Elijah felt that no one was standing with him and sharing the burden he was carrying. Elijah had been used by God in a magnificent way. He had stood against the wickedness of King Ahab. He had been used of God to declare a rainless period of three years. Then at the end of that time he had appeared
What is it that surrounds us? Is it the world with its temptations and ensnarements? The flesh with its lusts? The devil with his malicious hatreds and eternal enmity against God? It does not matter: “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”“But I am in sore straights, O Lord, a
Jacob had said, "Everything is against me!" He was not right in saying this, as I have indicated. But he would have been right if he had acknowledged these three enemies: the devil, who was no doubt seeking to destroy him as well as Joseph; the world, whose godless values and goals were a constant t
When we speak of the world in the sense of its being our spiritual opponent we are not using the word in reference to the earth (in the sense of the "world globe") or even to the people who inhabit the earth (as in the phrase "the whole world"). We are using it to refer to the "world system" which J
Several years ago I did technical work on the use of the word “witness” (martys) in the Greek language, and looked at some of the secular Greek authors in that study. One I read carefully was Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher who was once a slave but who lived out the greater portion of his life as a
Yet God was leading by this gracious act of the money in the brothers’ sacks, as well as by the other circumstances. It was a case of Romans 2:4 which asks the unrighteous, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his [God’s] kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads y
Today, people use God’s name in ways that suggest they do not truly know God. I will tell you who God is. God is He who created the heavens and the earth, including you, and to whom you are accountable for every thought, word, deed and action. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who led these
Yesterday, we concluded with the idea that when Joseph’s brothers found the money for the grain in their sacks, what bothered them was the providential nature of the event. However insignificant this discovery was, for them it was proof that God was present in their circumstances and that he was goi
Before these men started for home, the story tells us, Joseph caused each man's silver to be returned to him in one of his purchased sacks of grain. In addition, he gave them provisions for their journey. The use of these provisions would have kept them from opening their sacks until well along in t
An instructive combination of ideas in Genesis 42:24 makes a useful introduction to this study. In the first half of that verse we are told that for the first time Joseph began to break down in the presence of his brothers and weep out of his great love for them. His weeping related to God’s work in
The third thing solitude did for these guilty brothers of Joseph was cause them to reason spiritually. They were not godly men. In fact, they were probably not even saved men before the events of these chapters. They did not reason spiritually. They thought as most worldlings do, namely: “It’s a mec
The second thing solitude did in the lives of these men was refresh their memories. So far as we know, there had never been a time previous to this when the anguish of Joseph had been openly discussed between them. Indeed, the narration itself does not mention it. It is only when their deep guilt ha
In the stillness of the brothers’ solitude, they began to hear the voice of God’s Spirit. The way the story is told we are introduced to the brothers' thoughts only after Joseph had released them from prison after the three days and had begun to interrogate and deal with them again. But although the
What did God use to bring about this quickening of conscience and confession? He had used the pain of material want to bring the ten brothers (Benjamin had remained home with his father) to Egypt, where they were particularly vulnerable to God’s prodding. He had used Joseph’s harsh words to prick th
In this next section of the story the guilty memory of the brothers becomes an open confession for the first time. They said to one another, "Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that's why th
We must never resent or resist the harsh treatment God sometimes gives out as we study His Word or hear it proclaimed from the pulpit. God hates sin. Therefore the Word of God, which reflects His holy character, customarily exposes our sin and calls for our repentance. Comfort? Yes, the Bible contai
I think, too, that F.B. Meyer is probably right when he suggests that Joseph probably repeated exactly the scene that had taken place at the pit’s mouth when his brothers had first fallen upon him years before. This is a hard thing to prove, of course, but it is reasonable. Although we are not given
Joseph is God's man in all parts of this story. He had been honored more than once as a prophet of God. God had spoken to him, guided him, protected him, and kept him from sin. Surely he was not left to his own devices now, but was rather acting as God's agent in awakening the consciences of these b
It is not only insults that hurt us either. Even truth hurts, sometimes even when it is spoken kindly. Not long ago I was doing a study of divorce in which I criticized the increasingly permissive stance of evangelical leaders in this area. Because I was doing that someone gave me two issues of Eter
At the end of the last study on God’s use of want to awaken the consciences of Joseph’s brothers, I told the story of the Prodigal Son, who was awakened to his deplorable state by hunger while in a far country. As Jesus told the story, the young man “came to his senses” and said, “How many of my fat
There is one more great example of this theme in Scripture, but I have held it until now because of its outcome. It tells what should happen when God brings the pinch of want to bear on any person. It is the story of the Prodigal Son. Jesus said that a certain man had two sons. One day the younger o
The fact that Joseph’s brothers guiltily looked at one another instead of taking decisive steps when the family heard that grain was in Egypt showed that their consciences were not entirely dead, only asleep—and that fitfully. But if nothing more had happened in this story than the mere mention of E
As we begin the forty-second chapter of Genesis, we come to this matter of the conscience. For in a certain sense the story of Genesis at this point ceases to be merely Joseph’s story, and becomes largely the story of Joseph’s ten brothers as God works through many devices to awaken their nearly dea
There is only one way in which conscience can be a sure guide to right conduct, and that is when the light of God's Word is shining on it. When the light of God shines on the sundial of your conscience you get the right time. But apart from that the conscience is like a trained circus dog. You whist
