LIFE LESSONS
JOSEPH
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 39
NOVEMBER 24, 2002
When people think of Egypt, they think of many things. Some people think of the pharaohs who in death had their bodies wrapped in mummification. Some people think of the pyramids, giant tombs for ancient kings, thirty-five of which still dot the Egyptian landscape, most of them along the banks of the Nile. Some think of the great pyramid, called Cheops by the Greeks. It was built 4,500 years ago as a burial chamber for King Khufu. It contains 2,300,000 stones, each stone weighing an average of 5,000 pounds.
Some people, when they think of Egypt, think of the Nile River, which brings life in the midst of the Great Sahara Desert. Some people think of the Valley of the Kings. Some think of the Temple at Karnack. Some think of the Giant Sphinx. When people think of Egypt, they think of many things. But, you see, the Jewish people, when they think of Egypt, think of two people. They think first of all of Joseph, who led the Jewish people into Egypt. Then they think of Moses who, four hundred years later, led the Jewish people out of Egypt.
Today, we come to Joseph, this great man who led the children of Israel into Egypt. I’m frustrated in a sense because his life contains so many adventurers and yet our time is short. We’re going to take a look at two subjects with regard to Joseph’s life. First of all, there is the subject of temptation. Joseph was a man who conquered temptation. God’s will for each of you today is that you would learn to conquer, to overcome, temptation—to have victory with regard to temptation.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports on a study that was conducted by toxicologists at The Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. This study concerns snakebites. The study really began a few years ago when a man came into The Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix with a snakebite. He had been gardening in his yard and he encountered a rattlesnake. He took his shovel, and he killed the rattlesnake. He literally chopped the head off of the rattlesnake. He bent down to pick up the head and he was stunned when the head of the snake bit him even though it was decapitated. So, he went to the hospital because he had been poisoned.
This was the beginning of a 3-year study as reported in The New England Journal Of Medicine. They have concluded that 15% of all snakebites take place when the snakes are actually dead and people do not realize that snakes are able, up to an hour after their death, to still bite and still poison people because of a reflex action. Even a decapitated snake can bite and poison a human being.
The Bible describes Satan through serpentine imagery. Satan is a kind of snake, and there is a sense in which he is dead already. He was cast out of heaven by the Archangel Michael and the Angelic Hosts. Satan was defeated spiritually on the cross by the Son of God and his doom is sealed. He is destined for the lake of fire. But he is still deadly. He knows his time is short. “Satan,” the Bible tells us, “seeks the souls of men and women all over the world.” He wants your soul. He wants to bring you to spiritual death even as he himself is spiritually dead. He delights in your physical death and your physical afflictions, but his primary goal is your spiritual death and spiritual affliction. He wants to bring people into alienation. He wants to make people alienated from God as he is alienated from God. His great weapon is sin because he knows that sin alienates people from God and that sin can lead to spiritual death. So he tempts and entices people to sin.
So, we come to Joseph. Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. These twelve sons formed, ultimately, through their offspring, the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joseph had ten half-brothers and one full brother, Benjamin, who, like Joseph, was born to Jacob through Rachel. He was hated by his ten half-brothers, and they sold him into slavery. So, Joseph was taken down into Egypt. And his brothers who hated him thought they would never ever see him again. But God was with Joseph. Joseph was purchased by Potiphar, a high-ranking Egyptian. Joseph found favor in the sight of Potiphar and eventually Potiphar, this captain of the guard, put Joseph in charge of his entire household.
The Bible tells us Joseph was handsome. He was good looking. Potiphar’s wife was attracted to him. She came to him like a temptress, and she said, “Lie with me.” She enticed him and lured him towards sexual sin and adultery. Joseph stood firm. He resisted temptation. He was loyal to his master, and he was loyal to God. “How can I sin against God? How can I do this great wickedness?” She came to him again and again and again. Day after day she came to him with temptations like that. Rarely does one just conquer temptation once and it is all over. It just keeps coming.
If you are a recovering alcoholic, you know that to be the case. You cannot conquer alcohol and its temptation and allure at once. You have to do it again and again and again and again. Temptation is like that. Sexual temptation can be like that. No generation has ever been tempted sexually as this generation has. Satan has more tools today than ever he has had.
Wednesday night I spoke at a Christian Medical Fellowship. That same night while I was speaking at the Christian Medical Fellowship, Victoria’s Secret had a special on television. I did not see it, but ten years ago nobody would have seen it. You see, ten years ago, they would not have put that on television. Just ten years ago, they would not have modeled women’s underwear on television. The times are changing. It is the frog and the kettle. Some people are unaware. Temptation is growing.
According to the USA Today, there are now 40,000 pornographic websites on the Internet—40,000 pornographic websites. According to the USA Today, at any given point in time, one-third of all people on the Internet are looking at pornography. Is that unbelievable? According to the USA Today, at any given point in time in the workplace, one-fourth of all employees on the Internet are looking at sexually explicit material. We do not know what to do with statistics like that. We do not know whether to believe them or not, but this much is clear. We are a culture in decline. If you think pornography is just harmless entertainment, you are kidding yourself.
Pornography causes people to objectify the other sex, to make them mere objects of sexual gratification. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, warns us about the sin of lust. “Whoever looks upon a woman with lust in his heart has committed adultery in his heart.” If you even look upon a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart. The sin of lust. We are a culture that is lusting more and more. If ever we needed victory over temptation, if God’s people ever needed to be strong, it is today.
Temptation takes many forms. It is not just sexual temptation. Satan comes to us in many ways. Even Joseph was tempted in many ways, but he fled. He fled temptation. He fled sin, and that is what we need to do. In 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 8, the Bible says, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” You see, he is not only portrayed through the imagery of a snake. Satan is also portrayed biblically through the imagery of a lion seeking someone to devour. Zoologists tell us that lions tend to be nocturnal, and they do most of their hunting at night. Avoid the dark. Avoid spiritual darkness. Avoid it. Satan will come to you in your area of weakness. Stay out of the dark. Be careful what magazines you subscribe to, what television programs you watch, what movies you go to. Be careful. Flee temptation. Flee sin.
There is a sense in which the effects of sin are corporate. They affect the entire Church, the Body of Christ. I read some time ago about Christopher Ludwig. Christopher Ludwig was Baker General of the Army under George Washington—the Baker General in George Washington’s Army during the Revolutionary War. He is kind of a hero as historians view him because Christopher Ludwig and some of his associates took bread behind enemy lines and tempted British soldiers to commit treason and to flee the British Army with the promise that they would be given perpetually, day after day, fresh bread. Historians tell us that hundreds of British soldiers abandoned their troops and committed treason for the sake of bread.
Christopher Ludwig is something of an American hero, but you think of the British armies and how they were weakened by young men succumbing to the temptation for bread. You realize that armies are weakened in times of war when people give in to temptation. The church of Jesus Christ is a team. We are a team. We understand what teams are. The Broncos are going to play tonight. They are a team. If one individual fumbles the ball, the whole team will be affected. If one individual is called for a holding penalty, the whole team will be affected. God wants you to understand what Satan already knows: That he weakens the whole church when he causes any individuals to fall. If he can entice you to sin and if he can tempt you to sin, this church is weaker, and this body is weaker. As you give yourself over to sin, you are less likely to be a woman or a man of prayer. You are less likely to be in the Word. You are less likely to offer your time, your talent, your treasure at the altar of His church and His kingdom if he can entice you into sin. The whole church is weakened. Much is at stake.
We look at Joseph and we not only see his victories with regard to temptation, but we see the hand of God and providence. This is our last and final point this morning. We look at Joseph and we see the providence of God. We see the divine providence.
I read some time ago about a woman named Vera Zermack. She lived in Prague, the Czech Republic. She was not happily married. Her husband beat her. He beat her time and again. Life was so hard for her, and yet she loved her husband, and she did not want to lose him, and so she allowed him to beat her. Her self-esteem was diminishing as time went by as he beat her time and again.
One day she was devastated to discover that her husband had committed adultery, and not just once but repeatedly. She felt so devalued, she felt so valueless that she decided to take her own life. According to the newspapers in Prague, the Czech Republic, she went to the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment, and she jumped, seeking to take her life. But she did not die. In fact, she was not really injured because she landed on a person walking below. That person died, and it turned out to be her husband. An amazing story.
Does that indicate divine providence? There is a kind of poetic justice there isn’t there? But, of course, in this world we see too little justice, too little poetic justice or any other kind of justice. But God wants us to understand, and the Bible affirms, that God’s providence is with His people. God is working in your life. God is working in my life. Those of us who belong to Christ, who have given our lives to Christ, God promises there is no meaningless pain. God is always working for good no matter what we are experiencing. His providential action is at work, His providence, and we see this in Joseph.
Joseph was, as we have said, hated by his brothers. His ten half-brothers really sought to kill him. They hated him partly because he was Jacob’s favorite, partly because Joseph was the recipient of divine dreams. These revelatory dreams seemed to indicate that one day his brothers would bow down to him, and so they hated him all the more. They hated him. They wanted to kill him. They threw him into a pit, you recall. They would have left him there to die, but God’s providence was at work.
An Ishmaelite caravan on its way to Egypt came by. The brothers thought, “Well, instead of just leaving him in the hole and letting him die there, we could make some money off of him and still be rid of him,” so they sold him to this Ishmaelite caravan. He was taken into Egypt into slavery, purchased by Potiphar. But again, divine providence intervened. By the hand of God and by the will of God, he rose to prominence in Potiphar’s house. Then there was the whole episode with Potiphar’s wife. And as a result of that and her anger that he spurned her temptation, he was cast into prison. But again, God’s providence was at work, and he ascended, even in prison, to a position of prominence. All of the prisoners in the prison were put under his care.
He began to interpret dreams there, and then ultimately in the Royal Court. He interpreted dreams and he rose to prominence in the eyes of Pharaoh. Unbelievable. All by the hand of God. Ultimately, he came to forgive his brothers and to provide for them. He said to his brothers in Genesis 50, verse twenty, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Divine providence. Whatever is meant for evil in your life, by men or by Satan, God means it for good. “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”
As we close, I want to tell you a little story. It is about a guy who, historians tell us, was perhaps the worst horseman in the history of the world. No one was more frequently parted from his horse than this man. He was called the Duke of Albuquerque. He was a Spanish aristocrat and he often raced in Britain. He raced in seven Grand National Events in Liverpool, beginning in 1952 and concluding in 1975. In those seven Grand Nationals, he never once finished the race. Never once. He was always thrown from his horse.
The problem was the fences. You had to jump fences. In the first race in 1952, he was thrown from his horse at the first fence. The result was he wound up in the Royal National Infirmary in all seven Grand Nationals. That first time after he was thrown from his horse, he just woke up in the infirmary unconscious. And so it went. In 1965 in the Grand National, his horse died in the middle of the race and fell on him. He would up in the Royal National Infirmary again. In 1975, the last time he entered the Grand National, his horse threw him in warm-ups. They were surprised to see him so soon at the Royal Liverpool Infirmary. They put his leg in a cast, and his friends took him back to the Grand National. They put him on the horse and, believe it or not, for the first time and the last time, he completed the Grand National, jumping all fences. They asked him how he did it and he said he didn’t know. He said he just could not, because of his injuries, do anything but just sit on a horse like a sack of potatoes. He said, “I wasn’t able to help the horse in any way.” The experts felt that that is why he was able to finish the race.
Now, you might feel like life is a horse race. You might feel like life is a horse race and you’re the Duke of Albuquerque. It might feel like that to you. It sometimes does to me. The fences are different. It might be an economic fence that throws you. It may be a career problem. You might just feel in terms of your career and its future you have been thrown from your horse. It could be physical. It could be medical. It could be a health issue. It could be cancer. It could be relational. It might just feel like in your marriage you have been thrown from your horse. It could be spiritual, but God doesn’t want you to despair. He wants you to get back up. He wants you to know if you love Jesus that He is at work in you to conform you to the fullness of the lightness of the Son of God, and that one day He will bring you to heaven’s gate and to your eternal reward. He wants you to know that He can use every circumstance in your life for your good and for the good of those around you. He wants you to know that He’s at work in you, shaping you, molding, you, chiseling you, sculpting you into a great work of art. He is at work in you. His providence is at work, and He wants you to have faith so that you can be clay in the hands of the Potter.
Our time is up, but we look at Joseph and we see these two subjects really supremely: temptation and providence. His ability to overcome temptation, and this is God’s call on our life; and then God’s providence at work, bringing him through every circumstance and situation to some eternal good. Let us close with a word of prayer.