Joseph Series: Pit to Palace #6
Ten Guilty Consciences
Genesis 42:1-28
By Dave Redick
Hwy 20 Church of Christ
View Other Messages in this
Series
Sometimes people think that "water under the bridge" will take away a sense of wrongdoing, so they avoid dealing with it. It doesn't work that way. Time usually doesn't erase guilt. We find that instead of the guilt being washed away down the river of time, it has stubbornly clung to the bridge pier!
Introduction
I want to read a short account of a happening that perhaps you can identify with. I do not know who wrote it.
"I live on a county road that is not easy to find, so when we were planning for a garage sale, we made many signs to direct people to our home. It was my responsibility to put up the signs. Instead of going to the trouble of making stakes to hold the signs, I put them on all the stop signs, exit signs, and power poles in our area, all pointing the way to our house. I knew that was illegal,
but still decided to take the easy way out.
"The next morning one of the first cars to arrive was a County Sheriff. My first thought was "Oh no! I am in big trouble!" I went out to the drive and met him. With a guilty look on my face I said, 'Let me guess, I shouldn't have put our garage sale signs on the road signs.'
"He replied, 'No, I just wanted to look at your stuff!'" (1)
Have you ever had a guilty conscience for something you did wrong with the full knowledge at the time that you knew it was wrong? Have you ever had that dread that comes where you just know that, any minute now, you're going to get caught and have to pay the price?
Proverbs 28:1 says, "The wicked flee when no one is pursuing..."
How true it is!
As we continue our series through the life of Joseph this morning, we're going to encounter ten men with extremely guilty consciences. So guilty are they, in fact, that they just know that some day very soon, the sheriff is going to show up in their front yard (so to speak) arrest them, and make them pay for something terrible they did 21 years earlier. The ten men are the brothers of Joseph who sold him into slavery when he was a mere 17 years old.
Our passage this morning finds us Hebron, in the land of Canaan, among the black, goat-hair tents of Jacob and his family. The times are desperate. Famine has hit the entire region.
We saw last time, that Joseph, the young man rejected by his family but promoted to highest ranking position in Pharaoh's administration, by the power of God, had predicted this famine right after he was released from jail. As a result, Pharaoh placed him into second-in-command position of all Egypt. Resuming the story now, we see that...
I. The Famine Grips Canaan.
The closing verses of chapter 41 tell us that when the famine hit Egypt, it also hit the surrounding countries. Canaan, the land of Jacob, north of Egypt, was hit hard. The last verse of chapter 41 says, "the famine was severe...."
Because Egypt had grain due to Joseph's seven-year storage project, people of the whole vicinity were sending delegations to buy food in order to survive. Though Jacob and his clan had been well of, it had finally reached the point of survival for them, too.
Jacob called a conference with his sons to decide what to do.
(Read Genesis 42:1-2)
With no argument from them, the ten brothers loaded up their donkeys and headed south, toward Egypt. Jacob stayed at home and he also kept his youngest son Benjamin behind, though by this time the young man was in his twenties, certainly old enough to accompany the brothers. Jacob wasn't about to risk the loss of his only remaining son born to his beloved deceased wife, Rachel. Remember, he thought Joseph was long ago dead, a loss from which he had never recovered.
(Read V. 3-5)
We might pause here to note that God didn't spare the family of Jacob from going through the famine even though they were His people and key players in His plans to bless the world. Rather, He made a way for them to live through it and in the course of the situation, straightened out some of the things that weren't right in their lives.
I believe there is an important principle to observe in that. God doesn't spare His people hardship. They suffer from the same kinds of ills and problems as others. But He does make a way for them to get through the problems and in the process, brings about the changes needed in their lives.
Don't believe the false teachers who tell you that once you become a Christian, God takes away all your troubles. It simply isn't true, Listen to what the Bible says to Christians in I Peter 4:12-
"Beloved, do riot be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that a/so at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation."
So what good is it to be a Christian if you have to go through the same things as non-Christians? The good in it is this: With God in your life you are assured that there is meaning in the problems. You also find ways to cope and hope to endure. God also works with you through the problems to make you into the kind of person you need to be. Yes, there will be a time when the problems are over, but that comes in eternity, not in this lifetime.
The ten brothers had no way to know that they would soon stand before the brother they had so cruelly rejected. For the, the Sheriff would finally arrive in the yard. That is where the plot of this story really thickens. We see next that:
II. The Family Encounters Joseph.
Though it had been a very long time since they had sold their brother into slavery, these men had not forgotten him or what they had done. By now they probably considered him dead. After all, it had been 21 or 22 years since they last saw him. Slaves didn't usually live long. Going to Egypt was no particular threat to them - only an inconvenience. They had no idea what was what was about to happen. Joseph had no idea what was about to happen either. Only God knew. He had planned this all along.
Joseph had probably set up various distribution points for the food. Remember that it was stored in the cities near the places where it was gathered. Foreigners coming into Egypt would probably have to get clearance from Joseph's office in order to buy grain - a sort of Egyptian "port of entry."
(Read v. 6)
Please pay attention. The stage is now set for a drama that will take us back and forth from Canaan to Egypt several times and put these brothers to the test to determine just how much they have changed in the 20+ years since they last saw Joseph.
Picture the scene opening on a busy gathering place in Egypt were numerous donkey caravans from hundreds of miles have come to seek clearance to buy food. Joseph, at work at his post, handling yet another request for food, looks up to notice the familiar, bearded faces of 10 men wearing the garb of shepherds from Canaan. As he gazes intently at them, a strange familiarity forms in his mind. Then it hits him. He is looking at his brothers!
(Read v. 7-8)
Joseph, in the headdress of an Egyptian ruler with his clean-shaven face, now in his late thirties or early forties, was not the terrified young boy they would remember back when they sold him. He needed only to disguise his voice.
As these ten men got up from the place where they bad bowed to the ground, Joseph was stricken by a case of divinely appointed de ja vu¢ . Brushing off the cobwebs of his memory, he remembered a certain dream involving sheaves of grain and planets bowing down to him. Actually, the dream was specific. The sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him. There were only ten men here. Quickly he bought a little time by accusing them of being spies.
(Read v. 9)
Spies sent in by some desperate, famished kingdom, were probably not that uncommon in such a day of scarce food.
The brothers responded immediately to Joseph's charge.
(Read v. 10-11)
The basic defense argument here would be quite convincing. "We're all sons of the same man. A king wouldn't send his own sons to be spies!"
But Joseph continued to respond harshly, through an interpreter, as we learn later in verse 23.
(Read v.12)
Spies in those days were probably executed. By this time no one would question Joseph's authority to do so. It must have stricken those brothers with terror to have this strange foreign official single them out with such an accusation.
(Read v. 13)
"One is no more!" Did you get that? They're talking about Joseph. They thought he was dead. Little did they know how wrong their assumption was!
(Read v. 14-15)
On the surface, Joseph was saying, "I want to make sure you're telling the truth." Underneath, his soul was screaming, "I want to see Benjamin!"
Quickly he worked out a way that Benjamin would be brought before him.
(Read v. 16)
So he sent them off to prison to await the return of their brother.
"Guards! Take them away!"
(Read v. 17)
There they would have the opportunity to sample the fears Joseph had felt in the Egyptian prison house.
In the passing of those three days, Joseph formulated another plan in his mind. Instead of keeping nine of the brothers and sending one back, he would keep one and release the other nine. This would be a way to test the brothers to see if they had changed over the years or if they would, in the clutch, sell out another brother. It would also allow them to return food to their father and the rest of the family.
(Read v. 18-20)
My friends, it is important that we understand the difference between forgiveness and trust. It is such a common theme in life and we see it again here. Joseph would ultimately forgive his brothers the wrong done to him, but that did not keep him from testing them to see if they would deal honestly with him.
Forgiveness is what we extend to others when they ask for it. It is given freely, based upon the fact that God has forgiven us. (How can we do any less for others? Remember the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18?) Forgiveness is not a receipt for a debt paid in full. It is rather the gracious releasing of the debt to God. Trust, on the other hand, is not given freely. The offending party must earn it if it is ever to return. Once a person has been forgiven, he or she still must restore our trust by their good actions before they can ever be returned to their former position of credibility. The best we can do is to offer them the chance to rebuild that trust. It is wrong (and unbiblical) for them or anyone else to demand more. Joseph models this for us perfectly in this passage. Watch and learn.
Just before the brothers leave, we need to overhear a conversation that went on between them that they didn't know Joseph understood. Verse 23, as I've already noted, tells us that Joseph had an interpreter between them and himself. He had been speaking continually in Egyptian in order to hide his identity.
As the brothers withdrew from Joseph, they began to converse among themselves in Hebrew. From that conversation, which Joseph overheard, we get a glimpse of what had been going on in their minds since they first encountered this harsh Egyptian official.
(Read v. 21)
Please note that absolutely nothing has been said by anyone to remind them of Joseph, but their consciences were screaming out, "You're guilty!" so loudly that they didn't even wait to leave Egypt to discuss it.
It had been 21 or 22 years since they had committed the cruel act of selling their brother, yet is was still right there on top of their minds as though it happened yesterday.
That suggests a truth that we shouldn't miss: Time doesn't erase a guilty conscience.
Sometimes people think that "water under the bridge" will take away a sense of wrongdoing, so they avoid dealing with it. It doesn't work that way. Time usually doesn't erase guilt. We find that instead of the guilt being washed away down the river of time, it has stubbornly clung to the bridge pier!
Every now and then I hear a story like this one:
A man arrived home to find his house had been burglarized. His stereo and television were stolen, along with some other items. At Christmas, he received a card in the mail from the thief, along with the money to replace the stolen goods and a note asking for forgiveness. Time doesn't erase a guilty conscience. Yes, a person can sear his conscience until it doesn't condemn him, but the only way that silences the conscience without turning a person into a monster with no conscience is confession of the wrong and, when possible, restitution.
We will see such erasing of a guilty conscience in these men in a future lesson, but not just yet.
Ruben spoke up next as they whispered back and forth among themselves. Joseph must have loved hearing this!
(Read v. 22)
That points up another truth that we can observe: There is a sense of divine accountability in every person. They may or may not choose to heed it, but it is there.
People often ask how God is going to deal with the person in some faraway land who has never heard the gospel. How can God judge him fairly when he has never had a chance to hear? The answer to that question is found in Romans 2:14-15 where we read:
"For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or defending them."
There is a sense of divine accountability in every person, whether they have the Word of God or not.
That sense of divine accountability is in everyone here, myself included. I have no problem then, suggesting to you that periodically, we need to pay attention to our consciences. I am confident you know what I'm referring to.
If there is something that is bothering your conscience and has been for some time, you may need to go to any person who may be involved and make it right. Confess your wrong. Ask their forgiveness. If you can make restitution, do it. That is the only way to a clear conscience.
These men are stricken with guilt and remorse!
(Read v. 23-24)
Without Simeon, the brothers might leave and never return. They might do so anyway, depending upon the sincerity of their commitment to keep their promise. They are being put to the test.
(Read v. 25-28)
That word "sank" in verse 28 in Hebrew is a very strong word. It is used elsewhere to describe a great earthquake. Talk about a guilty conscience!
"The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion."(2)
The person with a guilty conscience becomes the captive of his own fear.
These men were terrified! They were "quaking" inside! They were wishing they had never done what they did to Joseph. Now they were convinced that God was going to punish them for it. What a terrible condition to be in! Or was it?
That kind of godly fear was what was necessary in order to produce repentance in them. As miserable as it was to go through, it would turn out to be one of the best things that could have happened to them.
Conclusion
These men were under conviction: God had pricked their consciences to the point of bleeding. In a future lesson we will see changed brothers and a reunited family. Not yet though. The conviction of wrong had to come first.
I wonder if the Lord might be pricking your conscience about something that you have done in the past that has never been made right. Perhaps you have lived life terrified that someone was going to find out, maybe to such a point that you can no longer really enjoy life. Perhaps you even wake up at night thinking about it.
If that is the case, what will you do about it? Push on through life dreading the day when someone will find out? Or perhaps dreading the day when you face God? I hope not. Remember that time doesn't erase a guilty conscience.
How should you deal with it? You must confess the wrong - for sure to God - and perhaps to the person you have wronged. You need to come clean so you can face life with a clear conscience.
Augustus, the Roman Emperor, had trouble sleeping at night because of a guilty conscience. One day he heard of a man who was in tremendous debt, yet slept quietly every night. Augustus sent word to the man that he wanted to buy his bed for any price. Needless to say, it was a useless purchase. The most expensive bed this world has to offer cannot give a person with a guilty conscience a good night's sleep. Only God can do that.
How about it? Do you sleep well at night? Is your conscience clear? If not, if you haven't already, and you need to, go home when this service is dismissed. Get alone with God and tell Him what you have done. Then, go to that person you have wronged if they know about it and ask them to forgive you. If there is something you can do to make it right, go do it
View Other Messages in this Series
Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.
Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.
All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.
[Archive] [Home] [Comments] [Search]
hits since 12/28/98