobody's saying that.

But when you're down at a general level whether you're young or old there's a tendency for everything to look bleak isn't there? Simeon is no more. Joseph is no more. And Benjamin it looks as though it's curtains for him.

Along with the stubbornness and the exaggeration there's really a measure of unfairness isn't there? You have deprived me of my children. That's what he's saying in verse 36. But Jacob whose idea was it they went down to Egypt in the first instance? The first verse will tell you of the chapter.

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt he said to his sons why do you just keep looking at each other? Here is seniority coming up not so? Why are you just sitting on your bottoms? Let's put it colloquially. Why don't you get up and do something about it? We've no food there's food in Egypt why don't you go down there bring the food and then we've we've resolved our problem. Well game set and match it was good thinking wasn't it? But now you see because of the things that have happened in Egypt were basically the responsibility in some measure at any rate of Jacob it was his idea.

Now he's most unfairly saying to his sons you've deprived me of my children. And then and this is a very difficult thing to cope with the concept of unfaithfulness. When in eventide years it looks as though God is dealing unfairly with you.

You see this is almost an atheist's cry. Everything is against me. Do you really mean that Jacob? Is he the one who wrestled with you at Peniel? Is he against you? The one who softened the Esau's heart? Is he against you? The one who enabled your sons to survive even when they did dastardly things to the to the men of Shechem? Is he against you? You see the problem is that when a crushing blow comes it seems to knock down all the other skittles of your faith.

And as a result you bring in this bottom line verdict which really is an exaggeration. Everything is against me. God promised Jacob that he was for you and he will be good to you.

And what God promised Jacob, my dear Christian friend, he promises you. His love in times past forbids me to think. He'd leave me at last in trouble to sink.

I was always curious as a kid to know what it meant when we sung about Ebenezer. You know there's an old hymn, I think we've got it in Hymns of Faith actually, talks about raising out Ebenezers. And I had the idea this whiskery old man doing a sort of Lazarus.

I never quite understood that Ebenezer actually was a Hebrew term for hitherto. Hitherto God has helped us. And at times when you're really feeling crushed you need to go back into memory lane and to appreciate that those circumstances at the moment may be falling across your beach and you can't understand them.

Nonetheless there is that of God's grace in the past that enables you at least not to become an atheist if nonetheless to be an agnostic at that moment. A man who I love as dear as my own father was asking me on Saturday, why? And I couldn't tell him. Why has God allowed this to happen in this way? I'd have rummaged through my books all night if I could have found an intellectual answer but there is no satisfactory explanation apart from this, that God knows what he's about.

And there is sufficient evidence in the past to confirm that God is still with him at this very moment and will be with him until the end. Jacob has to know this too. And so as he engages in this lament we need to proceed in the story a little to see the help that was ultimately brought to him.

Reuben comes along and actually his suggestion is almost ludicrous, you can dismiss it. Look, says Reuben, verse 37, we've got to go back to Egypt but I will be a guarantor of the safety of Benjamin and if he doesn't make it back with you, well you put my two sons to death. Horrific suggestion.

Reuben would have been better to have closed his mouth at that particular occasion, not so. Jacob is still reluctant. My son will not go down there with you, his brother is dead and he is the only one left.

He repeats his conclusions of former verses but a little while goes by, chapter 43 into verse 1, the famine was still severe in the land. So when they'd eaten all the grain they brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go back and buy us a little more food. He's a wily chap, he's Jacob.

He knows full well it's not as simple as that. They can't go back and get more food unless Benjamin, the one who is beloved of Jacob, accompanies them. Do you notice how the verse makes plain the severity of the situation? He asks them to go back and buy a bit more, a little more food.

You see, this is a raging famine. It's very difficult for us here in this country who have not known hunger to the degree that they were knowing hunger, the severity of the incident. And so Jacob once more at his wit's end will have to start to qualify some of the things that he has said in moments when he didn't think through the implications.

Judah comes along, verse 3. In one sense, Judah stands in scripture as a type of our Lord Jesus. Jesus comes to tell us the truth about the situation that affects our lives and about the way that we can react to the problems that are ours. And so Judah says to Jacob, the man warned us solemnly, you will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.

But by implication, Judah is saying, look, unless we respond to the request of this man, there will be no physical salvation for us, as there's no salvation spiritually for anyone who doesn't respond to the demands of God upon their lives. But here we find Judah to be a type of our Lord Jesus, perhaps more than most alleged types in the Old Testament. Verse 5. If you will not send him, we will not go down because the man said to us, you will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.

And he goes on in the eighth verse to say, send the boy along with me and we will go at once so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety. You can hold me personally responsible for him if I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you.

I will bear the blame before you all my life. What's Judah saying? He's trying to tell his old dad, trust me, I'll be the bond. He dismisses the absurd suggestion of Reuben's.

That was exaggerated. It wouldn't have helped the situation at all. But Judah now elicits the trust of Jacob as he says, let Benjamin go with me and I'll be surety for him.

His safety is guaranteed by my vigilance. You know something? Jesus Christ has become our surety. He is the one who guarantees our redemption.

He does for us what we can't do for ourselves. There was no other way out of Jacob's dilemma than to backtrack on what he had said in a hasty moment some weeks before. Benjamin has to go, but he's safe.

As long as Judah is safe, Benjamin will be safe. And if anything happens to Benjamin, then Judah will pay the penalty for it. He will allow Benjamin to go as he takes upon himself the responsibility that for anything that Benjamin does that's wrong.

Now don't you understand my Christian friend? All those of you who come along on a Sunday morning to the tavern, yet you're not Christian. This is precisely what Jesus has done for you. And there's no other way for you to receive spiritual food.

There is no other way for your thirst to be slaked. There's no other way for you to be assured that when you die you go into heaven apart from submitting to what Jesus Christ has done for you on the cross of Calvary. And so what do you discover as far as Jacob is concerned? Well he revises what he's previously determined.

He has to qualify his prior declaration. Verse 11, then their father Israel said to them, if it must be then do this. There's only one way in which this whole dilemma can be resolved.

And so now he becomes a much stronger man as he recoups something of the wisdom that he hasn't been showing in more recent times and yet is part of his legacy as a result of the experience that he has gathered through the passing of the years. He knew an occasion when he was threatened by Esau. And what did he do then? Well he sent some presents along ahead to Esau.

He showed Esau his contrition, his state of mind and what's more he engaged in prayer before the Lord ere he met his brother who previously had murderous intentions towards him. So verse 11, put some of the best products of the land in your bags. Take them down to the man as a gift.

A little balm, a little honey. Notice the word little. These people were very, very poor at this stage.

These things that they'd stored by before the famine came, just a little is left. Take that, some spices, some myrrh. Take the double amount of silver with you for your mercy.

Return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. Take your brother also and go back to the man at once and may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man.

That wasn't just a wish. That was a prayer. That was a prayer from the depths of Jacob's being and he knew how to pray.

He knew how to wrestle with God. He has done everything he can to prevent Benjamin from having to go with his brothers. Now he realizes there's nothing else he can do but surrender Benjamin to them.

But there is something else. At the human level he can commit his brothers and his sons and his favorite son Benjamin to the grace of Almighty God. And so they move on with the words of Jacob bringing in their ears not a weak wish but a powerful benediction spoken in faith.

And he says, as for me, if I'm bereaved, I am bereaved. In other words, it seems to me that you could understand that in terms of this. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

Whatever happens, I do nonetheless accept that there is a Lord God Almighty who has had some protective care over me all the days of my life. And ultimately Jacob seems to hold on to his vindication of his faith and his confidence in this God. Let's do some application for the last couple of minutes.

This lament of Jacob's, it was really entirely unnecessary, wasn't it? I mean, later on he's going to be able to say in the presence of Joseph and Joseph's two sons, may the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has delivered me from all harm, may he bless Joseph, your two boys, the God who's been my shepherd all the days of my life to this day. When the present is absorbed into the past and the future becomes the present and God unfurls his reasons for what has happened, Jacob appreciates that dirge was unnecessary. Everything against me, not a bit.

Neither is it necessary on your part, older friend or younger friend, to allow your faith in God to get so dim that it seems to barely exist. You see, the problem that Jacob had was also your problem. Those of you who did me the honor of coming to our Bible studies, you will understand what I mean by the difficulty of Romans 7. Here is the Apostle Paul and at one stage he's in gloom.

It doesn't seem as though he can cope with his circumstances. The good that I would, I don't do. The evil that I would not, that I seek to do.

And it seems to me that it's a Jacob conflict. Jacob, it seems to me, stands for the old man. Israel is the new man and after Peniel, Israel becomes much more dominant in Jacob's life and yet he still has this war of the of the inner nature over against the spiritual nature.

As you and I have that war until the moment that we die, this is the reason you see Joseph, Jacob was in such a position of almost atheism. Everything is against me. The old nature to come to the forefront.

He'd used his rational apparatus in his mind to make his conclusions and they were wrong. He'd taken his mind off this living God. He'd forgotten all the past, all the many things that God had done and as a result he had to eat his words later on, as many of you have had to eat your words.

But you see, he recovers his ground, doesn't he? At first his faith hasn't been like that of Abraham. Abraham, take your son, your only son, Isaac, and surrender him to me and Abraham does. Jacob, take your sons, Joseph, Benjamin, surrender them to me.

Believe in me. The God who has said, I will do you good, Jacob, believe in me. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jacob, believe in me.

Jacob is not an Abraham who can cope with that. Jacob is not a Jesus who can say, if it be your will, let it pass from me, but if not, I submit. But ultimately, Jacob is driven to submission and to discover that the thing that he feared most was an illusion.

In his imagination, God had got the purpose of Jacob safely encased in his hands, his present and his future well-being, as he has yours and mine. But remember this, when you're through with Jacob, it's his words that are ringing in the ears of his boys as they set off down to Egypt. The Lord God Almighty, let him bless you.

Jacob recovers his spiritual strength and his authority and he gives his boys not a weak wish, but a mighty benediction. Well, don't we thank our great God that we get a story like that of Jacob on the pages of the Bible, and we realize that God drew alongside Jacob and loved him to the extent that he identified himself with Jacob more than anyone else. And if you, the Bible gives you the authority to say of God, he loved me and he gave himself for me.

Then away with unnecessary laments. Praise your God, even when you don't understand all the fallout in your life. May he give you the grace so to do.

Amen. Jesus Christ, his Son, he comes with a grateful heart. He comes, he's here.

Jesus Christ, his Son, he comes with a grateful heart. He comes, he's here. I am strong, let the poor say I am rich.

I was born poor, but now I'm strong, rich.