Genesis 30:22-24 (KJV)
And God remembered
Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.
And she conceived, and
bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach:
And she called his name
Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son.
A number of years ago
now I learned something that has radically changed my perspective as a
Christian.
I have always believed
because I believe.
Now, I believe and am
unshakably confident in my faith.
It is intellectually and
academically stupid to believe anything but the Bible.
Here’s why.
Everything we know about
the passed comes to us through three sources:
· Archeology
· Anthropology and
· Documentation (ancient written sources)
Archeology and
anthropology are more like an art than a science.
· The archeologist digs up some piece of pottery and he makes
an “educated guess” that the piece of pottery was used for cooking.
· The anthropologist then examines that same piece of pottery,
takes into consideration what the archeologist said and then makes an “educated
guess” what the person who made the pottery ate for dinner.
· Then the historian picks up a piece of ancient writing that
he believes was written about the same time, and in about the same place as the
pottery was and he makes an “educated guess” what the guy was reading in the
newspaper the day he ate the dinner that was cooked in the pottery.
Here’s the thing about
those ancient documents:
· There are not very many of them
· They are not complete documents (they have to guess
sometimes what 75% of the document might have said)
· And a lot of the time, the documents describe an event that
supposedly happened hundreds of years before the document was written.
For instance –
everything we know about Ancient Greece and Rome, comes from four major writers
· Livey (39 BC-17AD),
· Tacitus (56-120 AD)
· Suetonias (69-140 AD)
· Homer (800 BC)
Take everything that we
still have of what those four guys wrote and it doesn’t total much more than
2000 copies of copies of copies – most of them were copied 300-800 years after
these guys died.
On the other hand, there
is the resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament.
There are almost 5800
copies of ancient New Testaments in Greek
We have more than 20,000
pieces of the New Testament, some of them written within just a few years of
when the Apostles lived.
The truth is, everything
we know about Greek and Roman history is a guess – yet the academics teach it
as fact.
And yet there is so much
documentation to prove that Jesus lived, was crucified and rose again, that
there is no question it’s historical fact.
And yet, academics
dismiss the resurrection because it if is true, there must be God – and they
don’t want to believe that.
Anyway, and getting to
my message, New Testament scholars compare the number of documents to prove the
New Testament record vs the number of documents to prove the history of Greece
and Rome and say that Christians have “an
embarrassment of riches.”[1]
And it is that term
‘embarrassment of riches” I want to borrow for this message about Joseph.
While a person might
feel like we have to strain to call Isaac or Jacob spiritual people, there is
no shortage of evidence for Joseph.
Joseph’s relationship
with God was of such a different nature than the rest of the family that:
· His brothers despised him for it and even
· His father Jacob challenged him about it
I just want to point out
three evidences of Joseph’s spirituality for our message today:
First
I. HE COMMUNED
WITH GOD
Genesis 37:5-11 (KJV)
And Joseph dreamed a
dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
And he said unto them,
Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
For, behold, we were
binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright;
and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
And his brethren said to
him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over
us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
And he dreamed yet
another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a
dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made
obeisance to me.
And he told it to his
father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him,
What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy
brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
And his brethren envied
him; but his father observed the saying.
Now think just a little
bit with me today.
Joseph did not possess a
Bible as you and I do.
He didn’t even have the
first chapter of the first book of the Bible yet.
So how did he
communicate with God?
We know that God
communicated with His people through “special revelation”
· Dreams
· Visions and
· Supernatural manifestations
· Sometimes they heard the voice of God
· Sometimes they saw an angel of the Lord
· Sometimes God spoke to them through a burning bush or even a
donkey
And they communicated
back in prayer.
Joseph was hearing from
God – his brothers were not.
You and I, we do have a
complete and infallible Word of God, the Bible.
All we have to do is
take the time to open it and, in a setting that allows us to hear, let God
speak to us through it.
A person does that
enough, so that we have something God has taught us from the Bible, and I
guarantee you people who are not listening to God are going to get upset with
you when you do.
Someone might argue, as
Joseph’s father did, that he should keep those things God says to himself.
But I can tell you this,
when you have heard from God so clearly you are sure of it, you can’t be quiet
about it.
You’re going to have to
tell someone.
A spiritual person hears
from God and tells other what He said.
Secondly
II. HE WAS
FAITHFUL TO GOD IN BOTH GOOD AND BAD TIMES
Genesis 39:1-4 (KJV)
And Joseph was brought
down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an
Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him
down thither.
And the LORD was with
Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the
Egyptian.
And his master saw that
the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his
hand.
And Joseph found grace
in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and
all that he had he put into his hand.
Joseph’s story would
seem tragic except that it is really the story of mankind in general.
Spiritual people have
always been hated and mistreated by worldly people, even those you would never
have thought would mistreat you.
· Who would have ever thought that Cain would kill his own
brother?
· Who would have ever thought that Lot would let his herdsman
fight with Abraham’s?
· Who would have ever thought that Joseph’s own brothers would
capture him, sell him as a slave and tell their father Joseph was dead?
His brothers sold him to
a band of Midianites, distant cousins, who then sold him to Potiphar in Egypt.
Joseph was his father’s
favorite child and you might have thought he would be spoiled and not do very
well in hardships.
Not so.
When Joseph found
himself a slave in Potiphar’s house,
· He kept his fellowship with God and
· He served Potiphar well
When Potiphar’s wife
lied about him and he ended up in prison
· He kept his relationship with God and
· He served the captain of the guard well
And then a strange thing
happened.
God turned things upside
down for Joseph. He was released from prison and made second in command of
Egypt.
And Joseph
· Kept his relationship with God and
· Served Pharaoh well
None of us have exactly the same experiences in life.
It just isn’t fair.
A spiritual person stays
faithful to God. No matter what happens
· He keeps his relationship with God and
· He serves well wherever he finds himself.
· A spiritual person communicates with God
· A spiritual person stays faithful to God in good times and
bad
Thirdly
III. HE
READILY FORGAVE
Genesis 50:15-21 (KJV)
And when Joseph's
brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure
hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
And they sent a
messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto
Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin;
for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the
servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
And his brethren also
went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
And Joseph said unto
them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
But as for you, ye
thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is
this day, to save much people alive.
Now therefore fear ye
not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake
kindly unto them.
Isn’t it funny how
things have a way to turning around?
Can you imagine what it
must have been like for Bill Gates in growing up?
I don’t know if he went
to public school or not.
They make a big deal
about this guy who went from being a college drop out to a billionaire.
He dropped out of
Harvard – that means he had something going for him before he got that far.
But suppose he was just
a nerdy kid with pop bottle glasses in public junior high and high school.
I’ve seen pictures.
· He was skinny and little and
· If he got good grades, he got ridiculed for it
Maybe some junior high
bully met him in the playground every morning and taunted him, “Hey Bill! Come
open this gate for me.”
Kids get beat up in the
school playground for much less than things like that.
Bet that bully wishes
Bill remembered him a bit different now, huh?
I promise you – that
bully is almost certainly:
· A diabetic with
· Emphysema and
· Cirrhosis of the liver
And that’s only if he is
still alive after his last heart attack.
If Joseph’s story can
teach us anything, it can teach us to never give up hope.
Anything can change.
Joseph goes:
· From a slave
· To a prisoner
· To in charge of wealth of Egypt
One day, look who shows
up bowing at his feet just like he had dreamed so many years ago.
Joseph immediately
recognizes them – his brothers.
They had no reason to
expect that their brother was even still alive, let alone in charge of Egypt –
so they did not recognize him.
Imagine the flood of
emotions that must have coursed through Joseph.
· They taunted me
· They threw me into a pit
· They talked about killing me
· They sold me as a slave
· They are the ones who robbed me of my father
He’s in a position:
· He could have had them thrown in jail right there
· He could have had them beaten
· He could have made them slaves
But what he did is forgive them.
Realize that he hasn’t
seen or heard from them in years and, given what he knows about them, they
could have killed his father and his younger brother.
He has no idea if they
have turned into a band of thieves, buying and selling men for their own
living.
And so, he puts them
through some paces.
· He did not reveal himself too soon.
· He tested their character to prove them and
· He insisted on knowing if his father and his brother were
still alive and safe
But he never, not for
one second, considered doing ill to them.
You know, that’s all that forgiveness is.
· Forgiveness is leaving justice in the hands of the Lord and
holding no ill towards anyone.
· Forgiveness doesn’t open your home to everyone, but it never
holds a grudge against anyone.
· Forgiveness will testify in court against the guy who stole
your car, but it won’t lose a night’s sleep because the judge didn’t “throw the
book” at him.
Conclusion
We could go on and on
about Joseph and those evidences of his spiritual character.
We didn’t even touch
upon:
· His obedience to his father or
· His moral character towards Potiphar’s wife
· His wisdom in handling savings
· His leadership in government or
· His keeping a promise to bury his father in the Promised
Land
But we have enough to
work on this morning just thinking that the spiritual person:
· Communicates with God
· Is faithful to God in good times and bad and
· Readily forgives those who offends him
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