Joseph No.4 A Time to Run

I will enter his gates with a kidney in my heart. I will enter his courts with praise. I will say this is the way that the Lord has made.

I will rejoice for he has made me glad. He has made me glad, he has made me glad. I will rejoice for he has made me glad.

He has made me glad, he has made me glad. I will rejoice for he has made me glad. Teach me thy way, O Lord.

Teach me thy way. Thy grace shall save the poor. Teach me thy way.

Thou leadest the poor around. Thou art great as our sight. Redeemer, help me not.

Teach me thy way. When thousands of years arise, Teach me thy way. When smoke doth spread the sky, Teach me thy way.

Shine through my sorrow and pain, Through sorrow, toil, and pain. Make thou my walking way. Teach me thy way.

Long as my life shall last, Teach me thy way. When my longing lasts, Teach me thy way. Until the race is done, Teach me thy way.

Psalm 105, reading at verse 17. God had sent down a famine, and it says, And he sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles.

His neck was put in irons. Till what he foretold came to pass, Till the word of the Lord proved him true. The king sent and released him.

The ruler of peoples set him free. He made him master of his household, ruler over all he possessed, to discipline his princes as he pleased, and to teach his elders wisdom. Now we're going to turn to the New Testament, 1 Peter, chapter 2. 1 Peter, chapter 2. 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verse 18.

Here we're reminded once again of how our Lord Jesus Christ was accused unjustly, and also some very challenging words there. We're supposed to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, but a tremendous standard has set us there. Follow that very carefully as I read these verses to you.

Verse 18, 1 Peter, chapter 2. Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. And when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate.

When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Amen.

And let's turn to the book of Genesis in chapter 39. You remember, Bob Mortimer read that whole chapter for us last week, and Ian has supplemented the story by referring to passages in Psalms and also in 1 Peter, which actually give you backup information about the character of Joseph and that particular quality of humility and obedience, the twin characteristics that he exhibited so well which really anticipated the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we come to this story of Joseph and his temptation.

It's part of a series of addresses that I'm giving here at the tab as we make our way through both in the morning and actually by coincidence also in the evening, Old Testament stories, incidents in the lives of great men of God who can speak to us in the 1980s. That, I believe, is my task, you see, the task of a preacher, to show you how this word is most unlike the Times or the Daily Mirror or any of the other quality or lacking in quality newspapers because, well, whatever paper you pick, it's out of date. Give it a week and you throw it out, don't you? In fact, probably you throw it out one day after you've read it.

You don't know that with the Bible. Why not? Well, it has a contemporaneous note. That means to say that it's up to date.

Generally speaking, God is always generally speaking. How? How does God speak to you? How does he speak to me? He speaks through his word. That's why you should treasure your Bible, both Testaments, old and new.

It's not the case that the Christian church just acknowledges the New Testament. We acknowledge both. Both are inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So we're looking into God's word, asking him to speak to us now from the character of Joseph. I was born in a slum, but the slum was not born in me. Remember the words? I quoted them.

My final shot last Sunday morning when dealing with the character of Joseph. Of course, it wasn't Joseph speaking. Far from that, the actual person who was speaking was Jesse Jackson.

We've got some folks just coming in from Italy. Come and join us right now at the front. We'll stop a moment and we'll fill you in.

Now I was referring, was I not, just as our friends joined us to that quotation from Jesse Jackson where he said, I was born in a slum, but the slum was not born in me. What he was, in effect, telling us is he set his sails to be perhaps the next President of the United States. As you know, he's not going to be because he didn't get the particular nomination from the Democratic Party Convention.

But what he was saying is that he kept himself immune from the situation into which he was born. Now Joseph, he finds himself in Egypt. He's there as a slave.

Not there because he wanted to go there. There because of the way his brothers had treacherously dealt with him and sold him. He was in Egypt.

But Egypt was not in Joseph. We see that he remained a Hebrew. He remained a follower of the Lord.

And when he's in Egypt, having suffered being a day or so or a night or so in a pit, some weeks elapse. He's in the employment of Potiphar. He is blessed in some degree, as I tried to show you.

And then within a matter of just days, weeks, months, I'm not sure, we've not got the timing built into the narrative, we find him again in prison. From the pit to the prison. And yet God still has his hand upon him.

As God has his hand upon you, whatever your circumstances might be. Victor Hugo once said this, Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned. Now I don't know whether that particular proverb that he put together had as its basis what you find in the 39th chapter of Genesis.

But the problem for Joseph was his reluctance to be, you recall, seduced by the wife of Potiphar. He's a young man and he resists her overtures. And as a result of that, he finds himself taken from Potiphar's household, carted off to an Egyptian jail, slammed into prison as he had been thrown into the pit.

And he is as innocent as a newborn babe of that particular charge. It doesn't always seem to be the case, does it, that the righteous are rewarded with the sort of wages that they might anticipate. That was the problem with the man in the 73rd Psalm, you recall.

God is good to Israel, but not to me. The ungodly prosper, but I've tried to be holy and pure. And look at my circumstances, look at the fallout.

You recall last week when I was dealing with this chapter, I quoted a letter from C.S. Lewis to one of his students at Oxford, in which relating to the death of the student's wife, Lewis said it was a severe mercy. And sometimes my young 17-year-old friend and my older 70-year-old friend, God deals with us in most mysterious ways. It doesn't always seem that people are rewarded in terms of the quality of the service that they have offered God.

That's why it's good that we look at this particular incident in the life of Joseph. He's silenced. He's deliberately silenced as he's thrown into jail.

Look, when our Savior is unearthed, he's very often mistreated. He's sometimes manhandled. And what the apostle Peter has to say about the Lord Jesus came out in the reading that Ian brought to us a few moments ago.

And Peter, as he's referring to the Lord Jesus and the way in which he remains silent when he was badly treated, Peter shows that that's an example for us. And so he says in the 20th verse of 1 Peter 2, How is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

In other words, the way Jesus reacted and behaved is the way that you and I ought to behave and react. Now in a very remarkable fashion, Joseph anticipates Jesus. He's badly treated.

But do you find an ounce of vindictiveness in his reactions? He's silenced. Put into jail. And yet he's no reason to be there.

And yet I would argue to you in regard to your circumstances as well as make deductions from his circumstances that there are times when you need to thank God that you can't respond to that which has been done against you, which you didn't deserve. You see, Joseph is now in prison. And it seems utterly impossible that he will ever be able to exercise a position of influence, let alone enjoy freedom again in his life, not so.

Now this is what I'm arguing. If you think it through carefully, God sometimes allows that sort of experience to come. He did it with the Lord Jesus.

He does it with Joseph. And maybe he's done it with you, where it seems impossible for him to act. God delights in an impossible situation.

What is impossible with man is possible with God. Remember how Mary was taught that lesson. And so here is Joseph in prison now for something that he has not done wrong in terms of a charge leveled against him.

And I say that behind Joseph is the sovereignty of the Lord. God, you see, to quote Oswald Chambers, is utterly undiscourageable. He will allow circumstances to come into your life so that he can show, even though it seems as though your circumstances are such in which he cannot work, to allow it to be proven that he's totally in control.

He's absolutely omnipotent. He's all powerful. Now let's try to examine, shall we, Joseph's method in coping with the situation that actually got him carted off into jail.

The first thing that I want to bring to your attention is this, that he esteemed his master. When you look at verse 8, those of you who have brought an Old Testament with you, part of your Bible with you, he says when part of his wife comes alongside and endeavours to seduce him, he says, with me in charge, 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. He esteems his master. Here is the temptation.

Take this woman. She's offering herself to you. But he won't do it because, as I say, he has an esteem for and values the trust of his master.

What is more, you will discover as you read through the chapter, he appreciates his own dignity. How can I do anything like this? No one is greater in this house than I am. If I do what you ask me to do, then I'll let myself down.

Do you appreciate that? That when you're tempted to sin and you acquiesce, you give in, you actually deny your own dignity. You let yourself down. Joseph is concerned not to do that.

What's more, you find that Joseph has a great understanding of the sanctity of marriage. My master does not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.

My master has withheld nothing from me except you. Why? Because you are his wife. Now, please try and concentrate.

I know there's been disturbances, but it'll be helpful if you just fasten your attention on what I'm trying to say. My master has withheld nothing from you except you because you are his wife. He's very concerned, although he lives many, many years before our Lord Jesus, to underpin his conviction in regard to the sanctity of marriage.

If I take what you're offering, then I am denying I believe in the sacredness of the marital union. And what's more, Joseph, in sizing up to the temptation of Potiphar's wife, is prepared time and time and time again to have the same temptation dangled in front of him and not to fall. You see, in one sense it's easy, or at least it's easier, the first time temptation comes, to resist it.

But then it comes again and again and again, constantly, day by day, Potiphar's wife is offering herself to him, and on each occasion, Joseph refuses what she offers. Not so easy on the second time or on the third time. But here is this most remarkable man.

Now, we're not dealing with someone who's 70 years of age. That's why I gave in my illustration a little while ago the age span of 17 to 70. This sort of temptation is much more difficult when you're 17 than 70.

He's on his own, remember? And what she's offering him, well, it's going to be done in privacy. And what's more, she is Potiphar's wife, therefore her influence over her husband and Potiphar's influence over Pharaoh might work to the good of Joseph. There's such a lot to be gained by compromising in this private situation because you might enhance yourself and bring about your own freedoms.

It's so logical, isn't it? But you see, here's a man, a young man, with a principle that's built into his life. He respects what belongs to another. You commit adultery and you are stealing.

That's why I have great suspicion about leaders in our country who say that their private life is of no concern to those who they lead. I think that's daft. If a person has not integrity in his private life, then he has no right to lead us in his public life.

Don't misunderstand me. Private misdemeanor can be repented of and confessed and you can be reset in the area of service. But those who will ride roughshod on private principles and then claim to lead our country, I think we could do without their assistance.

Joseph is a man of utter integrity. He won't take what belongs to Potiphar because he respects him. And what's more, if he lets himself down, then he loses his dignity.

He's got no self-respect. And furthermore, if he compromises in this area, then the whole basis of marriage, as he understands it, also is in jeopardy. How different, refreshingly so, is Joseph's attitude to those of his brothers whose story, a disgusting one, is recorded in the previous chapter.

Now look, Joseph's an exception and it's hard and it's tough today. This is why we're in with the story of Joseph. I know what it's like at Sixth Form College.

I've got an idea what it's like in nursing homes and institutions. In these days, by nursing homes, I mean where nurses actually live. I know the standard of morality in our universities.

I'm not saying that everyone has sold themselves into promiscuity, but I am saying that the biblical ethic is clung onto by a minority of people. So what is necessary today in Italy, as it is in the United Kingdom, is for men and women with the tenacity, with the mettle of Joseph, to stand up and say no. There are situations in which I will not involve myself because it cuts against what I know to be the teaching of God.

Look at Joseph's reactions to his temptation as he applies his principles. Though this woman comes at him time after time, he rejects her advances. Verse 10, And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to her, to bed with her, or even to be with her.

Now that's the punchline. Not her advances, but him getting out of the way so that the frequency of the temptation is reduced to a minimum. You see, some of us today are handling stuff that we cannot really cope with.

You say, what do you mean? Well, the Bible says, Make no provision for the flesh. If you're reading stuff and seeing stuff that is corrupting you, then for God's sake, distance yourself from the stuff as much as you can. It's not possible 100%, but it is possible in degree.

You know the sort of situation that tempts you. Occasionally, you'll find yourself into it by coincidence. Then you claim the covering of God.

But you put yourself into the way of temptation deliberately, and you're on your own. Daniel has safety in the lion's den because he got chucked in. He didn't volunteer.

You volunteer into a tempting situation, and I tell you, the Lord's not with you. You see what Joseph does here and respond to the example that he says. He reduces the amount of social intercourse that there is with this woman, and that infuriates her.

And then in his method, he's not frightened to show a clean pair of heels. This dates me when I was a lad. They had at the top of the pops or moving on towards what was the equivalent of that in the 1940s.

A little refrain. Some of you who remember the Second World War will recall this. Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run.

Remember? Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun. He'll get by without that rabbit pie. So run, rabbit, run, run, rabbit, run, run, run, run.

There's good theology at times, my friends, in running. The Bible talks about fleeing from the devil. And here is Joseph and this woman's has taken the time when she's completely in privacy, just her and this slave who she lusts after.

She grabs his outer garment and he runs. He gets out of the way. But that wasn't the greatest temptation, was it? You say it was? No, it wasn't.

Look, the greatest temptation for Joseph wasn't when he was with Potiphar. The greatest temptation is when he finishes up in jail. Now think it through.

Shake your heads. Get the old wheels going at the back of your mind. You see, he has done everything honorably, hasn't he? And he does believe in the sovereignty of God.

He's got his principles. He's worked through his principles, as I've tried to show you. I isolated for you what his standard of belief is.

I showed you how he put those beliefs into practice. Now you would imagine that God would remarkably and miraculously deliver him not only from Potiphar's wife, but he would preserve comfortable circumstances for Joseph in which to live for the next few months or years, for that matter. But he finishes up in jail.

Now this is the biggest temptation, you see, for a young man. The man in the pit becomes the man in the prison. And as I say, he's utterly innocent.

Would he not therefore be tempted to say that it doesn't pay to be a righteous person? I think that the thought must have crossed his mind. But he rejected it because it comes from the devil. You know, in the reading that Ian brought in Psalm 105, there is, in the authorized version, the translation that Joseph entered into iron or his feet entered into iron.

It could be translated, his soul entered into iron. F.B. Myers suggests that you could invert that and say this, iron entered into his soul. Do you know what I most want to be? Now this will perhaps sound as though I'm trying to be pious and make an impression upon you, but it's not as God is my judge, my objective.

I would love to be, more than anything else, a holy man. I've watched holy men, inverted commas, in India. A great esteem has Hinduism for holy men, but holy men very often actually are a bundle of contradictions out there.

But I can understand the average primitive Indian's concern for holiness. Wouldn't you like to be holy? Utterly holy. I'm on the road, but I'm not moving at the speed that I want to move.

But I tell you my objective is to be, as God bears me witness, holy. Now the only way in which I can be holy, the only way in which you can be holy, is for you and me to be toughened up by the Lord. Now here is Joseph, and he's had a fairly easy life earlier on.

Not so. He's the beloved son of his father. He's got this ornamental coat which brings such great problems for him.

In one sense, he's had a sheltered life. I think that's how we would put it, wouldn't we? And God's got his hand upon this man because God works at both ends. He sees not only what Joseph is, but what Joseph is going to be.

Now if he's going to be what God wants him to be, there's got to be a training process. There has got to be iron injected into the soul of Joseph. And here is Joseph from the pit into the prison with just a little interlude in which he's known God's blessings.

Why? Why does God allow that? Because God is concerned to fashion that man in such a way that he can become the second most important person in the world and be the savior of his brothers and his father and thus continue the establishment of the Jewish nation. When God wants to drill and to train a man, he sometimes uses some drastic surgery in order to bring the metal into his soul. It was said of our Lord Jesus, he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.

You see, you might well say, if you hurriedly read this story, that Joseph is out of the frying pan, the pit, into the fire, the prison. At the human level, that seems a fair deduction, but that's not exactly the case. Joseph is now where he is in prison so that he might emerge from that prison with a greater conception of God.

You see, remarkable things happen when Joseph was first in Egypt, not so? I mean, he's bought by Potiphar, that seems to be a stroke of luck, and when he ministers for Potiphar, this man is blessed in all his household, and Joseph becomes the chief, although he's still a slave. Verse 2 tells us the Lord was with Joseph and he prospered and lived in the house of his master. But wasn't that just coincidence, Joseph, you know? Just a turn of events.

You know, there you were as a slave and it all seemed very awkward in the marketplace of Alexandria, and then, well, Potiphar bought you and he was kind to you and his house was blessed and so he made you one of the best, one of the first in his household, but it was all just a little bit of chance. Could he do it again? Could he have Joseph, not in prison, but not in a pit, but perhaps worse, in a stinking Egyptian dungeon? And could he manipulate circumstances to the extent that Joseph might yet have a future? If he did it again, then would it not underline in Joseph's young mind that this great God of Jacob and Abraham, his God, has a good intention towards him in the fallout of his life? I was at a concert on Wednesday in London. It was a sort of who's who occasion.

I only got in by close friends who invited me there. Prince Charles was there. Some of the members of the cabinet were there.

I literally came eyeball to eyeball with Edward Heath. I thought if there's any occasion in which I wanted to sort of get into Mrs. Thatcher's good books, well, not with Edward Heath, but if there's any way in which I was going to get into her good books, you know, this was the sort of situation. Not the next person, and you're talking to somebody who was influential.

It was quite an interesting evening. A wonderful concert, too. I don't know whether the governor of Pentonville Prison would have been there.

If he had been, I don't think I'd have wanted to have met him. Edward Heath may have been able to help me in degree, but not the governor of Pentonville Prison. God moves in a mysterious way.

There's one man at this point who can actually help Joseph, the governor of the prison, that's all. So Joseph finds himself, inverted commas, finds himself in prison, and when he is in prison, would you believe it, verse 20, while Joseph was there, verse 21, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warder, as he did with Potiphar, so he does with the governor of the prison.

And as a result of that, God triggers a process which shall lead to the emancipation of Joseph and ultimately his promotion as the second most influential person in the Egyptian empire. Now stay with me just a couple of minutes more. You see, the obedience to which Ian Taylor referred in his children's talk is an obedience that God wants from you and me.

It's an obedience which is enshrined and raised to the height in the person of our Lord Jesus. Now when Jesus was done to death on the cross for your sins and mine, that wasn't the end of the story, no? He was raised again. When he was raised again, to whom did he appear? Have you ever thought that? Could I just be almost crazy for a moment in an analogy? Imagine it's you.

You've been raised again and you were very damnably treated. People did you foul. Wouldn't you have the sneaking suspicion it would be nice just to reappear to them and to put the fear of death into them? Right? Caiaphas, get even with him.

Pilate sought him out. He should have listened to his wife. And so on and so forth.

But when Jesus reappears, the blessed Christ with all the love and obedience that he has for the Father and concern for his own, he appears to his brethren. He doesn't go to Caiaphas and Annas and sort them out and say, look how you dealt with me, now let's get even. That's never the way with the Lord Jesus.

He died the just for the unjust. He died not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. And what about Joseph? Ransack the pages.

He's now prime minister. Who would be the most embarrassed person in the whole of the Egyptian empire? Well, my option is Potiphar's wife. I wouldn't have liked to be in her shoes, would you? But there's not an element of vindictiveness in the story.

You see, God's got his hand on the most remarkable man. He'll take him from the pit to the prison. He'll put iron in his soul.

And when he carries the full cup of success, he'll not spill a drop. He'll only pour it out in the honor and the glory, for the glory of his God. Now if that was the same for Joseph, should it not also be indeed it was for Jesus? Should it not also be for you? Lord, forgive me the many times when you've dealt with me and I haven't had the patience and the consistency of Joseph and I brought in hurried, inaccurate conclusions.

Teach me, Father, when to run, when to show a clean pair of heels, and should I go from pit to prison, help me to understand that all things, all things in my life ultimately work for my good and are part of the training process that you have predestined in your love for me. Lord, give me the same maturity as Jehovah Jesus. Amen.

370, not a hymn that we often sing. ¶¶ ¶ In the morning light ¶ Till the evening light ¶ His power, his love released ¶ In weakness healed ¶ By love like a stone ¶ So life shall cease ¶ His love still ¶ Can end us all ¶ In death the healing has come