Joseph No.3 Severe mercies

The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So he left in Joseph's care everything he had, with Joseph in charge. He did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well built and handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, come to bed with me. But he refused. With me in charge, he told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house.

Everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.

How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her, or even to be with her. One day he went into the house to attend his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, come to bed with me.

But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. Look, she said to them, this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us.

He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home.

Then she told him this story. That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me, but as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. When his master heard the story, his wife told him, saying, this is how your slave treated me, he burned with anger.

Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. While Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warder.

So the warder put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warder paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Chapter 39.

And in this passage, which we're not going to consider exhaustively, we get some impression of the life of a man whose circumstances have opened in an unexpected and perhaps an unpalatable way. Father, help us as we come before your holy book to consider it with obedience in our hearts, soften our affections, bend our wills, and enable us by intuition given by your Spirit to apply the message that this timeless book speaks into our hearts. Amen.

The saddest verse in the whole Bible, that's what I asked you about last week, you remember, and I put up one or two options and closed down with what I felt at least in my estimation merited that description. Speaking of our Lord Jesus, John 1, he came unto his own, and his own received him not. Hardly any pathos that can be greater than that.

To come with love in your heart, to come with a God-given mission, and to have that love rejected and that mission utterly misunderstood. I was trying to tell some folk who gathered for a beautiful wedding service here yesterday realizing that our congregation was a mixed congregation, that some people have got a wrong understanding of what Jesus was all about. He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Now it's interesting, those of you who are concerned about the Old Testament, to see how concealed within its pages are those truths that you made explicit and more clear in the New. There are anticipations of Jesus in the Old. There is more than a hint of God's providential dealings with ordinary men and people in the Old Testament as in the New, because the God of the Old is the God of the New.

There's no difference at all. And in the Old Testament you find the story of a fellow, a young chap, sent by his dad, father who loved him more than all his other sons, and it was a large family, sent him to seek out the rest of his sons, Joseph going for his brothers with some food for them. And when they see him, they maltreat him and utterly condemn him to a pit, then to a life of slavery, or so it seems.

Now, it would have been hard for Joseph then, and doubtless hard for some of you now, to believe that the fallout, the after-events, were ultimately wrapped up within the purposes of God. But if you can believe a preacher, even when you can't understand precisely what he's saying, then accept this, not from him but from the Lord, and that is that God has the whole gamut of your life in his control. He's concerned about you.

The peaks and the troughs, the darkness and the sunshine, the happy days of ecstasy, the mournful days of depression, he's got it all worked out, it's in his hands, as it was with Joseph, as it was with Joseph Jesus. So it is with you this morning. Forget everything else, but at least let the Holy Spirit rivet that into your mind.

C.S. Lewis was a great man. He converted to Christianity when it was most unfashionable so to do. There in Oxford in the 30s, he had a very strong relationship with his students, as I used to have with Ernest Kevin, the principal of Cherished Memory of London Bible College.

One of his students fell in love, married a woman utterly devoted to her. Lewis knew both the student and his wife, but the wife died. Lewis was contacted, C.S. Lewis, the great professor of poetry of Oxford, and he wrote a note and he dashed off this in letter form to his fellow younger academic colleague.

It's a severe mercy. It's a severe mercy, but God's taken your wife to be with himself. It's merciful, which actually means in the Hebrew it's kind, but it's a severe kindness, a strange form of kindness.

God sometimes deals that way. That's why with St. Cooper's Hymn, God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. And why I'm careful at the tab, when we are singing choruses which are jolly and moving and rightly so, religion never was designed to make our pleasures less.

But we also need to take in stock that for everyone it's not easy to ride the crest of the wave or to burst out into the flower of praise. If the waves have broken down in your life and it's dealt rather fiercely with you in recent days, not too easy to praise the Lord at that time. But listen, when God's kindness becomes a severe mercy, in essence it still remains just that, a mercy.

And the day will come when Joseph will thank God for the way that he was put into the pit and then ultimately sold as a slave and taken off into Egypt. As the day would come when Jesus, who never, never questioned the will of his father, would be grateful for the day when his own turned him over to the Gentiles, as Jacob's sons turned Joseph over to the Ishmaelites and ultimately to the Egyptians. Behind Joseph were the purposes of God.

Not easy, however, when you've moved from sonship to being a slave, from your dreams of family recognition to the dread of social degradation. That's Joseph's lot. Not so, as you follow in that camel train with so many slaves on view in the markets of Alexandria.

Can you imagine that young fellow wondering who is going to purchase him and what it's all about? How quickly circumstances have changed. Do you remember? It's all within 24 hours. Only a day ago he was with his beloved father.

Only a day ago he had the commission to take food to his brothers. Ah, but life changes so quickly, doesn't it? At one point you were at Keswick. At one point you were at Spring Harvest.

There it was so lovely. There it was so wonderful. There the ecstasy of worship was taking all your emotions as rightly you praise the Lord.

And then, within 24 hours, it's changed. And not necessarily as a result of your own misdemeanor, for there was no sin in what Joseph did. It was the treachery of others.

But where is God when people are treacherous? He didn't prevent the pit. He doesn't ultimately prevent the prison. And between the pit and the prison, there's a little bit of daylight.

And in the daylight, God will reveal to himself, as he will reveal to you during difficult patches in your life, that he's still merciful. Don't you feel fortunate to live in Worthing? Oh, I mean it. Seaweed and all.

You see, back where I came from in the north of England, if it was a dull day, it would generally be a dull day for all the hours. But here on the coast, very often, even when it's been rather inclement weather for many of the hours, towards evening, the sun will break. The clouds will move back a little bit.

And you'll discover rays of sunshine coming through as the weather breaks up. It's not often that we're in gloom all the day here on the south coast. And even when you're passing through a rough period in your spiritual pilgrimage, it's not always cloud.

It's not always dull. There are occasions when God lets the sun shine through between the pit and the prison. You see, I want to stay with the sunshine for a moment.

Many of you perhaps think that I'm going to be dealing with Joseph and this horrendous temptation. I'm not. If we go there, we go too quickly.

He's in prison. Oh, no, he's not. He's as a slave, purviewed by a number of the possible purchasers in the marketplace, possibly, as I suggested, of Alexandria, wondering what's going to happen and who's going to purchase him.

If you were in that situation, you'd be the same, wouldn't you? Who's going to buy me? Does he have a kindly look in his eyes? Does it seem as though I might have a reasonable time even though I'm a slave? I wonder if all these things were in the mind of Joseph on this particular occasion. Joseph, who was beloved of God, is beloved of God, was beloved of his father. Joseph, who loved Benjamin.

Joseph, who hadn't even had an opportunity to say goodbye to dad and goodbye to the little Benjamin and goodbye to his coat of many colours. He left it all behind. And he's got an unknown future in front of him.

Of course, he's human. His psychology is similar to yours and to mine. Of course, he'd wonder who was going to buy him and what was going to be in store for him in the days and weeks and months that are to come.

Will you notice that Joseph was a realist? The clock had moved on and it wasn't going to turn back. And one of the problems that perhaps sometimes you and I suffer from is this, a failure to accept the present as it now is. Always wishing that we could go back to the past as it used to be.

Joseph will teach you to accept the turn around in your circumstances, even though you would not have opted for them. And Joseph will teach you that during those circumstances, there can be that which is helpful and that which is encouraging, illustrating that God is still with you. Joseph is unable to say, at least he perhaps did not articulate the words, but certainly in his spirit, thinking of God, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

Joseph is in Egypt and God is also in Egypt. Did you hear that? It doesn't strike you as being phenomenally novel. It would have done if you could turn back the clock 4,000 years, if you could shed a few millennia.

You see, you and I were brought up in the New Testament dispensation. We have a knowledge of God being everywhere. But in those days, the idea was that God was localized in the particular territory where he was worshipped and recognized as God.

And every country had its own God or gods. And Joseph is now away from Palestine. But we're told, verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph in Egypt.

Stay a while, here's a bit of theology. Three things about God that you should know. He's omniscient.

That means he's got all knowledge. Don't you wish you had, particularly if you're doing examinations. I'm staying doing a PhD, I think, until I get to heaven.

Then I shall know as I'm fully known, and I should get a pass mark. God has all knowledge. You and I don't.

We struggle to acquire knowledge. God is omniscient. God is omnipotent.

That means he can do everything. The devil can't. He can do a lot, but he can't do everything.

And what is more, God is omnipresent. That means that wherever you are, God is. Nothing new from this pulpit for you to understand, but certainly new in the theologizing of the Hebrews in those days.

The Lord was with Joseph in Egypt, turned over to the hands of the Gentiles, and God is still with him, as God was still with his son when the Jews, his brothers, turned him over to Pilate and Herod and that mob. God is always with his children. The Lord was with Joseph.

It's C.H. Spurgeon who says that Scripture sums up a man's life with one sentence very often. Abraham believed God. And as soon as you get the words believed God, those of you who are aware of Scripture will automatically put the noun Abraham as the subject he believed God.

The apostle whom Jesus loved. Immediately you recognize John. The Lord was with Joseph.

It's a sort of miniature of Joseph, described by, painted out by the Holy Spirit. Now remember, when the Holy Spirit makes an assessment, he doesn't make it like I do or like you do about me. I read you.

Some of you I can read deeply because I know you more than others. But I have human frailty in my evaluation. Very often I'm conditioned by what I see of the outward appearance and that obtains in reverse fashion as far as you are concerned in your estimate of me.

But the Holy Spirit, he sees not only our outer form. He sees our inner heart. And the Holy Spirit writes a miniature of Joseph and says, The Lord was with Joseph.

Inside, outside. In the depths of his personality. At the lesser level of his outward performance.

The Lord was with Joseph. Here is Peter speaking in the household of Cornelius. He describes the amazing ability of a Jew who went about doing good.

Who performed miracles. And Peter says of Jesus, God was with him. Joseph, Jesus.

The Lord is with him. Joseph, son of Jacob. The Lord is with him.

In Egypt. As God is with you. In your school.

In your factory. Whether you go to the furthermost parts of the earth. Hear me, God is with you.

Hansens are moving to South France. And will be moving across ultimately from time to time. Doubtless to North Africa amongst the Muslims.

God is with them. God is with all his children. That's the remarkable thing about the New Testament.

With its promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit. And we become partakers of the nature of God. The Lord is with us.

The Lord was with Jacob. The Lord was with Joseph. The Lord was with Jesus.

You see, it's so necessary that you appreciate this. Because the thing that's going to make your life different from anyone else's. In your Egypt.

Is the Lord being with you. Now the experience in Egypt may be savage. As much as it was by shock at any rate.

At first encounter when Joseph found himself in that land of bondage. But if the Lord is with you. Then you can cope.

I don't say that you'll cope always with charismatic enthusiasm. But you will cope. And you'll have your high periods.

And the day will come. When the intermittent sunshine. Will become longer, longer patches of sunshine.

Until all the shadows go. And all the sunshine rains. Absolutely.

So the Lord is with Joseph in Egypt. And we discover. He prospers.

He prospers. Don't rush through that term too quickly will you. Actually the word is used of someone else.

In the prophecy of Isaiah. Describing our Lord Jesus Christ. As a suffering servant.

It talks about the prosperity that God gives the Lord Jesus. While he is on earth. And you wonder what that can possibly mean.

Because you're aware that he was hounded from pillar to post. He said foxes of holes. Birds of the air are better off than I am.

The son of man has not where to lay his head. But the Bible says Jesus prospered. He prospered in his spirit.

He prospered in his relationship with God. When he is bound before Caiaphas. I tell you that the man who knows less freedom than Jesus.

Is the high priest. When the brothers are with Jacob back home. Having deceived the father as to the death of Joseph.

I tell you they're more enslaved than the brother who is in Egypt. For they have a conscience that will always smite them. So it's possible to prosper.

In your Egypt. In whatever circumstances. Through which you're passing.

If and only if. The Lord is with you. It may be a severe mercy.

But mercy it is. And ultimately you'll agree with the preacher. Even if you don't immediately.

Behind a frowning providence. Coopers him. He hides.

A smiling face. Smile in Egypt. Joseph.

Never. And yet. And yet Joseph does ultimately smile.

As he works out the consequences. Of God being with him. In a strange land.

That must have opened his eyes as wide as saucers. Can you imagine? He's been in a shepherd environment. Miles and miles of open land.

His brothers have been looking after his father's sheep. He's been beloved of his father. Protected in degree perhaps too much.

And now Egypt. With its pantheon of gods. With its sphinx like creatures.

With the hieroglyphics on the temple wall. With a strange language. There he has to live out his faith in God.

If faith in God he really has. And he's going to prosper. He's going to prosper as that severe mercy.

Is turned to his advantage. What advantages can there be in Egypt? Well he's away from the hostility of his brothers. For starters isn't he? Hatred.

With the exception of Benjamin. That was the emotion directed towards him. Mockery.

The dreamer comes. As our Lord was mocked by his own. So Joseph was mocked by his own.

Perhaps the time had come within the economy of God. When he thought that young man had suffered enough. At the hands of his brothers.

So in Egypt at least. There's respite. No temptations taken you.

That is too great for you to be able to cope with. But God is faithful. And he might take you from.

One hostility. Into a situation that doesn't seem as though it could be an improvement. But in the middle of it.

You discover that some tension. Has been lifted. He may have many problems.

But he doesn't have the difficulty. Of his brothers to cope with does he? A severe mercy. God give you eye salve to be able to see.

That in the most untoward circumstance in your life you can discover. God's blessing coming. In one form.

Or another. He's away. From the hostility of his brothers.

Away from their mockery. Away from their slander. And what's more he's forced if you please into a sort of solitariness.

I don't say he's lonely. There's difference in meaning I believe. Between being lonely and being solitary.

On one occasion I think perhaps on several occasions from this pulpit. I've said that religion is sometimes defined in terms of what man does with his solitariness. Now in one sense it's not an exact definition.

But it does carve through a sort of false emotion that you may have imbibed. Merely in terms of congregational praise. Now hear me or else you'll misunderstand my comment.

I love congregational praise. The more praise the better as far as I'm concerned. The more participation.

But I've got an emotional nature and the last night of the proms I find moving. Britain's never never shall be slaves. Land of hope and glory all the lot.

It moves me. I mean you may not be like me but I am. I'm very patriotic.

I said patriotic not patriarchal. There is a difference. Young people.

When you're on your own you see. You have to carve out the reality of your religious experience because you're not depending on others. And Joseph is in Egypt.

Egypt. And he's in Egypt on his own. So what is his spiritual reputation going to be? And does it matter a fig anyway? I mean if he sneaks off down to the local bazaar.

And reads what he's not supposed to be reading or looking at what he's not supposed to be looking at. If in any way compromises it doesn't matter. There's no one to snitch on him.

I mean he's away from his fellowship isn't he? He's not some reputable clergyman who's got a sort of order about him. Some reputation to keep. And so that very act of wanting to maintain a reputation enables him to resist certain temptations.

You see there's only God and Joseph who really have any concerns as to how he's getting on. The Egyptians know nothing of this God in any case. Now it's good when at times you're pushed into a solitary situation.

Because that checks the mettle of the man or the woman doesn't it? How do you behave when you are on your own? And if God puts you out on your own sometimes without the benefit of your husband or your wife. Or maybe you're never married without the benefit of any Christian friend. Then how do you cope? You see that's a test.

Now you might mess it up at times. Well I've got a remedy from God's grace as far as that is concerned. But I'm sketching out an ideal situation.

Here is Joseph on his own. And in one sense it's a severe mercy. Because God has got a lot for Joseph.

But you see what God has for Joseph can never be until he's been tested in this area. You see you don't become a preacher by going to Bible college. You don't become a man of God by doing a crash course in a monastery.

A lady going into a convent. Let's get the right sexes to the right places. You become a man of God, a woman of God by how you behave on your own.

Not so. So very very vital. And here's a severe mercy.

He's forced on his own. How's he going to cope in Egypt? Well he's going to cope very well. Because he's a determined man.

He's without father, he's without mother, he's without houses, he's without lands. In one sense he's turned his back on that and the coat. And Jesus seems to suggest something like that in terms of discipleship.

Not so. If you love your mother or your father. Your wife, your brothers.

The land you control. The money in your bank. If you love all this more than you love me, you're not worthy to be my disciples.

Get rid of your attachment to those as number one. Now Joseph has. By force of circumstances.

And he comes through the test in a most remarkable fashion. Thus he's equipped by God for a position of leadership that few if any others will have in ancient history. Away from the hostility of his brothers.

He can enjoy benefits of solitariness. My good friend R.T. Kendall says. Many of us have never been brought to the place where we have needed God alone.

Some of you have. And I speak as a pastor. And I know how rough it is on some of you coming in here on a Sunday morning.

And listening to some of the songs that we sing. Not easy for you to sing them. You've been pushed on your own.

And you're working it through. Well here's a word. Joseph made it.

And so will you. For when you're on your own. God's quick to draw near.

Draw near to me. And I'll draw near to you. And in one sense.

Your very mercy. Severe though it be. Is a blessing.

To make you a man of woman. And a woman of God. Standing tall alone.

In the presence of God. Knowing the endowment. Of his spirit.

The third thing. Well let me tell you a story. An advert in the press.

Used it before this illustration because I got it from David Watson. But it's a couple of years ago so you'll have forgotten it. I hope.

Dog went missing. Advert in the paper. Dog with.

A bit out of his ear. Only got one eye. White patch on his.

On the side of his. The side of his coat. Walks with a limp.

Answers to the name Lucky. Something wrong there isn't there? I mean the. Most unfortunate name.

Some of you who don't believe that there was any version of the bible before the authorised. Let me tell you that there was. And verse 2 used to be translated.

I think it's in the Coverdale edition. The Lord was with Joseph and he was a lucky fellow. He was a lucky fellow.

Lucky? Slave? Been in a pit? Without his coat of many colours? Father gone. Little Benjamin who he loved with all his heart. His closest brother no longer around.

Lucky? Yes lucky. Because God was with him. And when Joseph starts to work for Potiphar.

Potiphar discovers the blessings. Of the day that Joseph was ever brought into his household. And very quickly.

Potiphar if I read the context. Or if I read deeply into the original of the verse 2. Very quickly Potiphar brings Joseph. From the slaves quarters.

And puts him in his own house. And everything that Joseph touches. It seems as though blessings come to Potiphar.

Because Joseph is around and Potiphar is a cute guy. He's the leader of the army. Those Egyptians were quite acute people you know.

And he can't really understand why it is that he's so blessed. And then he comes to the realisation. That his blessings are correlated with the time.

That Joseph came into his house. So Joseph starts to tell Potiphar. A little bit.

About. The God. Who he served.

Back there. In Palestine. You say how do I know that? Because in the 39th chapter.

You get with reference to Joseph and Potiphar. A word used for the Lord. Which the Jews.

Which the Egyptians would not have known. The word that is employed by Jews. For God is Yahweh.

Now the Egyptians had many, many gods. One god that they did not know. Was Yahweh.

But when references made to God in the 39th chapter. It's not just a general Hebrew word that's used. It's the emphatic name that declares the Lord.

The Lord God of Jacob and Abraham. How did Potiphar know this? Perhaps because Joseph was less reticent than you and I often are. In speaking up for God.

And told him a little bit. About his God. And Potiphar comes to a realization.

That he has a most remarkable man in his house. Now when you start to tell people about God. You've got a problem.

They may expect that you'll live differently as a result. Not so. Verse 2. The Lord was with Joseph.

Verse 3. When his master saw that the Lord was with him. Etc. When Potiphar saw all this.

Then he came to a realization. That he got a very good new member of his household. My time has gone.

I'll give you three last thoughts quickly. How did Joseph cope with this severe mercy? Well, he made the best out of the present. He wasn't always backtracking to the past, was he? Things as they might have been.

Learn from Joseph in this area, will you? What's more, he made his faith live. As Potiphar realizes. That there's something distinctive about Joseph.

Lastly. He never became an Egyptian. Did you hear that? He never became an Egyptian.

All the treasures of Egypt ultimately are paraded in front of him. I'm whizzing past a few events in his life. He's now Prime Minister of Egypt.

But he never becomes an Egyptian. Jesse Jackson. The most powerful sentence that he used in his speech.

At the Democratic Party's convention in the United States. Says, I was born in a slum. But the slum was not born in me.

Joseph went into Egypt. But Egypt was never in Joseph. He was bought by Egypt.

But he never bought Egypt. He remained distant from the society in which he lived so successfully. So at the end of his life, as he's got his kids in front of him.

He says, don't have my bones interred in the pyramid that Pharaoh has built for me. Take me back to Canaan. I am the son of Jacob.

My forefather is Abraham. I am part of the covenant that God enacted with Abraham. Centuries ago.

The God of Abraham. The God of Isaac. The God of Jacob.

Is my God. And he never defaults on that. He's never defective.

As far as his own spiritual, physical identity is concerned. He's a member of the chosen race. And he will live up to his last days as a Jew in Egypt.

And that's why the Lord was with him. And prospered him. And that's why I can say.

Even claiming prophetic ability this morning. And I match my words. That's why I can say for you, my dear friend.

However severe the mercy is. And to whatever part of Egypt God has placed you in. Assuming Egypt doesn't become a part of you.

You can know the blessings of God. In a remarkable fashion in your life. The Lord can be with you.

As he was with Joseph. For his honor. And for his glory.

God bless every brother and sister. In the tab right now. For whom your mercies are severe.

And may they know the encouragement. Of your hand. Upon them.

Keep them. And the preacher. Faithful.

Even when. It's hard to see your smiling face. Behind the frowning providence.

And this we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's stand and sing the doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. It's not the end of our time of worship. But helps us just to get into perspective what I've been saying.

And then we'll take a little break. And we'll come around the Lord's table. And my good friend and colleague Andrew.

Will help us as we break bread and drink wine together. For visitors you're more than welcome to be with us. This is still part of our morning service.

We'll be through by about 12.15. If you're worried about time for lunch. And what have you. Let's sing this doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Let us sing of rich and free. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Let us sing of rich and free.