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February 2022 (Vol.56-No.2) |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on January 31, 1988 He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. Psalm105:17-19 TURN IN YOUR BIBLE TO PSALM 105. This psalm recounts God’s control over His people and His ability to keep His word. He sent His people down to Egypt, in part as an answer to a question asked by Abram. Abram had asked God, “How will I know that this land You have given to me and my descendants is really mine?” God replied that He would do something that would remove all doubt, though it would take four generations to accomplish. He said He would send Abram’s descendants to a land where they would be strangers, and they would become servants in that land. But in the fourth generation, God would bring them forth richer than they were before, and He would bring them back to the land of promise. God would prove His control over the destiny of a people. He carried out everything He had promised, right on time. He demonstrated that when He promises to do something, He can be counted on to do it. Prior to sending His people down to Egypt, God unfolded His plan by sending one man ahead of them. We read in Psalm 105:17, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant.” I have been communicating the same old truths. F.B. Meyer once said that we don’t need any new truths; we just need to rediscover the old truths. This is one of those truths. Before God’s people went down to Egypt as part of His plan, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant.” Joseph was sent to Egypt in God’s will. God’s method involved Joseph’s brethren turning against him and selling him into slavery. With “senders” like God, who needs enemies? If God ran a delivery service, I would suggest that He find another profession! Surely God could have devised a better method for getting Joseph to Egypt. I want us to put flesh and blood on Joseph. When we read about people in the Bible, we are prone to forget that they had feelings. We think that they never suffered pain, heartache, disappointment, or the occasional desire to get angry at God. It was not as though God had surprised Joseph by ultimately delivering him; the problem was that God had “set him up” by first giving him dreams. As a young man, Joseph came running out one day to announce to his brethren that he had dreamed a dream that they would all bow down to him. If you have brothers and sisters, you can imagine how this announcement was received, especially since Joseph was a spoiled young brat favored by his father. Imagine Joseph saying to his older brothers one morning, “Hi, fellows, Get ready to bow down to me!” His brothers hated him. Joseph had a second dream that his parents would bow down to him as well. He told it to his father, and his father rebuked him. Genesis 37:11 says, “And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.” God had given Joseph those dreams and then had the very brethren who were going to bow down to him cast him into a pit and sell him into slavery. Couldn’t God have found someone else to sell him into slavery? Why did God have to use the very brethren whom He had said would bow down to him? People who are destined to bow down to you should not be given an opportunity to launch a counteroffensive. God’s ways, even when they happen to someone else, don’t always make sense to us. Joseph arrived in Egypt in chains and was sold as a slave into Potiphar’s house. Then he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife. One day, when Potiphar was not at home, his wife caught Joseph by his garment and said, “Lie with me!” She was still holding on to his garment as Joseph fled naked, and she screamed, “He tried to rape me!” When she told Potiphar her version of the story, he was furious and had Joseph thrown into the dungeon where the king’s prisoners were bound. Some people find the Resurrection of Jesus Christ difficult to believe, while others find the crossing of the Red Sea a little hard to believe; but this episode with Potiphar’s wife might be one of the hardest to believe in our modern age. The Bible has the ability to inspire faith in its veracity, and this episode proves the point. Down through the centuries, people have believed Joseph and have disbelieved Potiphar’s wife. Today, most people would believe Potiphar’s wife’s version of the story, but that is taking the short-term view and not viewing the story all the way to the end. You see, if Joseph had died in that dungeon, the whole world would still be believing Potiphar’s wife. But Joseph didn’t die in that dungeon, though I am sure he thought he would. In spite of the fact that his clothing was in the hands of Potiphar’s wife, I believe that Joseph was innocent. Joseph’s brothers betrayed him after God had promised they would bow down to him. I wonder how Joseph felt about God’s promise when they threw him into a pit and he was looking up at them while they were leering down at him. His father had sent him to his brethren to satisfy his father’s concern about them. Joseph had to travel north to find them; but after he was sold into slavery, he was forced to march in chains southwest toward Egypt. As he marched, he could probably see the hills near his home from which he had originally set out to do his father’s will. His brethren stained his garments with animal’s blood and then lied to their father, saying that he had been killed by a wild beast. Joseph had survived slavery in Potiphar’s house, but the reward for his morality was to be cast into a dungeon. The years went by. Some scholars say he was imprisoned for ten years; we don’t know for certain, but it was a long time. Remember the words that undergird this message: God sent a man to Egypt. “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron.” Some Bibles have an alternative translation in the margin that says, “his soul came into iron.” A better translation is “the iron entered into his soul.” Learn from Joseph. What do you do when God not only delays His promise but also allows every circumstance to deny it? What do you do when He allows the devil to mount every offensive designed to destroy your hope in that promise? These things would not be in God’s word if they didn’t happen, because the New Testament says that all these things are written for our example. Not everyone who acts in faith on a promise of God gets the answer quickly enough to appear on the cover of a magazine published by some prosperity preacher. How many things can go wrong in someone’s life before he or she gives up? We are often tempted to give up, just to teach God a lesson! I can imagine Joseph being tempted to think, “Enough is enough! I will teach God a lesson for delaying the fulfillment of His promises; I will die here in this dungeon! And the next time Potiphar’s wife comes around, God will wish that He had been a little faster when I gave Him the chance with my faithfulness! He sure missed His chance!” Let’s read Psalm 105:17-19 and substitute a few words based on our alternative translation: “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: the iron entered into his soul: until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.” This is a paradoxical truth. I want us to focus on this dual function of a promise of God. Until God’s word of promise was fulfilled, that very same word tried Joseph. The knowledge of that word, indeed the very hearing of that word being uttered, was the greatest trial that tried him. There is nothing as wonderful as being a Christian in blissful innocence and expecting God to surprise you every morning with new blessings. The tough trip is the ability to see a promise from God and know “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,” yet His word cannot even take a grip down here on earth. That is where most of us find ourselves. Sometimes I want to tell God, “If I didn’t know Your word, I would have noticed the conflict between Your word and the present circumstances. But because I know Your word, my blissful innocence has been removed, and the knowledge of the distance between my circumstances and what You have promised is a greater trial than having to endure the circumstances without the knowledge of Your promises.” “Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.” See this young man as he walked in chains to Egypt. See him as he tried to be a faithful servant by doing his best with the lot that God had given him. He was faithful to Potiphar, refusing to defile himself with Potiphar’s wife in an illicit relationship. See Joseph cast into a dungeon and imagine what it must have been like for him day after day, night after night, remembering what God had promised. That “word of the LORD” tried him. I believe that God’s word is saying that Joseph passed the test, and the implication is that he could have failed the test. He could have let his own sense of timing cause him to release his grip on the word of the Lord. Joseph could have turned bitter; he could have been rendered faithless. The word of promise that tried him could have passed this sentence on him: “Failed.” God sent Joseph to Egypt via the treachery of his brethren, the bondage of slavery, and the lying of Potiphar’s wife, to place him in a dungeon where, as we now know, he might interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and be elevated to the position of absolute ruler over Egypt. God set the stage before He sent Joseph’s father and brethren down to Egypt, in order to feed His people during a famine. Since God is the one who did all these things, if Joseph had broken, he would have been in worse shape than if he had never received a promise from God. This is the “Catch-22: of being called of God. When God calls you and starts leading you with His purposes, you had better not bail out en route. Joseph would have been better off to have kept his dream to himself and run away over the hills of Judea than to have marched out and brashly told the word of the Lord to his brethren. If he had lost faith while in the dungeon, what would it have gained him? Again, imagine Joseph thinking, “Alright, God, I’ve had enough. I’m just going to sit here in this dungeon and eat worms until I die. I will spite You!” When you start your journey with God, you had better see it through. It is too late to turn back! You might say, “If I had been told when I started this walk of faith that it would be this tough, I never would have started!” It’s too late, man. I didn’t know it myself. I said, “Cheer up, saints: it’s going to get worse,” but I didn’t know how bad it would get. That was said in humor, but the message of Joseph is simply this: when you start following God’s word, the word of the Lord will try you every day that it delays. The promises of God will not come easily. And every day you wake up, you will either look at your circumstances or the word of the Lord, and that is where the test comes. My advice to you is that you don’t let the test break your connection with the word. There is a time coming: it is God’s time, not your time. The word of the Lord will come. No one in this congregation has yet been tried the way Joseph was tried. So recognize what is happening to you and walk out of church today, saying, “By God, there is nothing that will break my grip of faith this year or hereafter! I didn’t start this journey by looking at my circumstances; I started by looking at the word of the Lord. And I will not let any delay destroy my grip!” The time will come. Until it comes, the word itself tries us because it hangs in front of us a hope that is contradicted by fact. I came to this city more than twelve years ago, and my message has not changed. God has not changed. But one thing has changed for the better on our part: we have learned by our experiences to take a tighter grip under pressure, not a looser grip. Cheer up, saints: it’s going to get worse for our enemies, because nothing will cause us to turn loose until the word of the Lord is fulfilled. That time will occur, if not this year, then next year or the following year. And if it does not occur down here at all, it will happen in eternity, where there is no conflict between God’s word and our circumstances. But there are promises we have claimed, and we are still going forward claiming those promises with no less enthusiasm in the coming year. Though God’s word may have tired us, and though we may have longed for a quicker fulfillment of His promises, our grip will stay fixed because the time will come. That is God’s promise to you and to me today. God’s word says, “the iron entered into his soul.” I am talking about the life of faith that cannot be defeated. The whole Bible is a revelation of God, but Hebrews 11 is the only chapter in the Bible that eulogizes man. Joseph’s name is recorded in the only chapter in which God praises men and women because of their faith, and only one event is highlighted from his life. Out of all the events that could have been selected from Joseph’s life, God chose one event to highlight something that most traditional churches would not have chosen. God didn’t highlight Joseph’s refusal to carry a grudge against his brethren for selling him into slavery. Joseph told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good.” God didn’t highlight the purity of Joseph’s life. Most fundamentalists would praise Joseph’s running away from Potiphar’s wife. If they had wanted to make a hero out of Joseph for his morality, that one episode in his life deserved the ultimate commendation. God could have noted that Joseph didn’t become bitter while in the prison cell. Think of all the good things you could say about Joseph: but what did God choose to single out in the New Testament: Verse 22 says that by faith, Joseph, when he was dying, spoke of the exodus out of Egypt and gave orders concerning his bones. Joseph as the greatest man in Egypt, ruling the entire country; but he made sure before he died that he made provision for his descendants to carry his bones back to Canaan when God’s people went out of Egypt. Why did Joseph do that? Because God’s word had said that their sojourn in Egypt would last only until the fourth generation, and then He would bring them back into the Promised Land. Joseph wanted his bones leading the way back into Canaan! This man had God’s word so riveted into his being that his final act was to beat the devil over the head with his dead bones! If you are sitting in depression because of circumstances that have overcome you, if you are saying to yourself, “I’m not too sure that God’s word will bear out,” remember Joseph. The word of the Lord tried him until the iron entered into his soul. My message to you is the same message I have been preaching for all these years: Don’t give up. Keep the faith. God will see you through. That is His promise to you and to me today. We made it through this year! ****************************************** Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2022 Wingspread | November, 2022 Wingspread November, 2022 Wingsprea | October, 2022 Wingspread | September, 2022 Wingspread | August, 2022 Wingspread | July, 2022 Wingspread | June, 2022 Wingspread | May, 2022 Wingspead | April, 2022 Wingspread | March, 2022 Wingspread | February, 2022 Wingspread | January, 2022 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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