Genesis 42. Genesis 42. I'm just going to read the first 28 verses. I used to think I could get the whole chapter through, but I've learned it's not always possible to squeeze everything in, in one shot. But we'll see if we can get these first 28, or maybe even a little further tonight. Now, bear in mind, as we enter chapter 42, that Joseph has been twenty-two years now in Egypt. Twenty-two. You say, how do you know he's twenty-two? Well, he went down at seventeen, and he was thirteen years before he became prime minister. And then there are seven years of plenty, so there's twenty. And then his brothers came up the second year of the famine, so there's your twenty-two. So it's maybe 22, maybe 23, but in and around that time, he's been away from his family. He hasn't seen his father. He hasn't seen his brothers in over two decades. And now it is going to be the great reunion. And this is going to be one of the greatest tests of Joseph character. How will he handle his brothers? Now he has the power over them. And he has the possibility and the opportunity to take revenge, to hurt them the way they hurt him. And this is going to test his character. He's also going to be tested by the emotional ties. Will he just open his heart and reveal who he is? so he can circumvent any further conversations with them and get to see his father as soon as he can? And his brother Benjamin, will he put Joseph first, his feelings, his natural desires, or will Joseph be wait and let God lead him? Remember, God has appointed him as a prophet, and he's going to lead this home. He's going to be the patriarch. And will he take up that responsibility of leading his brothers to repentance before there can be a reconciliation? Well, we'll see it in this chapter, how he handles it. It says, Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt, Get ye down thither and buy for us from thence, that we may live and not die.' And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob said not with his brethren, for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land. And he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them. And he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said from the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And then this verse nine is really going to be the key verse, because it's going to tell us the motivation of Joseph, what's guiding him in his conduct with these 10 brothers. It says, and Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them. Doesn't say he remembered the hurt that they inflicted upon him. This wasn't motivating him in his response to them. It was the dreams that God had revealed to him when he was just a boy down in Canaan, that one day he would lead the home and even his brothers and his parents would bow down before him, that God had revealed. It was God's word that was going to guide Joseph. in his conduct here. And he said unto them, Ye are spies, to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food, for are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons, we are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. Behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved. By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother. And ye shall be kept in prison, that your words be proved, whether there be any truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh's churley ye are spies." And he put them all together into ward three days. Joseph said unto them the third day, This do and live, for I fear God." Well, Joseph gives them a little hint just to get their consciences and their minds thinking about truth and why they're there. Doesn't want them to start to think that maybe it's luck, bad luck or fate. He brings God. He says, I fear God. If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Go ye carry corn for the famine of your house. and bring your youngest brother unto me, so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die.' And they did so. They said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against a child, and ye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required. And they knew not that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from them, and wept, and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill out their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision back for the way. And thus did he unto them. And they laded their asses with the corn and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money. For behold, it was in his sack's mouth, And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored, and, lo, it is even in my sack. And their heart filled them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? In fact, the Hebrew word there that's used is one that means they began to shake, tremble. these hardened men, men who had shed blood without a thought, men who had massacred men, women, and children, men who had committed acts of gross immorality, men who had lied and deceived and stolen for years, God now begins to work on them, and they begin to shake as God begins to turn their world upside down. And in this chapter, we're going to see a very moving account of how Joseph faces his brother. Remember, Joseph had been forsaken by these boys. He'd been hated by these brothers. They'd even talked in front of him of murdering him. And then because it suited their pockets, they sold him into slavery and ignored him for the next 22 years. And it would be very easy for Joseph in such circumstances, particularly having then been betrayed by Potiphar's wife and then neglected by the chief butler. for two or three years, for Joseph to become a bitter man, a hard man, a cynical man. What we're going to discover in this chapter is that the 22 years that God worked on Joseph, through the crises, through the disappointments, through the trials, didn't make his heart hard. Instead, it made him a better person, instead of a bitter person. And although these brothers thought they had got away with it, maybe they'd stopped even talking about Joseph. And by 22 years had passed. God hadn't forgotten. And God had a plan to bring these men to the place that they didn't want to go. They probably thought of all the places in the world. The one place we don't want to go is Egypt because it reminds them of their sin and what they had done to their brother. But you see, God has a way of getting people where he wants them. In his time, and in his way, even though they don't want to go, God sends them to the very place to be confronted by their brother. And even the word Egypt, when old Jacob said it in verse two, he says in verse one, why do you look one upon, he says, why are you looking at one another? Have you ever heard people talking like that? Well, we're just looking around you, looking at each other. We're starving. The family's going to die. We've got money in our pockets, but we've no food in the larder. There's no food in the field. And old Jacob says to them, don't just stand around looking at one another. He says, go down to Egypt, of all the places. It must have put a shiver down their spine. Jacob says, get you down hither that we may live and not die. This is a matter of life or death. This is an existential crisis for our family. And these 10 boys, 10 men, set up on this 250 mile round trip. Probably took them about six weeks, the journey. to go to the one place on earth they didn't want to go, down to Egypt. And no doubt the famine would have shaken their confidence, and then their father sending them to Egypt would have unnerved them. And all through that six-week journey, three weeks there, three weeks back, I'm sure in their own thoughts as they gone through the desert and through that rugged terrain, They must have thought of Joseph, must have thought about what they had done to him, at least on more than one occasion on such a long journey. And when they get to Egypt, God is going to uncover their sin in a most unlikely way, a way that they never would have expected. For the last place they expect to meet Joseph will be in the prime minister's palace. That will be the last place. The last person they expected to be second in command of Egypt would be their brother Joseph. And when they get there, that's exactly who they meet. It says the sons of Joseph, they came in, and Joseph was governor. But look what happens in verse 6. It says, and Joseph's brethren came. Coincidence? To the very place that Joseph was? Of all the people that came down to buy corn in Egypt, is it a coincidence that Joseph was there? No. God was working. God was direct. God was pushing them down the road they didn't want to go, to the place they didn't want to go, to meet the person they wouldn't have wanted to meet. Joseph. And when they get there, notice their reaction. They bow down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. Now, you might have read that portion and thought, so what? What does that mean? Well, if you go back a few chapters, chapter 38, 37, sorry, when Joseph was seized by his brothers, verse 20 of chapter 37. It says, just to jump into the story, come thou therefore, and this is all of them talking, and let us slay him, cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him. So they already had planned this. They even came up with a lie to tell their father. These were men that just could murder and lie their own flesh and blood without even being any concern, not a twinge of conscience. And then notice their real agenda. What was really sticking in their throat about Joseph? What really irritated them? It says in verse 20, and we shall see What will become of his dreams? In other words, they say, well, we'll see if this God is really capable of sending these dreams, if it really can be fulfilled. What do we discover 22 years later? What was the dream? That they would fall down before Joseph. 22 years later. Genesis chapter 42. And verse 6 tells us, the same 10 brethren, boys, who said, we'll see, we'll see what kind of a dream this is. We'll shake our fist to God, no chance of us ever bowing down before Joseph. The same 10. who boasted in their pride in Genesis chapter 37, fell down at the feet of Joseph. In fact, it says they fell down such a point, it says, they bowed before him with their faces toward the earth. Can't get any lower. Didn't just nod the head. They got down and they put their faces to the ground in utter submission to Joseph. And as I pointed out in the reading, verse 9, Joseph remembered. He knew God was working to fulfill these dreams, that God was a God who could be trusted, that God had kept his promise through these dreams all those years ago in Egypt. Now, these men didn't recognize Joseph. No surprise. He was just a teenager when they last saw him. Now he's dressed like an Egyptian. He's a fully grown man. Probably his head hair is all shaved off and his beard shaved off like the Egyptians. He speaks the Egyptian language. He dresses like an Egyptian prime minister. He speaks through an interpreter and probably there's a distance between them and him. So they don't recognize him. He recognizes them because they haven't changed as much in the 22 years, maybe got a bit grayer, but they're still wearing the same dress. They're still talking the same language as he would have known them 22 years before. And of course he was looking out for them. They weren't looking out for him. in such a place. And when these 10 came together, Joseph immediately knew them. And he knew what he had to do in order to have a true reconciliation with them. Because Joseph had a number of options here. Number one, he could have just taken revenge. He could have had them thrown into prison. He could have had them tortured. He could have had them murdered and no one would have known. And even if anybody in Egypt did know, Joseph was in such a position of power that no one would have cared. In fact, many people would have approved. They'd have said, well, they deserve it. That's a wise thing to do, Joseph, take vengeance on them, make them pay. But also, as I said earlier, he could have just revealed himself to them and then mocked them, gloated over them, said, huh, 22 years ago, You humiliated me, now I'm going to humiliate you. 22 years ago, you laughed at my dreams. You're not laughing now. Could have done that. Another thing he could have done, he could have just revealed himself to them and said, I forgive you. Let's be friends. Let's go home and meet Dad and Benjamin. But you see, if he had done that, he would have missed the opportunity of leading these boys, these hardened sinners, to repentance. And Joseph was always a man from young to old who loved his family. Loved them to the point that he always wanted them to walk with God. And even if it meant Joseph giving up, sacrificing and losing out, he was always willing to pay the price for the greater good. That's why when his father told him to go down and visit his brothers when they were away in Dothan, Joseph never complained. And even when he got to Dothan and they weren't there, and he discovered they'd gone to Shechem, he went all down to Shechem. Everything Joseph did was for his family. And you see that all the way through the book of Genesis. He cared about them. He loved them. He wanted to see them right with God. So the other option that was left to Joseph was to hide his identity temporarily and use the circumstances that providence had now placed him in. and the talents and the gifts that God had given him to lead these brothers to the place of repentance of sin. And what you're going to see in these verses, as Joseph works on these men, he's not trying to hurt them just for hurt's sake. He's not just trying to humiliate them for humiliation's sake. Everything Joseph does here is calculated. No doubt he prayed much. and ask God for wisdom to lead him in handling these hardened sinners so that he could lead them to the place of repentance. And the amazing thing is, if you read this whole section carefully, Joseph succeeds because he does it the right way. He does it God's way. And by the end of the story, Joseph and his brothers are truly reconciled. and his brothers are truly repented for what they did to him. And although, as I say, from a selfish point of view, this is going to be difficult for Joseph to do this, he does it because of his love and his care for them. Now, Joseph immediately speaks harshly to them. Verse 9, and he says, You're spies. Now, what's he trying to do? He's trying to unnerve them, trying to shake their confidence. They're already unnerved. They're out of Canaan, their environment that they grew up in. They're in a foreign country. They're in a famine. They're there knowing this is their last opportunity to save the lives of their own families, getting food. They're in the midst of a famine. They're in the desperate situation. So Joseph knows they're unnerved. And then they're brought before the second most powerful man in the Egyptian empire. How unnerving is that for 10 shepherds from Cana, who speak a different language, who are looked down upon by the Egyptians. They must have felt inferior. And Joseph's going to use all of those things to shake them out of their self-confidence, to make them think of what they have done in their lives and the sins that they have committed. And he speaks harshly to them. No doubt what he's doing is he's imitating the way they spoke to him. They spoke to their father. A man in authority now is speaking harshly to them and that's going to unnerve them because they know They need to impress this man. They need to get food for their families. And then not only does he speak harshly to them, he makes a false accusation against them. You're spies. Well, that must have unnerved them even more. And they begin to try and plead with him. And they said, verse 13, thy servants are 12 brethren. Start to reveal personal information. You get a sense that they're really desperate. And he says, the sons of one man in the land of Egypt, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father. And one is not. It's how they spoke of Joseph. They didn't even want to say his name. So one's dead, one's gone. And Joseph says, no, you're spies, verse 14. And he says, hereby, he says, I'm going to prove you. And he says, here's going to be the test. He says, one of you is going to go back and bring the younger brother. Well, if they didn't want to go down to Egypt in the first place, there's one thing worse than that for them, going back to Canaan and telling their father, Benjamin has to come to Egypt. Oh, that's the worst. I'm sure when Joseph said that, they must have said to themselves, why did we tell him of impengement? Because the one thing they didn't want to do is go back to old Jacob and say, that boy, the last son of Rachel, he also must come to Egypt. And I'm sure they could anticipate already the objections by their father and the anger of their father towards them. And he says, the rest of you will be kept in prison, that your words may be proved. Oh, this is going to be a real test of their integrity and their honesty, and also their loyalty to their father and to their brother. Because the one who'd be sent back could just stay back, couldn't he? In Canaan, not come back for the rest. But Joseph puts them into prison. But before he puts him into prison, well he puts him into prison first. And what's he doing there? He's trying to give them a little foretaste of what they did to him. It's like an object lesson. Everything that's happening here is all calculated to awaken their conscience, awaken their minds of what they did to Joseph all those years before. And then just to add a little more ingredient into the mix. Joseph says in verse 18, this do and live, and he says, for I fear God. Wow, what words to come out of this prime minister of Egypt, I fear God. And he says, if you be true, that one of your brethren, he changes his mind, verse 19. Now some people ask, why did Joseph suddenly change? He said previously, one goes back and brings Benjamin, The rest stay in the prison. Then he puts him in prison for three days. Now, at the end of the three days, he just says, I fear God. And then he changes his mind. He says, only one will stay. The rest will go back. Now, some people think he did that because he was just being gracious to his father out of kindness. I don't think so. I think that was his motive. I think probably he does this because he wants the drama to exemplify what happened to him. If you remember, they were going to kill him and then suddenly they changed their minds and sold him as a slave. And again, he's trying to unnerve them. He's trying to remind them. He's trying to awaken their conscience without telling them, I'm Joseph. He's trying to get them to think of what happened to Joseph. So that when they start to play this over in their minds on the in the prison for three days, and then on the journey home, they're going to be reminded over and over and over again, be sure your sin will find you. The finger of God has uncovered what you've done. And notice what happens in verse 21. Exactly What Joseph had hoped, no doubt had prayed and planned, happened with these brothers. Because without any prompting from him, it says, they said one to another. They began to talk. What are they talking about? We are verily guilty concerning our brother. Exactly what Joseph hoped and prayed began to happen. Shows the wisdom of Joseph and how he handled this. The care and the blessing of God that came in his approach here. Because these brothers started to think, maybe for the very first time in 22 years, of what they had done to Joseph. And it says, we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. They began to confess what they had done, one to another. Therefore is this distress come upon us. So they said, what is happening here in Egypt is not bad luck. It's not coincidence. This is the finger of God uncovering our sin. We're reaping what we sowed. Now bear in mind, these are hard men. These are men who murdered a whole race of people previously, a whole city of men, women, and children, and never thought anything of it. Reuben himself was a man of immorality, never thought anything of it, never repented of it. And now these men are starting to shake. and starting to speak of the sins that they had done in the past towards Joseph. And then Reuben speaks up, verse 22, and he says, Speak I not unto you. Do not sin against the child. Oh, Reuben's bringing the word sin up. He says, this wasn't just an act of betrayal. This wasn't just a foolish decision. This was sin that you committed against our brother. And he uses the word, the child. He was just a child. And you sinned against him. And you would then to add salt into the wound or rub salt into the wound. Reuben says this. Behold, also his blood is required. Wow. Strong words, wasn't it? Powerful words. And you notice they don't argue with Reuben. I find that very interesting. No one says, shut up Reuben, who are you to talk? Who are you to preach? No, they knew they were guilty. And these hardened sinners, by their silence, are accepting that they'd sinned against Joseph and sinned against Joseph's God. Now they're not quite Right, they're not quite there yet. So Joseph's still gonna keep this test going. Because he wants to know, have they changed in their attitudes towards him and Benjamin, the sons of Rachel? Is there still jealousy latent in their hearts? So the test needs to go on a little further. He also needs to test, whether their hearts are still coveting wealth and riches. Is that their God? So he sends them home. But as he sends them home, he understood what they were talking about. The Bible says he turned aside and wept. That tells us his heart was not hard towards them, it was soft. And notice who he chooses to be the one. Out of the 10 brothers that are there, he chooses Simeon. Now, why did he choose Simeon? What was he trying to say? What was he trying to do when he chose Simeon? Well, if you know the family line, the family tree, Judah was the oldest, or sorry, Reuben was the oldest. And who was next? Simeon. And who just spoke up in defense of Joseph? Reuben. Who was the one who tried to save Joseph's life? Reuben. And even the other brothers had to accept it. They knew that they had gone behind Reuben's back and sold him as a slave. So Joseph makes a very pointed statement to them. He says to Reuben, you can go. But number two, Simeon, you'll go to the prison. And I'm sure as they went back down to Canaan those three weeks, they would have been thinking, why did he choose Simeon? and Scrubin. Did God show this Prime Minister of Egypt? Remember he said, I fear God. Did God show him that the guilty one, the next one down in the leadership and the family, was Simeon, the representative of the rest? And he puts Simeon in prison. bowing, and he has him bowing before their eyes, just to shake their confidence even more. He has Simeon taken away, arrested in front of them. How frightening that must have been. And then he returns their money, sends them back with their corn, and hid their money, and they departed. But then verse 27 tells us, as they went along the journey. And this is going to be a test of their honesty. What were they going to do with this money? Will they admit to Jacob when they get home about the money? Or will they say, well, we'll just put this in our own pockets and tell dad the money's gone? Will they come back to Egypt and tell the truth to him that the money was in their sacks? It's going to be a test. Is money still their god? How wise this man Joseph is. how clever he is, how careful he is in how he thought through all of these things. He used every lever that God had given him to prick their conscience, to awaken their memory. And it says, they opened, one of them, verse 27, his sack. And as he opened, he said to his brothers, verse 28, My money is restored, and lo, it is even in my sack. And what happens? It says their heart failed. They almost like had a heart attack. They failed. They just collapsed. After all the stress and strain of the famine, then the journey to Egypt, and then facing Joseph, and then being put in prison for three days, and then this man speaking to them, I fear God, and then, Reuben saying to them, you're guilty of the blood of your brother, and then Simeon being snatched away from them. This is the last straw. They begin to really crumble now. Now these are strong men. Let me emphasize this again. These are hard, strong sinners. These are men that if you had seen A year or two before, you said, these men could never be right with God. These men are just some of the most wicked men on the earth. They're just like the Canaanites. They're like the worst of the pagans. And in many ways, they were. But God's going to find a way to reach them at a time they didn't expect, in a place they didn't anticipate. And you know, there's good news for all of us here as we read this chapter, because if God could get through to these 10 men, there's no one in Lorne he couldn't get through to. There's no one in your family circle he couldn't get through to. And sometimes it takes 22 years. It takes a lot of crisis before God gets through to them. But make no mistake, God can get through to them in the end. You say, how do you know? Read verse 20 at the end of it. It says, their hearts failed them, and they were afraid. They began to shake. But you know, there's a lot of people who get afraid of things in the Christ. Get bad news, but they don't think of God. But notice the words that they now speak. And notice these words, they've never used before. Especially the other nine. Reuben, we saw, brought up about sin, and he brought up about the blood of their brothers—of their brother, sorry—being on their own head. But the other nine have not yet mentioned God in this story. God's not part of their lives. They've been living their lives the way they want to live their lives, without God, in open defiance of God. But notice what they say now. And notice it says, they began to say one to another. This was not just one of them. This was all 10 of them now. And what do they say? What is this that God hath done unto us? Maybe you're listening to me tonight. You've a son, a daughter, grandson, and you're saying, well, I just don't know what's going to get through to them. Just be patient. Keep praying. Keep waiting. Because someday, somewhere, sometime, God will speak to them. And when he speaks to them, they'll know it. And they'll even use words like this. What is this God has done to me? Well, God can do wonderful things in his time and in his way. And wasn't Joseph so wise to be so patient and wait until These men were willing to talk like this. Next time when we come back, we're going to see what's Jacob's reaction going to be. It's sad to say, Jacob should have been alert when these boys came home, that they were different. He should have been discerning, like Joseph was discerning, that something was changing in their hearts and in their minds and in their attitudes. But sad to say, like many believers, Jacob is only consumed with Jacob. And he's given a golden opportunity here to really lead his sons to repentance. And he doesn't do it. In fact, Jacob's going to engage in a little whine-a-thon, pity party. And instead of pointing his sons to God, he points them away from God and to Jacob. But we'll see that next time. But as I close, let me just say this. As we go to prayer this evening, and no doubt many here have burdens, As I said about loved ones, neighbors, friends, corporate colleagues, pray that God would shake up their life. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, pray that God would step in and make them think about God and make them begin to say, I see the finger of God in my life. God can do it. If he reached these ten, he can reach your family. He can reach your neighbor. We have people sitting in this room tonight that two years ago no one would ever have thought would be saved. Never mind in a prayer meeting. Never mind lead other people to Christ. But God can do wonderful things if you just let him do his work. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for even the story of Joseph, what we have learned about the wisdom of God and the patience of God. We thank you how Joseph was willing to give up his rights. What meekness he showed here. This was not a temper tantrum or a jealous rage or vengeance that he was inflicting on his brothers who had done him so much harm, but no, this was Joseph with a heart that beat with the heart of Jesus in love and compassion, but also wisdom. in handling these ten hardened brothers. And we thank you that he was able, by the grace of God, to lead them to the place where they even had to acknowledge this is the hand of God. Lord, help us to have the same wisdom in how we deal with our erring friends and relatives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.