Episode Transcript
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Reading of God's word comes from Genesis
thirty nine versus one through twenty three.
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Now Joseph had been brought down to
Egypt and potipher and officer of Pharaoh,
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the captain of the guard and Egyptian, had brought and bought him from the
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Ishmaelite who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph and he
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became a successful man and he was
in the house of his Egyptian master.
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His master saw that the Lord was
with him and that the Lord costs all
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he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight
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and attended him and he made him
overseer of his house and put him in
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charge of all that he had.
From the time that he made him overseer
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in his house and all that over
all that he had, the Lord blessed
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the Egyptian's House for Joseph's sake.
The blessing of the Lord was on all
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that he had in house and field. So he left all that he had
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in Joseph Charge and because of him
he had no concern about anything but the
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food that he ate. Now Joseph
was handsome in form and appearance and after
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a time his master's wife cast her
eyes on Joseph and Said lie with me,
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but he refused and said to his
master's wife behold because of me.
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My master has no concern about anything
in the house and he has put everything
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that he has in my charge.
He is not greater in this house than
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I am, nor is he kept
back anything from me, except you,
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because you are his wife. How, then, can I do this great
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wickedness and Sin Against God? And
as she spoke to Joseph Day after day,
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he would not listen to her,
to lie beside her or to be
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with her. But one day,
when he went into the house to do
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his work and none of the men
of the house were there in the house,
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she caught him by his garment saying
lie with me, but he left
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his garment in her hands and fled
and got out of the House. And
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as soon as she saw that he
had left his garment in her hand and
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had fled out of the house,
she called to the men of her household
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and said to them, see,
he has brought among us a Hebrew to
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laugh at us. He came into
me to lie with me, and I
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crowd cried out with a loud voice
and as soon as he heard that I
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lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and
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fled and got out of the House. Then she laid up his garment by
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her and tell his master. Came
home and she told him the same story,
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saying the Hebrew Servant whom you have
brought among us came in to me
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to laugh at me, but as
soon as I lifted up my voice and
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cried he left his garment beside me
and fled out of the House as soon
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as his master heard the words that
his wife had spoken to him. This
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is the way your servant treated me. His anger was kindled and Joseph's master
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took him and put him in the
prison, the place where the king's prisoners
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were confined, and he was there
in prison. But the Lord was with
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Joseph and showed him steadfast love and
gave him favor in the sight of the
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keeper of the prison, and the
keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge
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of all the prisoners who were there
in prison. Whatever was done there,
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he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no
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attention to anything that was in Joseph's
charge because the Lord was with him and
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whatever he did, the Lord made
succeed sends the Reading of God's word.
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You may be seated. Well,
Joseph is one of those Bible characters in
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this story is one of those stories
in the scriptures that we are generally pretty
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familiar with if you've been in church
for any amount of time or grew up
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going Sunday school. And Joseph is
one of those characters in the Bible where
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we kind of think of him as
a second tier character. Now you have
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your first tier characters in the Bible, right, your David's, your Paul's,
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your Mary's, your Peters, these
are the characters where, if you've
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ever taken one of those online Bible
quizzes where you fill out your personal information
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and tells you which Bible character you
are, if you get Joseph, you're
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pretty excited. He's kind of like
Barnabas right, he's you know, nothing
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really bad is written about Joseph.
So much you feel pretty good about yourself.
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But then if your spouse or your
roommate or your friend takes the same
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quiz and they get someone like Paul, your little jealous of them. You
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like Paul, you know Paul.
Paul would do the dishes more often,
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Paul would change the diapers more often, right, and so Joseph is one
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of those characters, right. We
kind of think of him in that way,
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and this story is a common story
in which we hear about his resistance
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to temptation and we primarily take this
text as an exhortation to flee sin.
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And while that is there, while
we should flee sin, what we should
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see in this story, as with
all stories of the Bible, all accounts
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in the scriptures, is they are
not first and foremost about the morals that
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we should live by, though that
is there, but they are first and
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foremost about the story of God's faithfulness
to his people the salvation that he brings,
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and the story of Joseph is no
difference. So what I would like
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us to see here, the main
thing for us to see this morning,
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is that because God is with his
people to the darkest of times, they
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can trust in his love and vindication
through the darkest of times. And so
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in this account we first see the
rise of Joseph, that happens, that
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occurs with him. The background information
of Joseph, if you're not from familiar,
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is that he is the eleven of
the twelve sons that are born to
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Jacob. He is the first of
the last two that are born to Jacobs
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favorite wife, Rachel. And if
there's something that's more problematic than having multiple
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wives, and if there's something that's
more problematic than playing favorites with your wives,
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is also to play favorites with your
children, right, and so Jacob
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does this. He makes it clear
that Joseph is his favorite son. He
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gives them this coat of many colors, because Joseph is the first wife to
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jake or to rate or them,
sorry, the first son to Rachel.
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Right. And Joseph also has a
gift. Joseph sees dreams. He is
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a dreamer, but he's not a
dreamer in the way that John Lennon is
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a dreamer. He is a dreamer
in the sense that he has dreams that
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are actual revelation from God. And
so he has these dreams and in verse
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Chapter Thirty Seven, he tells how
he will one day be ruler over his
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brothers and, as you can imagine, they don't really like these dreams too
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much, and so from that point
on they hate him. And he comes
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to a point in thirty seven,
where he, Joseph, is going out
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into the fields to see how his
brothers are doing and they see him coming
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and they plot to kill him and
eventually they get to this point where Ruben,
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one of the brothers, says,
because he's the only one who loved
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Joseph, he says let's not kill
him, let's throw them in a pit
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so that he can come back and
rescue him later. And so they throw
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Joseph in the pit and they see
some ishmaelite traders coming along and they say,
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you know what, we don't want
his blood on our hands and you
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know what, who can make a
quick profit here? So let's sell him
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to the ishmaelite traders. And that's
what they do. And the mishmaelite traders
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come down to Egypt, they take
Joseph and they sell him to Potifer,
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this high ranking official under the Pharaoh, and that is the background, as
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well as the story of Judah and
Tamar, Judah's daughter in law, who
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he also wrongs and ends up sleeping
with because he believes that she is a
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prostitute. So we see these complicated, these sinful relationships. All this stuff
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is the background to the story of
Joseph. These things that the Bible is
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very honest about when it comes to
the sinfulness of human beings and even God's
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own people, his beloved and so
we see this happening. And so the
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first thing that I want us to
see here, this is the first point,
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is that the Lord was with Joseph, and I made a mistake when
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I pick the title. I said
God was with Joseph. I should have
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said the Lord, and they are
the same, don't get me wrong,
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but the Lord here. When it
says the Lord, that is intentional on
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the part of the author, because
the Lord is the Covenant Name of God's
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People. In Hebrew, this is
Yahway. This is the name that God
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didn't just have as a general name
for all the nations of the earth,
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but this is the name that he
gave Israel and this is the name that
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he said when you were in trouble, when your enemies are around you,
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this is the name that you will
call upon for your deliverance. This is
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my covenant name, and that's important, and we'll see why later, because
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the though God, the general term, is used more in Joseph's life,
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this name, Yahway, is prominent
in this text. Though it is behind
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the scenes. And so Joseph is
in the house. He's in a privileged
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position. He's a slave in the
house, and we see in three through
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six that the Lord blesses him so
much so that all things are put under
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his feet and everything that he does
succeeds. And so we get a glimpse
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right into Joseph's administrative ability. His
ability to rule well is already present.
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And so Josh and Joseph is in
charge of everything but the food that potiphor
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eight. Now this could be potentially
a euphemism for potipher's wife, but more
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generally it just means potipher's private affairs. So that is how much he is
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entrusted to Joseph, and so this
is a pretty good Gig, right.
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You See, it is at this
point where the Lord being with Joseph makes
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a lot of sense, right.
I mean the text says that he is,
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but we often think, our natural
way of thinking is that God is
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with us and if I just act
right, God will give me good outcomes,
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right, and so we have this
kind of partnership with God. That's
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our natural, sinful way of relating
to God, and so this all makes
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sense to us. Right here and
furthermore, it fits with Joseph's dreams.
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Right, he's second in command,
he has dreams of one day ruling,
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and so this is all making a
lot of sense. But then we have
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the transition in six B right,
Joseph was handsome inform and appearance. Why
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is this here? Well, for
one, it connects him back to his
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mother Rachel and to his Great Grandmother
Sarah, who this is also said about
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them, but also is the calm
for the storm. It sets up what
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happens next, and this is the
second thing that I want to see.
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The temptation and accusation of Josephs,
or the temptation and accusation of the righteous.
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Put another way, we see this
attempted seduction occur in seven through nine
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when we read this. I'll just
read it again as a refresher. And
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after time his master's wife cast her
eyes on Joseph and Said lie with me,
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but he refused and said to his
master's wife behold, because of me,
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my master has no concern about anything
in the house and he's put everything
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that he has in my charge.
He has no greater in the house than
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I am, nor is he kept
back anything from me, except you,
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because you are his wife. How, then, can I do this great
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wickedness and Sin Against God? We
see here an attempted seduction or even more
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blown only sexual harassment, you see, because the words that she uses here
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is not the wordage of wooing or
coercing, but it's a very blunt imperative
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right lie with me. And furthermore, it's not as if he has rights,
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you know, it's not as if
he can just say, you know,
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well, no thanks. I mean, you're really nice, but I'd
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like to keep this relationship professional.
This is a situation there is no excuse
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escape out of. And furthermore,
we see contrasted here the folly of Potipher's
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wife with the wisdom of Joseph.
Thing of this incident in light of what
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proverbs twenty through twenty three says,
saying this about adultery. Why should you
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be intoxicated, my son, with
a forbidden woman and embrace the Bosdom of
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an adultress for man's ways or before
the eyes of the Lord? And he
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ponders all his paths, the iniquities
of the wicked and snare him and he
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has held fast in the chords of
his sin. He dies for lack of
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discipline and because of his great father
folly. He's led astray. You See,
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Joseph knows that his ways are always
before the eyes of the Lord.
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Therefore, how can he do this
great wickedness and Sin Against God? So
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we see a man here who's not
only shrewd and business dealings, but he
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is also displaying great character. And
we see a form of sinfulness, of
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temptation that occurs day after day,
day after day, this sinful temptation,
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this weight is bearing down on Joseph. There is nowhere for him to go
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to escape this temptation. The darkness
closed in on him. Day After Day.
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He has to go to this environment
in which he faces constant temptation and
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harassment from both Potifer's wife and the
enemy. And so we have to think
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about this. What aspects of our
Lives Mirror such attack? What ways are
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we also walking through the Valley of
the shadow of death, as the PSALMIST
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put it? We all have these
ways in which we are constantly going through
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temptation. And so we see this
temptation happening, we see this harassment happening,
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we see this darkness, but in
verses, eleven through eighteen. It
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is magnified even more when we have
this accusation. But one day when he
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went into the house to do his
work and none of the men of the
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house was there in the house,
she caught him by the garment, saying
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lie with me, but he left
his garment in her hand and fled and
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got out of the House. And
as soon as she saw that he had
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left his garment in her hand and
had fled out of the house, she
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called to the men of her household
and said to them, see, he
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has brought among us a Hebrew to
laugh at us. He came in to
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me to lie with me and I
cried out with a loud voice, and
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as soon as he heard that I
lifted up my voice and cried out he
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he left his garment beside me and
fled and got out of the House.
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Then she laid up the garment by
her and tell his master. Came home
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and she told him the same story, saying the Hebrew Servant whom you have
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brought among us, came into me
to laugh at me, but as soon
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as I lifted up my voice and
cried out, he left his garment beside
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me and fled out of the house, and so we see the full weight
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of injustice occurring here. The victim
of temptation and harassment is now accused of
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rape. He escapes one form of
temptation and darkness, only to be plunged
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deeper into it, only to be
plunged deeper in too and justice. And
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so this leads us to ask this
question. This is the question we all
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need to ask. Does the judged, does injustice thought or stop the plans
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of God? You See, we
have to ask ourselves what hope do we
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have? What for the ways that
we are sinned against? What hope do
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we have in the midst of injustice? And what hope can we offer those
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offer those who have suffered sin,
manipulation and abuse? To the scriptures really
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speak to such things. See,
the reality is that the historical accounts of
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God's people are filled with these type
of stories. They are filled the psalms
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are filled with the people of God
odd crying out in the midst of injustice,
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crying out as they are being persecuted, looking for someone who will defend
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them in the midst of such suffering
and injustice. And the Israelites would no
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doubt see in this story of Joseph
and his slavery in Egypt a connection to
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their own slavery in Egypt, right. And so that's what's going on.
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And, furthermore, these stories of
injustice, these stories of false accusation,
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are prominent in our own history as
a nation. The story is remarkably similar
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to the story of Emmett till,
who is a fourteen year old African American
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boy was kidnapped and then lynched because
of an accusation that he whistled at a
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white shop owner, an accusation that
wipe show that white shop owner later said
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she made up. These are things
in our own history and just like this
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story, there's a racial element.
You see in verses fourteen and seventeen,
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potifer's wife points out that he is
a Hebrew and she does this in order
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to gain sympathy from the Egyptian slaves. So this is very much integrated here,
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right, these type of ways in
which injustice and sin go back and
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forth and relationships also can have a
racial element, there's no question about it.
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But for all of us, even
if that's not our story, we
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no doubt have to ask when we
are on the receiving end of injustice or
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when we see the people of God
on the receiving end of injustice or we
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see injustice in our broader world,
we have to ask, does this thwart,
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does this stop, the plans that
God has, the plans that God
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has for salvation? So we keep
that in mind. And then Verse Nineteen
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and Twenty we see the sentencing that
happens. And as soon as his master
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heard the words that his wife spoke
to him. This is the way your
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servant treated me, his anger was
kindled and Joseph's master took him and put
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him into the prison place where the
king's prisoners were confined, and he was
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there in the prison. It's interesting
that Joseph is not put to death right
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on the spot. Again, remember, he doesn't have any rights. He
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doesn't have any right to a fair
trial, he doesn't have any type of
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judicial protection. He is a Hebrew
slave in a high ranking official household in
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Egypt. They could have easily done
away with him and that would have been
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that. But some commentators believe the
reason he wasn't put to death is because
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potipher kind of you know, knows
the character of Joseph, for one,
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but he also has an idea of
the character of his wife, and so
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as a way to kind of,
you know, save face or make sure
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that Joseph has punished and yet,
realizing this might not be the truth,
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he puts him into prison. And
so Joseph has kept a lot, I've
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but he is in deep darkness.
And this leads to the second question that
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we should consider is, where is
God and does he still love me in
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the midst of injustice? Is God
still with me? Is God still with
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Joseph? You See, Joseph had
the promise that he would eventually rule his
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brothers, that he would eventually be
on a throne, and yet here he
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is at the bottom of a jail
cell. Where is God ruling? What
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a joke. He goes from bad
to worse. And so there are these
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moments where we know this type of
darkness, where we feel the weight of
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our own sinfulness, where we feel
the weight of sin that is all around
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us, and we, like Joseph, like the PSALMISTS, can cry out,
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as the Psalm eighteen or eighty eight
thirteen th eighteen says this, but
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I cry to you for help,
Lord, in the morning my prayer comes
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before you. Why, Lord,
do you reject me and hide your face
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from me, from my youth,
I have suffered him, been close to
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death. I have borne your tears
and am in despair. Your wrath sweep
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swept over me. Your terror has
destroyed me all day long. They surround
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me like a flood. They have
completely engulfed me. You have taken from
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me friend and neighbor. Darkness is
my close us, this friend. Is
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that not the prayer of Joseph in
this midst? That not often our prayer
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that we feel in the midst of
our sinfulness, in the midst of injustice?
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Joseph is our rock bottom. And
again we have to ask these two
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questions. Does injustice thwart the plans
of God? And, as God still
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with us, does he still love
us in the midst of sin and injustice?
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You See, these are the questions
not only of victims, as we
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see in this text. These are
the questions of victimizers, that is,
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those who not only receive the sin
of others or experience the sin of others
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done to them, wrong done them, but they are also the questions of
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those who do sin against others,
because this is all of us, friends.
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We are all both in the category
of victim and victimizer. To some
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extent right now. Primarily, we
are victimizers, we are sinners, right,
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and that is how we are held
accountable for God. And yet we
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are, how an accountable for that
because of what it does to other people.
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Right. And secondarily, I would
also like us to consider that the
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ways in which we are victims of
sin is often connected to ways that we
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sin against others. Okay, so, if you are a kid, you
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might have been bullied in school.
Or maybe you are kid and you are
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bullied in school, right, and
that is not unconnected to how you relate
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to others. You may be bullied
in school and because that, you have
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a hard time having close relationships with
others. You're distant, right. Or
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maybe you were abused and because of
that abuse, you are prone to lash
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out. Or maybe you had a
parents when you were a kid who was
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an alcoholic, and maybe you swore
you would never touch the stuff, but
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you're addicted to other things. You're
addicted to food because you are looking for
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some kind of form of comfort,
right. And so if we all kind
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of look down deep, if we
all examine ourselves, will see that the
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ways that we sin against others are
not unrelated to the ways that we have
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sinned against, as those sins connect
on to our sinful nature. And so
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because that, we need a positive
answer to these two questions of where is
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God? Does he love me,
and does in justice thwart his plans?
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And so we see this in verses
twenty one through twenty three, when it
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says this in the midst of all
this, but the Lord was with Joseph
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and showed him steadfast love and gave
him favor in the side of the keeper
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of the prison. And the keeper
of the prison put Joseph in charge of
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all the prisoners who were in the
prison. Whatever was done there, he
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was the one who did it.
The keeper of the prison paid no attention
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to anything that was in Joseph's charge
because the Lord was with him, and
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whatever D did, the Lord made
succeed. You see, you see again
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where it says that the Lord was
with Joseph. This is the second part
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where you see this said and you
see all that has happened in between those
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two points where the Lord is with
Joseph. A lot of sin, a
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lot of darkness has passed, and
yet we are book ended by the promise
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that God is with Joseph. Right
and so we have to ask, though,
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because all this darkness has passed,
because of all this sin, because
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God seemed to be conveniently absent from
the story. We have to ask ourselves,
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how does Joseph Know The Lord is
with them? Therefore, how do
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we know that the Lord is with
us? Joseph has the promises. You
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See, Joseph is the great grandson
of Abraham, and these promises that were
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originally made to Abraham, that I
will bless you, that I will make
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you a great nation, these are
passed down to Joseph. These are the
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Abrahamic promises that come down to him. And furthermore, he had these dreams
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that God promised to him that he
would one day rule and reign. And
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so Joseph, in the midst of
his darkness, in the midst of his
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darkest hour, when there is no
hope, all he has the promises of
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God to know that God is with
them. And therefore we need to know
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that God is with us. We
need promises that we can hope before.
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How do we have those promises?
We see, there are a number of
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parallels between Joseph and Jesus. Scholars
have noted this. When you think about
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Joseph and wisdom and leadership. Jesus
is called in Hebrews three, the builder
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of the House of God. We
think about faithfulness and temptation, like Joseph
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was in a way that we never
could. Be It for honest Jesus withstood
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the Devil and the Wilderness in Matthew
for one through eleven. And when you
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think about suffering for injustice, Jesus
was delivered according to the definite plan of
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God and Knowledge of God and crucified
and killed by the hands of lawless men.
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Acts to twenty three. You See, in this story we find ourselves
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in a lot of places. Sometimes
where Jacob, where we have disordered loves,
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we do not love people as we
should, we do not give them
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the love they are due. Sometimes
where potipher's wife, and we coerce other
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people, through minor or maybe big
ways, to not obey the Lord's commandments
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right and sometimes we are the afflicted, like Joseph. And yet there's only
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one who we can say rightly took
all this affliction the way Joseph did,
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and that is Christ. And therefore, because Jesus has suffered, he can
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empathize, he can support, he
can be the rock for those who suffer
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injustice. If you aren't sure that
Jesus can be your rock for sin,
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if you're not sure that he is
the one who delivers you, that he
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is the one who is with you
in your darkest hour, in your darkest
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sin, in all of the misery
that comes with it, just consider the
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words of Psalm twenty two, these
words which, by the way, he
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repeated at the cross. Now he
only repeated the first line, but,
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as you may or may not know, when Jesus repeats the first line of
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this text, he implies, or
he means for all his hearers to hear
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the whole Psalm. Only read a
part, but listen to this. My
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God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? Why are you so
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far from saving me from the words
of my groaning? Oh my God,
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I cry by day, but you
do not answer, and by nights,
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but I find no rest. You
are holy, enthroned on the praises of
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Israel, and you are father's trusted. They trusted and you delivered them to
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you. They cried and were rescued
and you, they trusted and were not
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put to shame. But I am
a worm and not a man, scorned
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by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me,
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they make mouths and me, they
wag their heads. He trusted in the
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Lord. Let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, for he delights
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in him. You see, we
need to know that Jesus is with us,
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and this psalm, this text,
the story of Joseph, is a
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foreshadowing of the way that Jesus is
with us even now. Even now,
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his presence is with us for our
salvation. And secondly, we see in
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the story of Joseph that he is
restored to some extent. We see that
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there is vindication for Joseph and we
see that Joseph's ultimate vindication is going to
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come later in the in the book, in Chapter Fifty, verse twenty.
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You see Joseph is eventually restored.
Fully, if you know the rest of
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the story, he is in the
prison and, long story short, he
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drew. He interprets a couple dreams
for the Pharaoh and because that, he
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rises to power and he goes from
the pit in one day on to second
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in command over all of Egypt.
And God uses him in the midst of
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a famine. He uses his leadership
ability, he uses these skills for administration
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to save all the people in the
land, and how he rules over the
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country. And so we see this
path in which God brought him here.
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And after all this good has happened, after all these things, things to
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have worked out for Joseph's ultimate vindication. His brothers confess their sin to him
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and he says this in fifty verse
twenty. As for you, you meant
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evil against me, but God meant
it for good, to bring about that
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many people should be kept alive as
they are today. You see, there
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is an ultimate vindication for Joseph and, brothers and sisters, there will be
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an ultimate vindication for you. We
are not promised in this life that all
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injustice will be done away with.
We are not promised that we will be
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fully relieved of all the sin that
we carry, though the Lord is present
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and all of it and giving US
grace. But we are promised that one
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day Jesus will come again, and
we confess that he will come again.
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And when he comes again, because
your faith is in him, it will
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not be for your condemnation, it
will be for your salvation. You will
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not be afraid on that day you
will be openly vindicated you will be openly
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declared that you are righteous and that
you have the kingdom, just as it
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was your father's good pleasure to give
to you, and in that day all
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evil will be destroyed, all will
be set right and we will know perfectly
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that the Lord is with us,
like he was with Joseph, and that
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his plans cannot be stopped. Let's
pray
