911 Biblical Characters - Joseph & His Brothers
Exploring Biblical Characters • Sermon • Submitted
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5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
- When God challenged Cain about his depression, He made it clear that there was not only one person to come out badly
- Others are impacted as well
- Not only was Cain unhappy that God rejected his offering, but Abel bore the brunt of it & was killed by Cain
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.
- Cain had every opportunity to not turn from the Lord over the choices the Lord makes
- But Cain decided that he was going to make it all about himself
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- For some people, they cannot let God’s choices be God’s
- The Jews couldn’t accept that God would turn to the Gentiles & welcome them into His kingdom
- For the Jews it was all about them & not about God
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- Eliab, David’s brother, couldn’t accept that his shepherd brother was being raised up by God to defeat the Philistine, Goliath
- In his jealousy, he disparaged David as insolent & having wickedness in his heart & only wanting to be entertained by watching the battle
- In Eliab’s fear, & in his lack of confidence in God, he lashes out at the one who would be God’s choice to defeat the Philistines
- He made the situation all about him & in his reaction, reflected the emotions & failures of his own heart
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- King Saul couldn’t accept that God was raising up David to be King of all Israel
- In Saul’s depression, he became irrational, vengeful & spiteful & threw a spear at David to try & pin him to the wall
- He made a relentless pursuit of David to try & get rid of him
- Saul made the position of God & the work of God all about him & when it didn’t go his way, he sank into depression & sought to control & oppose what God was doing
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- God doesn’t always choose me or you for certain things that He is doing
- Unless we take heed from the message in the very early part of Genesis, we will, like Cain make our life before God all about “me”
- The inevitable result of self-focus is depression, because life becomes all about me & not God
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- As a Christian, it is clear that when we turned to Christ, we died
- Self is dead – but if it keeps raising its ugly head & has you thinking that this is my life, then we are betraying what really happened in our baptism – which is our coming to Christ in faith
- Paul makes it clear that when we become a Christian…
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
- He goes on to say
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
- When we don’t accept our crucifixion with Christ, we will continue to make life about ourselves & not God
- That is not the path of discipleship, nor the path of joy which is the heritage of the Christian
- If you are not on the path to Christ, you are on the path of sin, because living faithfully to Christ is not about being a nice guy or gal, its about living for Christ in faithfulness to Him
1. When Joseph Offends His Brothers
1. When Joseph Offends His Brothers
- We see, in this account today of the selling of Joseph into slavery, the very heart of David’s brother Eliab
- As Eliab was conscious of his own fears & failings in his relationship with God, he reacted in jealousy to the fearlessness of David & in spite, falsely accused & disparaged him
- Joseph at 17 yrs of age is also in such a position
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- On the human level, we are forced to deal with human emotions & they never play well with the thinking of the mind
- I don’t want to get political here but I think this is an apt illustration
- A Christian person once talked to me about Donald Trump & was very hostile towards him
- I wanted to know why he was hostile & he said it had to do with his brash attitude, boasting & past womanising
- I asked, “what about his policies”? Is he pro-life? “Did he keep his promises”? “Is he pro-Israel” etc.
- He admitted that as a Christian, those policies are good & that the opposition was way off beat on Christian values
- What you have then is an example of putting personality before policy
- Trump’s personality got up his nose & it became an emotional response rather than seeing past to the good of the Christian & the country
- Do you want someone who supports and fights for Christian values, or someone who’s a nice, pleasant guy, but has the policies of the devil?
- So in this scenario, emotions & sentiments were leading the mind
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- This same scenario hits the brothers of Joseph
- Joseph, you might say, was a bit of a spoilt brat
- He gets given, by his father, a beautiful multicoloured robe or tunic that none of the others got
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- He was father’s favourite – always a dangerous thing to do
- It says here that it was because he fathered Joseph in his old age
Q. But didn’t Benjamin come after Joseph?
- Yes he did, but as Victor Hamilton commentator aptly wrote:
“In Joseph’s birth Jacob gained a son. In Benjamin’s birth he gained a son but lost a wife” - Victor Hamilton
- On the way back to the Promised land, Rachel gave birth to Benjamin & died during childbirth - remember that Joseph’s love for Rachel was such that 7 yrs labour seemed like a few days
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- This multicoloured robe is more than just a nice present
- The upper class wore this type of garment & by its design, it was not really for manual labour
- This suggests a preferential treatment for Joseph from Daddy
- But it also reflects that in some respects his value & class is greater than his brothers
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Commentator Sternberg remarks, “God’s future agent and mouthpiece in Egypt could hardly make a worse impression on his first appearance: spoiled brat, talebearer, braggart.”1
- Yes, Joseph could be said to be a tiddle-tat by dobbing in his brothers to his father
- The combination of favouritism, a lavished upper-class gift plus the young upstart telling on you for what you do wrong, I imagine, would drive anyone bonkers
4 His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.
- Although, it is possible that it is referring here to their father as the object of their hatred - since he favours Joseph - it seems more likely that it is referring to Joseph whom they are hating – the fact that they plan to kill him strongly suggests that he is the object of their loathing
2. When God’s Choice Offends
2. When God’s Choice Offends
- Joseph is now given a series of dreams by God
- These dreams are indicators as to what the future will hold
- In the first dream, Joseph & his brothers have been gathering & binding sheaves
- Sheaves are stalks of wheat or other similar plant
- They are cut as in this picture & bound together for transporting to the threshing floor
- They take them on to a threshing floor where a skid (heavy boards) are dragged over the top of them & the grains of wheat are then separated from the stalks & husks – which are called chaff
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- They then take the winnowing fork & throw what they have up in the air & the wind carries away the light chaff, while the seeds or grain falls straight down & is not affected by the wind
- So the husk/chaff blows away & the grain lands on the ground where they gather it up & then use a millstone to grind up the grain so that you get flour in which to make bread
- All the husks, called in the NT, chaff that has blown over & lands to one side is then gathered & burned
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- You might remember that illustration from John the Baptist (Lk. 3:16) where he speaks of that great division coming into the world – Our Lord Jesus Christ
- He, John the Baptist says, will baptise with the Holy Spirit & fire
- This talks about the judgement which will happen, not on the judgement day, per se, but in everyone’s life, everyday
- The judgement could be salvation – baptised in the Holy Spirit, or condemnation – the fire
- The context is clear – it is not talking about a fire of refinement
17 “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
- Even the word association gives it away – unquenchable!
- When a person comes to Jesus, they move from out of the darkness into His light
- They cross over from death to life
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
- So it means that a person can know salvation or judgement now before the end
- It all revolves around the Person of Jesus & the individual’s response to Him right now - in time & space
- The person can know salvation now by receiving Jesus or condemnation now by rejecting Him
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- But, of course, this immediate declaration of either salvation or judgement will still need to be ratified in the end
- If a person takes a “once saved, always, saved” approach, they are literally playing with the fire
- Far better to remember that positive ratification comes with remaining faithful in Christ
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- This dream of Joseph’s is that he & his brothers are binding the sheaves but then, his brother’s sheaves gather around Joseph’s & bow down to Joseph’s sheaves
- If they were already annoyed, then this took the cake & it says they hated him even more
- They got the point & asked rhetorically, “Do you really think we will bow down to you”!
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- But then, Joseph has another dream, but this time a celestial dream
- The sun, moon & 11 stars were bowing down to him
- He was so brash as to tell it to his brothers & his father & mother
- The dream could not be more obvious to them
- 11 stars (11 brothers), sun – Dad, moon – mum – are all bowing down to him
- Of course, his father’s pride was hurt with that
- He’s the patriarch & head of the family & whilst Joseph might have been father’s favourite, he had gone too far with that
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- It is one thing to elevate yourself over your siblings, it is another thing altogether, to elevate yourself over your parents
- Especially, in a day when it was the sacred duty of the children to obey their parents
- It was humbling enough for Jacob to bow to Esau, but that he must do it to one of his youngest sons is almost intolerable
- But he does not hate Joseph for it, as his brothers do
- Jacob perceives something that causes him restraint – although he didn’t understand, the text says that he kept the saying in mind
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- In the course of time, Joseph’s brothers travelled a long way finding pasture for the flocks
- Joseph still seems to be the honoured one & was able to avoid the labour of his brothers
- But Jacob sent Joseph as a messenger to see how his brothers are going
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- Here becomes the perfect opportunity for the brothers to rid themselves of Joseph’s boasts once & for all
20 “Now then, come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, ‘A wild beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams!”
- In other words, how are his dreams going to come true if he’s dead, right
- The dreamer who thinks he will rule over us – when he’s dead it will show how egotistical his dreams were
- Most of the brothers wanted to kill him, but Reuben & Judah, although, disgruntled with Joseph, did not want to see him dead
- Reuben got his way & they ended up compromising by throwing him into an empty well
- They stripped him of the symbol of favouritism he was wearing (multicoloured robe) while they dropped him into the pit
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- But as they were eating, fortuitously, a caravan of Ishmaelites were coming by & in their entourage were Midianite traders who traded in, among other things, slaves
- It seemed good to Judah, rather than shed the blood of their brother, to sell him into slavery in Egypt & pick up 20 shekels of silver approximating to 2 yrs of wages for one man
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Q. Was it fortune or convenience that the caravan of traders came by at that exact time?
- It is something that most people would say was coincidence
- There seems to be nothing of God showing here, in this particular situation
- But as we know the end of the story, we must confess that through the violent actions of the brothers, Joseph was sent into slavery in Egypt by God
- Here is the providence of God at work
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- But we should be careful to never presuppose the providence of God – as many have tried to do - as in attempting to not only guess what God might be doing, but taking actions on what you guess God might be doing
- What God requires of us, in the present, is to live faithfully to Him with every situation that crosses our path – that’s all we can & should do
- We do know the future – neither did Joseph – but we can know what God’s will is & be living in it, no matter where He takes us in life
3. Deception and Cover-up
3. Deception and Cover-up
- Now that their deed is done, how do they cover it up?
- Reuben, the firstborn of the lot, was probably checking on the sheep but when he returns to the pit, he finds that Joseph is gone
- Being the oldest, the responsibility for Joseph fell on him
- If he wanted Dad’s favour, he would hardly get it now
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- He originally planned to take him out of the well & back to his father Jacob but he was obviously not there when his brothers sold him into Egypt as a slave
- Reuben tears his garments which was a sign of great distress
- The problem the brothers now face is how to deal with Joseph’s disappearance & their father asking about him
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- What hasn’t changed over the entire coverage of history is the fact that man will lie – try to cover over his sin
Q. Did you take a biscuit from the bikkie barrel? No, I didn’t mum – with fingers crossed
- Sarah laughed about the thought that she would have a miracle son, but when the angels ask “why did Sarah laugh”, she denied it
- But they said, “No, but you did laugh”
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- Sin has a way of putting a person into a downward spiral
- When someone sins, they either have to cover it up, or face the truth of a failure
- Many people are not prepared to do that & choose rather to try & bury what they’ve done
Q. Can we be reminded, however, of a great passage in 1st John
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
- Here we have a breakaway group from the church that claims special enlightenment into the secret knowledge of God
- Such enlightenment, they think, makes sin a thing of the past that they cannot commit because they are part of the “enlightened” few
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- Well, the apostle says, that you join them at your own peril
- For they are only deceiving themselves thinking that they have somehow reached an enlightened state
- It’s ridiculous because sin is still a reality & you cannot ignore the lovelessness & division created in the Christian community thinking yourself better than others
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- But the key is humility & confession
- When God reveals that we have done the wrong thing, it takes wisdom, courage & conviction to confess it & make it right
- If anyone thinks he has arrived, while living in a sinful world, then he is thoroughly deceived, according to the apostle John
- The only way out is to face the sin/the error & to bring it before God
Q. Will He growl at the person who comes to Him & confesses?
Q. Will He turn away from them?
Q. Will He reject them?
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- Quite the opposite
16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
- Key lesson here for all of us
- But the usual treatment God receives, from those who have fallen into sin, is the cold shoulder
- A person is so full with guilt that they think they are unworthy to go to God
- Again, with that thinking, they are exacerbating their sin & guilt & keep replicating the same sins over & over – the problem is in keeping distant from God
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
- If God is willing to forgive, let us not make excuses for ourselves so that we can remain in our sin
- We should not be keeping distant from God for the only reason that is happening is because the person refuses to give up their sin
- God is gracious & forgiving – when we confess our sin, He is faithful & just to forgive our sin - but we have to be determined to give up our sin
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- In the brothers guilt, they cover up their sin; they lie about finding a blood soaked & torn robe of many colours, that obviously was the one Jacob gave to Joseph
- Not only was there a feign of innocence in the lie, they had to kill a goat, tear the garment & rub it in the blood & soil to make a convincing case that their brother Joseph was not done in by them, but torn & killed by a wild animal
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- Of course, the heartlessness of their sin was not only done in the sight of God who sees all, but it was a sin that brought their father to the point of death in deep mourning for the loss of his cherished son
- He was so deep in mourning that he refused comfort from any of the members of his family
- He was so grieved that he believed he would take his grief with him to his grave
- All that grief that their father had to bear over the sin of the brothers who just refused to confess the truth to their father
- Many of us know what grief is & what a loveless act on the part these men whose only thought was for themselves
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- We finish with Joseph in Egypt sold to an official of Pharaoh’s – the captain of his bodyguards
- But God is not finished with Joseph
- He has a plan for an amazing deliverance for his father Jacob (who is Israel) & his family
- Joseph will be used in a pivotal role that will show to all the nations that it is God who is the originator & director of the promise
- The Lord will faithfully bring the promise through to its completion in Jesus Christ - this is what we are seeing here
1 Victor P. Hamilton, Genesis, 409.