Series:  Lessons From the Old Testament

Posted on July 11, 2010 by newhope2010

The book of Genesis tells the story of the young Joseph, Jacob’s favourite son.  His brothers sold him to passing Ishmaelite traders and returned to his father with a story which broke his heart.  Of course, we understand that God had a greater purpose in all that happened that day, but let us consider some of the lessons we can learn from his life.

Genesis 37:3 tells us that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children “because he was the son of his old age”.  As the father of six, I regard each one of my children as very special to me, but I can understand Jacob’s particular attachment to Joseph.  The old man had wanted a son by his beloved Rachel, and he favoured her two sons over the six sons of his other wife, Rachel’s older sister Leah, and over the four sons born to their respective handmaidens, Bilhah and Zilpah.

However, Jacob’s obvious partiality towards Joseph, in particular, led to tension and mistrust between Joseph and his siblings, and the more Joseph told them of his dreams the surlier they became.   It seems his colourful dreams irritated his brothers no end, especially when they all seemed to end the same way – with their sheaves bowing down to his, or similar.  Like all unchallenged bitterness, it deepened into hatred, until the day recorded in chapter 37 when his brothers actually wanted to kill him.

Of course, it could be argued that Joseph had “brought it upon himself” — his boyish retelling of his dreams had provoked his brothers and it was his fault.  He was bright, intelligent and ambitious.  Some might even have accused him of being a little ”narcissistic”, perhaps?

But verse 4 says that “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him”.  God’s Word is so simple, so plain, sometimes!  This really was their problem, not his.  When we look at this verse, it really wasn’t anything he had done, but their attitudes which made them dislike him so much.

It was their envy and jealousy – and hatred - which came between them and their own brother.  It was their sinful attitudes which prevented them from speaking to him.  They certainly did not love him.  The writer of Genesis, Moses, puts it bluntly, “they hated him”.

It was not the irritating things that he might have done from time to time but their sin which sold him into slavery.

What about us?  Are we really any different sometimes?  Think about it…

• Have niggling little irritations built up resentment inside us?
• Have we nurtured those little irritations and that resentment until we feel nothing but bitterness inside?
• Have the irritations and resentment and bitterness all fermented a little more until they have become unrighteous anger?
• And then, have we let that anger fester further until we can no longer forgive someone those little irritations and mistakes he or she has made along the way?

You see, sin is a progression.  Little things become big issues and destroy our relationships – if we do not deal with the feelings of resentment and bitterness along the way.

The writer of the book of Hebrews exhorts us that we should “follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:  looking diligently lest any fail of the grace of God, or lest any root of bitterness springing up disturb you, and by it many are defiled” (Hebrews 12:14-15 MKJV).

The writer says bitterness has two aspects – it affects our relationships with each other and also our relationship with God.

Firstly, he says that we cannot be at peace with one another if there is bitterness inside us, eating away at our relationships, tearing us apart.  Can we love our brother if we are harbouring bitterness in our soul towards him?  Can a marriage survive if one spouse is filled with bitterness against the other?  Can a church show unity to the world if bitterness has “defiled” that unity?

And secondly, it is about the grace of God, verse 15.   If we are not careful – “diligent” – this feeling lying within us can grow – “spring up” – inside us and spoil – “defile” – us.  The little irritations, the niggling personalities, the petty things, which are the “root” of the envies, jealousies, resentments and bitterness that affect our thinking, will overtake us and rob us of the holiness that God expects of each one of us – and in so doing, rob us of our eternal reward with God in heaven (verse 14).

How can we be holy before God – sanctified, set apart for His service, and how can we be any different from the world, if our hearts are filled with bitterness and the strife which ensues from it?  Were Jacob’s sons any different from the ungodly men living around them?

The Good New Bible says, “Let no one become like a bitter plant that grows up and causes many troubles with its poison.”

We can readily see in the church today how one person’s bitterness could cause many to stumble – to be “defiled” or “spoiled” (verse 15) – but how can we expect to receive God’s favour if we cannot purge resentment and bitterness from our spirits and if we cannot forgive one another?  If we want to “see the Lord”, we need to understand that all the “little things” that we tend to overlook or rationalise, are the very things that will keep us away from that wonderful reward.  Irrespective of what others might see in us, or think of us, hidden bitterness can spring to the surface and defile or spoil us.  No amount of pretending can hide it from the eyes of God.

However, because we struggle to be objective about our own selves sometimes, it is not always easy to see when this has happened.  Hopefully, the following questions will help us see more clearly…

• Are we motivated by resentment and bitterness in our own hearts?
• Have we let that resentment and bitterness determine our destiny or destroy others?
• Do we sometimes feel so angry towards someone that we cannot even speak with him or her?
• Is anger chewing away inside us?
• Do we just refuse to communicate because our hearts are filled with so much anger, resentment and bitterness that we no longer love that person and no longer want anything more to do with him or her?
• Has our envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, pride, bitterness of spirit, or other failings, hurt or estranged us from those we should love most?
• Or has our hatred become so deep that we are prepared to destroy a brother or a sister, a friend, or even our own spouse with false testimony or deceit?

Whenever sinful attitudes come between us and our brethren, there will be trouble like Joseph had in his life.  When small irritations become anger and hatred towards a brother, only harm can result.  When brothers or sisters fight and squabble amongst themselves families are destroyed.  When brethren despise another because he irritates them or does not fit into their idea of how he ought to be, there will be trouble even in the church.  And when one spouse resents the other, and love fails to “cover a multitude of sins”, marriages are destroyed and divorce follows.

Joseph’s brothers let their own father believe a lie about their brother.  They took his coat dipped in blood and let his father believe he had been torn apart by wild animals.  Imagine the grief of this father, believing his son was dead.  We ask, How could they do that to their own father?  And how could they live with the knowledge that they had deceived him this way?

Isn’t this exactly what still happens today?  Human nature is still the same.  Someone tells a lie, or a half-truth, in order to distort or hide what really happened.

We also see here in this story how the brothers of Joseph made no effort to understand him.  They called him “this dreamer” (Genesis 37:19) and conspired together against him.

Do we do the same today?  Do we find someone irritating and despise him, when we should be taking the time to understand him instead?  Do we cast our brother down “an empty pit” when we do not want to see him anymore?  Do we help cut him off from his own family to “teach him a lesson”?

Of course, this would never happen in the church today, some might think.  But think again… this is exactly what happens in congregations of the Jehovah Witnesses, the Exclusive Brethren, the Church of Christ — to name a few where self-righteous church “leaders” destroy families in the name of Christ.  As Jesus said in Matthew 7:16-20, “Ye shall know them by their fruits… A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit…  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit”, and “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

Remember, it was the brothers’ sin that put Joseph in Egypt, not his.  Is this what we are doing to our own brethren, today?  Are we packing them up and sending them off because we really do not love them as we ought?  Because we really do not love them as Jacob loved Joseph?  Like the Father loves each one of us now?  He sent his only begotten Son because He loves each one of us.

Are we closing our doors and refusing to fellowship our own brothers and sisters because our hearts are cold and rebellious against the Father’s wishes?  Are they leaving for other churches because we simply do not care enough about them?

Have we closed our hearts to them because we have found them “different”, or “difficult”, or “too academic” or “too something-else”?  Or because we feel we do not understand them or “cannot deal with them”? Or worse still, because we have gossipped or lied about them, or stirred up our hearts against them?

Remember, God knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts (cf. Hebrews 4:12).  He sees the sinful attitudes which we store up against one another and he sees the heartache and the pain our actions (or lack of actions) bring to others.

Are we like Joseph’s brethren?  Intolerant or unforgiving?  Cold, hateful, angry,  indifferent to another’s suffering?

Or are we like Reuben – meaning well, but leaving it too late to make a difference?

 

---

 

OTHER LESSONS FROM JOSEPH’S LIFE

• Did Joseph understand God’s great purpose for his life when he was in the bottom of the pit before the Midian traders came along?  Or when he was shackled in a prison cell in Egypt?  Of course not, but did God have a great purpose for his life?  Sure did!  Do we struggle to understand why things happen sometimes?  When we lose everything that has ever meant anything to us?  But somewhere in it all, God has a great purpose for our life.  He has for mine, and he has for yours.

• How did Joseph feel when his family sold him into slavery?  When his family rejected him?  When those closest to him did not want to see him or be with him anymore?  Do we treat our family or friends like this sometimes?  Do we hurt them, too?

• When he was helpless at the bottom of the pit, do you think he felt confused, or hurt, or afraid?  Do you think he expected to be treated this badly by his own brothers?  He had already lost his mother, for she had died giving birth to his younger brother, Benjamin.  As he was being dragged out to go to Egypt with the traders, do you think he really thought he would not see his father again for many years?   How do we feel when someone is treated shamefully by their own brethren in the church – by people whom they have known for years, even decades sometimes, and considered their friends?  How would we feel if they threw us into a pit and had no desire to ever bring us out again?  It doesn’t happen, you think?  Think again, for this is exactly what is happening in our churches today.  People are being “disfellowshipped” for all sorts of trivial, political, or opportunistic reasons and no one seems to care at all how those people feel.  Seems so like the ungrateful servant who had been forgiven by his master in Matthew 18.  Jesus also said it was the one without sin who could cast the first stone (John 8:7).

• Did Joseph enjoy being in Egypt?  Just 17 years of age and away from everything that was familiar and “home”?  Away from his father and his family for the first time in his life?  And with little prospect of ever seeing them again?  I doubt it.  But is it any different today for, say, a husband shattered and forced to start again because his wife has walked out saying she does not love him and doesn’t want him in her life anymore after many years of being together?  Sometimes we find ourselves in places and situations that we would never have thought possible, and it feels like there is no point in going on anymore.

• The Egyptian Potiphar treated Joseph better than his own brothers did… He saw his talents, recognised his integrity, his abilities, his character.  He saw God working in his life.  Do we always see the good in others?  Or just their faults, their weaknesses, their failings?  Do others outside “the church” sometimes see the very things we cannot see because we have closed our minds or become numb in our own faithlessness?  Is it time for a spiritual revival in our own lives?  The Psalmist asks, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalm 85:6)

• Consider the reaction when Potiphar’s wife made her accusations against Joseph. Look how quickly even Potiphar forgot the good qualities of his trusted servant Joseph.  Do we also jump to conclusions when a woman spins a story about a man?  Joseph was quite innocent and yet he was put in prison.  Nothing he had actually done was worthy of such a fate, but everyone assumed he was guilty.  Was this right?  Do we do the same thing today?  Do we believe someone’s false testimony instead of looking at what has really happened?  Are we quick to judge when it would be better to ask more questions and to discover the truth?

• Look at the wonderful things that God can do even when man sins. Even with all that hatred in his brother’s hearts, the Lord brought good out of Joseph’s hurt.  Lord, lift us up that we might be pleasing in your sight!  ”Restore unto [us] the joy of thy salvation; and uphold [us] with thy free spirit” (Psalm 51:12).

© Bevan Collingwood 2010