Joseph No.13 The Power of Prayer

Let's turn to God's word now and we're still in the book of Genesis and chapter 44 and verse 18, 14. Now Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in and they threw themselves to the ground before him. Joseph said to them, what is this you have done? Don't you know that a man like me can find out things by divination? What can we say to my Lord, Judah replied? What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servant's guilt.

We are now my Lord's slaves. We ourselves are the one who was found to have the cup. That's verse 17, chapter 44.

But Joseph said, far be it from me to do such a thing. Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. The rest of you go back to your father in peace.

Then Judah went up to him and said, please my Lord, let your servant speak a word to my Lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. My Lord asked his servants, do you have a father or a brother? And we answered, we have an aged father and there is a young son born to him in his old age.

His brother is dead and he is the only one of his mother's sons left. And his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, bring him down to me so that I can see him for myself.

And we said to my Lord, the boy cannot leave his father. If he leaves his father, his father will die. But you told your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.

When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him what my Lord had said. Then our father said, go back and buy a little more food. But we said, we cannot go down.

Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. 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.

One of them went away from me and I said, he has surely been torn to pieces and I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray head down to the grave in misery. So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant, my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy isn't there, he will die.

Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. I said, if I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life.

Now then, please let your servant remain here as my Lord's slave in place of the boy and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No, do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father. Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants and he cried out, make everyone leave my presence.

So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers and he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and Pharaoh's household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still living? But his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his presence.

I'd like you now to come back to the book of Genesis from which we've had a break for a couple of weeks and let's return to the 44th chapter of this remarkable book, giving the equally remarkable account of the life of Joseph. Let's read the 18th verse once again. Then Judah went up to him and said, please my Lord, let your servant speak a word to my Lord.

Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. You remember the occasion when our Lord was with his disciples and they put a request to him and they said, Lord Jesus, we've seen you. We've seen you in the very act of prayer and what they've seen so impressed them that they made this particular response.

Teach us to pray. Now they didn't say, Lord, teach us a prayer. It would take you 15 seconds flat if you hurried.

Sometimes we do that too quickly in any case to say the Lord's prayer. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. Not just what, but how.

And in one sense the how is more important than the what. Because as far as the what is concerned, you've got some indication as to what lines to go down with the Lord's prayer. C.S. Lewis refers, and he's being very spiritual in so doing, though the metaphor is rather shocking.

He likens the Lord's prayer to a Christmas tree. You know, Christmas is coming, isn't it? Driving down the streets of Singapore, I see they've got their illuminations on and all the shop windows have got well stocked displays of Christmas goods enticing the passerby to stop in and purchase. Well, you festoon your Christmas tree.

You put your trimmings on it. And in that sense, Lewis is saying, here's the pattern prayer, festoon it yourself. Go out in this direction and in that direction.

But it's not just what, it's how. How to engage in prayer to this great, great God. Tim said in his own intercessions, in the family prayers, that he wanted the Lord to give us an opportunity more this week, at the beginning of the day, or perhaps in the middle of the day, or towards the end of the day, or in three or four different places like the Islamic communities.

They approach the Lord, Allah, at any rate, five times a day, that we might come to the Lord in prayer during these next seven days. Well, it seems to me here, as you look into the story of Joseph and his repatriation with his brothers, that you can learn something about the mighty ministry of intercessory prayer. You see, the reason why you've got such a large chunk of the Bible given over to the Old Testament is so that the Old Testament can give you lots of illustrations in terms of New Testament teaching.

Now, you may never have thought before that you can find stimulus in intercessory prayer from this 44th chapter and from the experience of Joseph's returning brothers, returning to him in terms of friendship and fraternal fellowship. But I tell you, you can. It's the most remarkable example that you get here.

But you can't ever pray to God until your communication with the Lord has been made intact. Now, you know, because many of you have been coming along week by week as I've gone through this exciting story of Joseph, how his brothers have dislocated in fellowship with him. In fact, they really thought that he was dead, that they gave him up as good as dead at any rate.

They'd sold him to Egypt, you remember, at least to some slave traders who in turn had taken him to Egypt. They hadn't heard anything from him. And within their minds, there was a sense of guilt.

And that guilt is exacerbated. That means it's brought more and more to the surface as they have dealings with this rather mysterious character, the Prime Minister of Egypt. You recall how things haven't gone right as they've come down from Palestine to negotiate more food because their supplies in Palestine are so meager.

Most extraordinary events have occurred. The discovery of money in their bags, having paid money for the food. And as they've cogitated amongst themselves, and as the PM seems to have dealt roughly with them, they've already conceded, thinking that he hasn't understood them because they've been speaking in their Hebrew tongue, that because of sins of yesteryear, things are now falling out so badly.

It's because of the way that they treated Joseph and what they did to Joseph, which is in effect the principle of sin as located in these scriptures, which is taught in terms of being offensive in the sight of God. It's because of their sin that there is dislocation. They can never be repatriated with Joseph until their sin has been brought to the forefront and their guilt has been forgiven and they have been granted absolution.

You see, even in the 16th verse here, as Judah comes into the presence of Joseph, he says, how can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants' guilt. You remember what had happened? The Prime Minister had declared that his silver goblet had to be placed in the sack of Benjamin, the second occasion that the brothers had come down to Egypt to get food. And Joseph's men had pursued after these brothers and they'd already denied the charge that any one of them would have stolen anything from the Prime Minister.

They'd already said that whoever's sack it was discovered in, he should be carted back and the law should take its due course. But you recall, the Prime Minister had planned it all. He'd put his cup in Benjamin's sack so that they would feel extremely uncomfortable when the theft, inverted commas, was brought to their attention.

Now, the reason why Joseph did this was he wasn't playing with them. It wasn't a game. It wasn't something cruel.

You see, Joseph is not just the brother of these brothers, he's also the pastor and he's very concerned that this family circle comes back together again. He's concerned about Jacob, but even more he's concerned about the God and Father of Jacob and the blood that there is. As far as their relationships with this God is concerned, unless sin is taken away from them, then as a family they can never be reunited.

And as far as their spiritual relationship with God is concerned, it can never be intact. Don't you see, my friend, it's a fundamental principle. If I have sin within my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

The Prime Minister's not playing around in putting the cup in the sack. You see, he has the well-being spiritually of his brothers and his father very much in mind. Remember, he's the Prime Minister of Egypt.

He has all power. Why does he pussyfoot around so much? I mean, he could send his soldiers, couldn't he, to the borders of Palestine and there they could bring the old beloved Jacob to Joseph. He could have done it all so quickly and this is what he wanted.

His heart was with his father, but there's a problem with the brothers. There is the unearthing of their sin. There is a sense of guilt that has to dawn so that the family can be repatriated and ultimately the whole of the sons of Jacob, along with Joseph, can worship this great God from the depths of their heart with sin having been confessed and atoned for.

So I argue this way, that the reason for all that's gone on in these journeys between Joseph, the unknown Joseph, and his brothers is to bring to the forefront of their mind that they are guilty. And Joseph has given them the chance of testing their spiritual growth by giving them a carefully prepared scheme whereby they can show that they have learned from the dastardly deed of yesteryear because, you recall, they could quite easily have got off, or so it would have seemed, from this charge of theft by simply allowing Benjamin to return to Egypt and they could have gone free. They could have told their father, as they had done some 10, 15, 20 years ago, that Benjamin had been set upon by some wild animal, he is the bloody garment of your son.

They'd done it once, could they not do it again? One of the great tasks that is a challenge to any pastor is not to teach people that their sins are forgiven, but by the grace of God, to pray with them and for himself that if there is a rerun of the circumstances, they will not fall into the same sin. You understand me? I remember counseling one woman who'd been involved in an affair, and I congratulated her honestly, though I lamented her weakness. I tried to help her.

My point was this, are you so sorry for what you have done that if the circumstances were regrouped, if you had the same opportunity, would you go the same way? I congratulate her honesty. She said yes. You see, she hadn't grown, she hadn't learned, and Joseph's concerned that these brothers, in the passing of the year, and in the way that he's been dealing with them, this rough treatment, he's concerned to test their growth.

And so when the whole thing is replayed with the possibility of freedom, not just 30 pieces of silver, but freedom, the possibility dangled in front of them, provided they let Benjamin come back to him. When they come through that test honorably, Joseph realizes that he's dealing with a different bunch of men. They all loaded their sacks, verse 13.

They all returned to the city. They wouldn't let Benjamin out of their sight. They were in this together.

And it's at that point that their repentance, it seems to me, is total. My good friend R.T. Kendall says repentance is waving the white flag of surrender and bowing down to God. Here is Judah who becomes the spokesman for the brothers, verse 16, what can we say to my Lord, Judah replied? What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? And verse 14, his brothers came in and they threw themselves to the ground before him.

The white flag is up. What can we say? Our guilt is exposed, not just that of Benjamin's alleged offense, but all the guilt of all the years, all the sourness, all the muck, all that's been there these 20 years, God has brought it to the forefront. What can we say? Now when you get to that point of full surrender, of absolute contrition, God invests you with the possibility, with the potential of becoming great prayer warriors.

It's the most remarkable thing. At the point where you think God will excommunicate you, he ordains you. Peter, he knew that, didn't he? He's fearful to meet the risen Christ, after all, he's betrayed him, at least he's denied him.

But when Jesus sends a message to the disciples, he particularly singles out Peter and he says, tell my disciples and Peter that I've gone in front of them to Galilee. And when Peter keeps the appointment, far from being excommunicated, the repentant Peter is ordained to the Christian gospel in a most remarkable fashion and told to feed the lambs of Jesus Christ and to extend the number in the flock. Well, I say, here's this principle outlined very clearly in the New Testament, perhaps not so clearly discernible in the Old, but once you start from this premise that God wants to bring all things that are wrong in your remembrance to your attention so that they can be dealt with, then he can use you in the ministry of intercessory prayer.

So Judah, becoming the spokesman for this group of demented, dispirited brothers, he starts to plead before the unknown Joseph in words which really are unparalleled in the whole of the Old Testament. Says one commentator, for simple pathos, it is unsurpassed in sacred or secular literature, whether of ancient or modern times, no summary can ever do it justice. And another, this is one of the manliest speeches ever delivered, for depth of feeling and sincerity of purpose, it is unsurpassed either in sacred or secular literature, whether of ancient or modern times.

What makes it so remarkable is that it comes from the lips of a man who once was so callous that he cared nothing about the grief of his father. What can we say, my Lord? What can we say? God has uncovered your servant's guilt. Please, my Lord, let your servant speak a word to my Lord.

Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. My Lord asks his servants, do you have a father or a brother? And so Judah goes on in this most impassioned piece of petition that's addressed to Joseph. And I tell you, it can stand out as an illustration of pleading before the Lord God Almighty.

You see, our Savior tells us that one of the ministries that is his in heaven is to be our intercessor. He ever lives to intercede on our behalf. He prays with passion.

He prays with enthusiasm. And he asks us, those of us who belong to him through faith, also to engage in this priestly ministry of intercession. So I ask you, what's your prayer life like? Now I don't ask that unkindly.

The hardest thing I have to do is to preserve my prayer life. If that shocks you, well, I'm sorry, but it's true. Great difficulty in the area of remaining faithful in prayer, in private.

And the reason for the difficulty that I have, and it's the same problem I'm sure as the majority of my congregation feel, is this, that prayer is such a spiritual advantage in our weaponry against the devil, that the devil does everything he possibly can to stop us from engaging in what we know is the most health-giving pursuit, spiritually speaking. So here is an example for us, a challenge. As Judah, equipped with a spiritual perception and great oratory, he comes before Joseph and he pleads on behalf, not so much of himself, but on behalf of his father and behalf of Benjamin in language that would melt the toughest heart.

His intercessory prayer is bathed in humility. Verse 16, what can we say? What can we say to my Lord? We're in such a dilemma that words really will not come. And don't you see, it's so often the unprepared, unrehearsed prayer that God is waiting for us to engage in.

I have no problems with the Book of Common Prayer. I often quote it here with the result that some people are strangers, think that we're in some way attached to the Anglican Church, which rather pleases me in degree. But this spontaneous pouring out of the heart, you see, it's not that he's got a chip on his shoulder, it's not that he's got a grudge, it's that he's got a burden and he wants to bring it before the man who can possibly, on God's earth, help him, and that is Joseph.

So with great humility, this man prays, please, please my Lord, verse 18, let your servant speak a word to my Lord. Father, let me speak to you. I have no right, I represent sin, my own sin, and the sins of my brothers, the sins of my sisters, but Father, let me speak to you.

And Father is no less than Joseph, his servant, who grants permission. But our Lord, as he acts on behalf of the Father, will stimulate it in prayer, but by making it difficult, and in the very difficulty that he brings into our experience, he toughens up our faith. Judas starts out in his timorous request to Joseph, we are now, my Lord, slaves, we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup, Joseph interjects, far be it from me to do such a thing, to have you all as my slaves, let me just have Benjamin, the one who was found to have the cup, he'll become my slave, the rest of you go back to your father in peace.

But intercessory prayer has as its ingredient persistency, even when the rebuffs come, even when the temptation is given for you to stop praying because it's so very, very slender, the chance that you'll ever get through as you develop a persistency, so the faith that you have increases, as I will show you, the heart is enlarged, your vocabulary increases as you continue in this nerve-wracking exercise of pleading before one who has no reason whatsoever, apart from his great mercy, to smile upon you. You see, when you became a Christian, did you become such because of what you had done? No, of course not. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, helpless fly to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Saviour, or I die.

There's nothing you can contribute to your salvation but your sin and your remorse. Now, here are Joseph's brothers, and they're determined to go back with Benjamin, and they've been talking along the way, Levi and Reuben and Dan and Naphtali and the lot, working out what they can say, the measure of their dilemmas. It really is irresolvable, but it could well be that within the heart of the Prime Minister of all Egypt there is a grain of grace.

It may be that there is forgiveness, that there is largesse, as far as his benevolence is concerned, and that he might smile upon them, though they have nothing but their remorse and their petitions to bring. Now, don't you see, my friend, that's identical to the situation in which you find yourself. Those of you who are engaged in mission, literature missions, those of you who work here from a base in Worthing and are trying to win the world for Christ, the only axiom that we have, the only justification that we possibly can enter into as we're in the presence of God is not what we have done, nor what we are, but of what He is and what He can do.

It's on the base of His mercy. People who say to me that they will rest their cause on the justice of God fill me with horror. Joseph would have been just to have excommunicated forever these brothers, to have consigned them to some infested dungeon in the heart of Alexandria, never to have seen them again.

But Joseph bespeaks Jesus Joseph, who has an even greater infinite compassion for those who came to seek and to save. And he listens to Reuben, deliberately intervening, testing the man, testing the brothers all the time. Persistency, however, is something that Judah can repay as far as Joseph's interruption is concerned.

Please, my Lord, verse 18, let your servant speak a word to my Lord full of respect. It's right in the presence of God to be joyful. It's never right to be disrespectful, to confuse the sense of the Almighty with the Almighty.

Don't take that criticism wrongly. It needs to be applied in part when sometimes we trip into the presence of God and forget about His majesty and His greatness and His grandeur. There is that of God which makes us stop in awe.

There is the Father heart of God that enables us to run as little children into His arms, into His embrace. But always retain in your mind these characteristics of the Lord and your differing response to Him in differing circumstances. And as Judah speaks to Joseph, why, he tells him everything that he already knew.

Please, my Lord, let your servant speak a word. My Lord asked His servants, verse 19, do you have a father or a brother? And we answered, we have an aged father and there is a young son born to him in his old age. All these things Joseph knew and the majority of the stuff that you bring before the heavenly Father, indeed all of it is known.

Prayer is not for his value, it's for your value. To get into the perspective of the very dilemma that grips your heart so that you can express your desires before Him and bring it into perspective again and put your desires over against the sovereignty of God. It's utterly selfish, selfless rather is this prayer.

It's not for himself. He has in mind, has Judah, who has been a changed man over these months, he has in mind the future well-being of Benjamin. But even more particularly, Jacob.

Throughout the whole of this classic piece of pathetic intercession, you see the spectacle of this aged man who is loved by his sons in a way that he could never really have estimated. But the fallout in Egypt, all that has happened has proven the absolute affection that these boys have for their father. And Judah pleads with Joseph on behalf of his father, on behalf of his parent, utterly an unselfish prayer.

We answered, we have an aged father, verse 20, and there is a young son born to him. His brother is dead and he's the only one of his mother's sons left and his father loves him. Verse 27, your servant my father said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons.

One of them went away from me and I said he has surely been torn to pieces and I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery. So Judah quotes accurately the nature of his dilemma and he does so and there's not a trace of resentment, is there? You see, one of the things that was a downfall of Judah was that he felt that Jacob, his father, and in some degree he was right, thought more of Joseph.

Now they know clearly that the heart of Jacob is bound into the heart of Benjamin. Verse 30, my father whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life sees that the boy isn't there, he will die. And Judah has no personal criticism towards Jacob because of his favoritism directed to Benjamin.

You see, it's a different man. If I have resentment in my heart, are you hearing me my friend, my Christian friend, hear me for God's sake. If you have resentment in your heart towards brothers and sisters for anything, anything at all that they have done, then you can never engage.

In this holy ministry of intercession, it's been neutralized in the heart of Judah and he speaks with an eloquence, a passion, which must have not just impressed Joseph but have left sorcerer-eyed his brothers as they listened to him find these words. What's more, he's prepared for personal cost. He will take upon himself the offense of Benjamin.

Let your wrath be directed towards me. Verse 33, let your servant remain here as my Lord's slave. Let me be a bond for Benjamin.

But let the boy return with his brothers. And I hear of our Lord Jesus who offers himself as a bond for you and for me. Forgive them.

Take me. Your wrath, deflect it from them. Let it come to me.

You see how much you cast something of the glow of the gospel in these verses in a most remarkable way. And what was the main intention of Judah? It was to change the heart of Joseph, the Prime Minister. And the intention behind intercessory prayer is for God's will to be fashioned into what you have begun to believe might be God's ultimate purposes in any number of situations that confront you.

Well, I say this speech, it would have moved the hearts of men much harder than that of Joseph. The object of this intercessory prayer, the object of all prayer, is to bear a burden. It's to feel what's being prayed.

When I was in Kuala Lumpur last week in the Second Service, crowded with hundreds of young people, I made an appeal and they came out in their dozens. And the pastor starts to sing a song and all the rest of the congregation take it over. They sing for 15 minutes, giving me time to pray with each one of the youngsters.

And some of them were a little older who came out for salvation, for commitment, for spiritual renewal, for healing. And you can't pray for people like that unless you feel for them. You have to bear one another's burdens.

Do you do that? It's just as though the person that you are praying for becomes yourself and you lift that person before the Lord. That's intercessory prayer. That's why I can never teach you to be an intercessor.

The how is something you've got to discover for yourself. Jesus did not just teach the disciples of prayer. By His very demeanor, He taught them how to pray.

It means becoming vulnerable, exposing your deepest feeling before God. And we English are not naturally endued with the ability to do this. Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father.

I said, if I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life. You see, He's exposing the bottom line. I can't continue to live unless I'm successful.

Lord, my heart's desire is for the salvation of Israel, says the Apostle Paul. And to that end, take away mine, that they may be saved. That's daring, exploratory, intercessory prayer.

Oh, great quality, not so. And then occurs one of the greatest dramatic events in the whole of Scripture. Joseph, verse 1, chapter 45, could no longer control himself before all the attendants.

And he cried out, out, get away from my presence, leave me on my own. And when Joseph, the prime minister of Egypt, says these puzzling words to his attendants, they do not stop to check him. What Joseph has to say goes, for he is as Pharaoh.

And so they leave Joseph alone in the company of his brothers, even without his interpreter. And as they leave, he weeps so loudly that the whole of the Egyptian court hears him and news is taken to Pharaoh's household about the distress of Joseph. But here he is, on his own with his brothers.

And suddenly he says in the Hebrew language, I am Joseph. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what must have gripped their hearts as they hear this foreign prime minister speak in perfect Hebrew, their own language. And as they look in astonishment at the outline of Joseph's face and they see the features of the young Joseph still there, though twenty years on, and the horror that there is, how will this Joseph deal with us as a result of the treachery that we doled out to him? But the fact of the matter is that Joseph appreciates that all the fallout in his life has been for the benefit of his brothers, for the retention of the family line, for the accuracy of the covenant that God made with Abraham centuries before.

God again, to quote a sermon from Joseph that I preached some while ago, plays the wild card. And Joseph's brothers are utterly astonished. But, and with this I close, this is what Joseph wanted all the time.

He'd been waiting for this moment during the months that had elapsed since those brothers first staggered into Egypt. He'd been waiting for the moment when he could declare who he was to them. But before he could make that declaration, he had to act as a pastor as well as a brother.

And don't you see that in the whole phenomenon of prayer, what we're doing is not changing the will of God, but bringing the will of God into being. Praying that in our intercession we might know his mind, and having located what is the thinking of God in our own convictions, praying along that line, what happened was no chance thing. Joseph had got it all sussed out months before in the grace of God, as he has in his great sovereignty made provision for your prayers.

So I conclude, our God calls us to consistent petitionary prayer in this church. And we have such a great example of that as Judah comes before Joseph. Will not Jesus, Joseph, be more inclined to hear us than the brothers of Judah found hearing from Joseph? Our High Priest is a heart which is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

He longs to disclose himself more and more to you, to weep over your wrongdoing, to put his arms around you, to reinstate you if you become slightly dislodged within the Church of Jesus Christ, and to give you a holy purpose for the remaining years of your life. Intercessory prayer, to that God calls each member of our fellowship here at the TAMV. Amen.

I want to change our last hymn to 1, 3, 4. Hallelujah, sing to Jesus, his the scepter, his the throne. The third verse is one I really love. This was a favorite hymn of dear Reverend Tom Lloyd.

You remember him? Had such an impact on my life and the life of many people, particularly out there in East Africa. Hallelujah, sing to Jesus, hear the sinful, flee to thee from day to day. Intercessor, friend of sinners, earth's redeemer, plead for me.

Where the songs of all the sinless sweep across the crystal sea. As we think of the intercessory ministry of Jesus, let's commit ourselves to the same task. 1, 3, 4.