Good evening, brothers and sisters.
I instructed the brothers to keep all the windows closed, so nobody falls out. Our brother Ed Miller is the only man I know who can find a spiritual principle in a guy falling out the window.
Well, we have had a long day today. But it is our hunger to know more of the Lord that keeps us awake. We want to have a prayer that the Lord’s presence could come among us with the refreshing that we need.
We even come to a meeting like this desiring to receive, and yet we are like that barren womb. We just do not have much more strength. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
But, you know, the one thing that can rekindle our energies is love.
Father, we come unto Thee tonight, knowing that You meet with Your children even now, who go through various times of tribulation. You meet that tribulation by pouring out Your love into our hearts and reminding us what all of this is about.
It is really not about the attainment of some prize, as it were. It is about love. It is about having received something more precious than we ever believed, and responding with greater love than we ever thought we had to give.
We ask You to meet us in the middle of the valley of love and, once again, pour out Your Spirit from on high, refreshing us body, soul, and spirit, and bringing us into the prosperity that comes in His presence alone.
Oh, thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your precious blood that cleanses us from every stain. Oh, thank You, Lord, for dealing with us and awakening our hearts to the possibilities of this sonship. Oh, now take us on further as we consider together in fellowship tonight.
We depend upon You. Lord, show us the way. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.
I am so thankful to be in a meeting like this, where I can share in coordination with my other brothers. I am thankful because they share things with me that encourage me, and I share things as well that I feel are part and parcel of a single message that the Lord is giving us this weekend: to pursue Him and to come into all that He wants for us—that reigning, that glory, and all the blessedness of sonship.
Yet we have heard in each of the messages, in various ways, that when we are in this place of desiring sonship, we find ourselves in a contradiction, as it were. We find that we are unable. We are grass—temporary. We may become vigorous and excited about things, but soon our strength ebbs away.
But we stand in that place Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah 40:
The grass may wither and fade away,
But the word of the Lord endures forever.
That is what we lay hold of and find strength in, in this matter of sonship. It is not ourselves and our grass-like nature.
Then, of course, Ernie came along and spoke about us being told to fly, but being elephants. Oh, how I wish I could fly, but I am just an elephant. Now, do not take that too seriously.
But how can we go from being an elephant to an eagle, and thus find ourselves flying high in the heavenlies, abiding with our Lord Jesus?
We come to that same place again. Our brother who shared this afternoon set before us such a wonderful promise, and yet such a barren womb staring us in the face. There we are. How are we going to get through this?
What God has promised, God will fulfill. So, even as our brother so wonderfully said this afternoon, let us start by thanking Him. Only He can take us through into the things He has planned for us.
Tonight, we want to illustrate something of that process. Our brother Stephen mentioned that tomorrow morning he will share the process of sonship in a fuller, New Testament way. But I want to use an Old Testament example that is familiar to most of you.
Since we are tired tonight, I do not want to belabor the point. I simply want to use the life of Joseph as an illustration of somebody who comes into sonship as he follows the path of the Lord.
Let us look at Psalm 105, where a reference is made to him. The significance of this psalm is that it tells the history of the children of God. In that history, it comes to this section where Joseph is mentioned by name as one whom the Lord raised up to bring his brothers into sonship—indeed, all of Israel.
We come to Psalm 105:16:
And He called for a famine upon the land;
He broke the whole staff of bread.
He sent a man before them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
They afflicted his feet with fetters,
He himself was laid in irons,
Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the Lord tested him.
Then the king sent and released him,
The ruler of the peoples, and set him free.
He made him lord of his house
And ruler over all his possessions,
To imprison his princes at will,
That he might teach his elders wisdom.
So we see in this little picture a little Old Testament picture of sonship. Let us turn to Genesis 37—the story of Joseph. It is a very precious story, unusual and unique.
The patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Strangely, as it were, Joseph is given the most pages—a very detailed description of the journey he went on as he was being brought into sonship.
Let us see the beginning. Genesis 37:1:
Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan.
These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives.
And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to his father.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a very colored tunic.
His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had.”
As if they were interested.
“For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
Ah, what an exciting dream.
Then his brothers responded and said to him:
“Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?”
So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
Now fuel was added to the fire. He had still another dream, related it to his brothers, and said:
“Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
When he related it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said:
“What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”
His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
Now, it is a unique story, filled with unique sufferings. The picture is so beautiful that we usually use the story of Joseph to share the life of Jesus. In Joseph, more than in any of the other patriarchs, you can see Jesus going through suffering and eventually coming to exaltation.
Joseph lends himself in detail to the story of Jesus: wrongly accused, betrayed, stripped of his glory, bound in prison, and exalted.
But I do not want to use this as an illustration of our Lord Jesus tonight, as wonderful as that might be. I want to use it as an illustration of our own journey into sonship and what is involved in it.
At the start, I want to tell you what I think is the essence here. If we can practically be helped by this picture of Joseph, we need to see that this story of sonship involves two dimensions.
The first is that when Joseph received the dreams of his sonship, he pursued after it and came to that place where he was raised up in Egypt.
Genesis 41:39 says:
So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.
You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.”
Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.”
Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck.
He had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, “Bow the knee!”
And he set him over all the land of Egypt.
Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”
Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, as his wife.
And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt.
Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
There is his exaltation. There is his reigning. How did he get there? This is what we want to look at. That is the first dimension of sonship: the personal process.
But then, more importantly, we find that Joseph’s story is not really his story. It is the story of how God brought many sons to glory.
God was not simply concerned about raising up Joseph in some special way. God wanted all his brothers, as well as Joseph, in the place of sonship. Here we find a model for us. How does God bring many sons to glory? How does the Lord bring brothers and sisters in the church to maturity?
Here is the answer: first, someone must pay the price to go through in sonship. Then God can use that person to bring others into maturity.
This has application to leadership. This has application to those who minister. This has application to both brothers and sisters.
Somebody needs to go through first, all alone, and learn the lesson. To be honest with you, all of us have to go through alone and learn the lessons. But, oh, for those brothers and sisters who see this thing and are gripped in such a way that they are willing to pay whatever price it takes—who come through in maturity, responsibility, and character, so that they can help others be recovered.
What other hope is there for the church to come to glory than for there to be those willing to go through this valley first?
It is interesting, is it not? Genesis 37 speaks of “the generations of Jacob,” and that has to do with all of Jacob’s sons. Here is how all of them got to glory: it started with Joseph.
By the time Joseph was seventeen, several things had happened. Joseph was only six years old when they left Padan-aram. In fact, when Joseph was born, Jacob said to Laban, “Please let me go.” But Laban talked him into staying another six years. So Jacob stayed and made another million dollars.
But Jacob left when Joseph was six years old, and the important part to me is this: Joseph saw his father more as Israel than Jacob. His older brothers saw more Jacob than Israel.
Joseph was raised by a father who had had a profound change through that wrestling match at the river. There was something different—something broken, something wonderful—in Israel. He raised this child of his old age.
You know, I sure wish I could go back and raise my sons over again. Wouldn’t that be great? Now that I am old, broken, busted up, and old, I understand some things I did not understand back when I was raising them. Certainly, I was more Jacob than Israel when I was raising them. Oh, the Lord had mercy on us.
Now we feel like we know what to do, but it is too late. But thank God, we have our grandchildren.
Joseph came to live in the land of Canaan with his father Israel, and Israel loved him. We cannot even begin to pursue sonship unless we have been covered with the coat of the Father’s love.
Nobody would ever be taken out on that road who had not been covered with the coat of the Father’s love.
Dear brothers and sisters, there are so many Christians who do not really know the Father’s love. But if it were not for the Father’s love when Joseph was all alone, I do not know if he could have made it.
I picture him, in my own imagination, there in the pit after calling out to his brothers: “Won’t you please help me? What are you doing to me? Please help me. I am sorry for the things I have said about you. Please let me out of this ditch.”
They did not listen to him.
I believe that probably, after giving up on that, he said, “Daddy, Daddy, are you anywhere? I know you still love me.”
At the darkest times, down in the dungeon, when all else had deserted him and even those who said they would help never helped, at least he could say, “I wonder if Daddy is alive. There is one person I know who loves me.”
You and I cannot pursue sonship unless we know the Father’s coat—unless the Lord has put His coat upon us. This is the inheritance of every Christian. It does not matter how much of a child you have been. It does not matter where you have come from or what trouble you have had in the past.
Do you not know the Father has put His coat of love on you and said, “Oh, I love you, My child”?
This was necessary in Joseph’s young life in order to prepare him for the road that lay ahead.
We see this love and preference of Jacob’s, and we wonder why Jacob would prefer one son over another after what he went through with his own father, who preferred Esau over him. But I think there was something more here.
Many scholars think that the robe Joseph was given was not merely a robe of special silk. It was a robe representing the fact that Jacob had chosen him as the firstborn.
Reuben was the firstborn. The first four children were from Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. All four of them disqualified themselves through immoral life.
But this young man Joseph must have been something special. We would be prejudiced to say that one of our children is special, but we all feel that sometimes. Joseph was a special child.
We can see that he was righteous. When he was given the responsibility at seventeen to be a shepherd along with his brothers, he took it seriously. He wanted to be the best shepherd for his father. His father loved him, and he wanted to be a good shepherd.
When he saw the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah not shepherding—kicking the sheep, having lamb stew at the cost of a couple of them, or whatever they did—he was a righteous young man. He was not a bad boy.
He went to his dad and said, “Dad, Dad, my brothers—they are not treating the flock right.”
Do not think Joseph was a bad boy. There was something righteous in him, something beautiful in him, perhaps something simple in him. I do not know. But part of Jacob’s love was the love of a son who was responding to his love. This was all part of the preparation.
Then, of course, came the fateful day of the dreams. Many of us would say, “You know what? Joseph would have been much better off if he had never shared the dreams.”
But I also want to say to you: you cannot become a son unless you have got a dream.
I am not talking about a dream of making a million dollars and living on a yacht. I am talking about God-given dreams. That is what Joseph had.
We know from history that these were God-given dreams. If we are going to be pressed into sonship, there has to be a vision that captures us and draws us along.
Here is the vision: “I do not understand it, Lord, but my sheaf is standing up and others are bowing down.” It is a dream of sonship. It is a dream of reigning.
Then he had the dream in the same way a second time, only now including his mother and father. Jacob rebuked him, but hid those things in his heart because he knew Joseph was not just a naughty boy.
Do not call Joseph a naughty boy for sharing his dreams either, because I will tell you why: he had to share those dreams.
You know who gets in trouble? The brother or sister who shares the true vision of God without compromise. Boy, your brothers and sisters will not like you for that.
The one who always says, “Now wait a minute. Why are we doing that? We did not pray about that.”
You just want to punch him out of the brothers’ meeting. He causes a lot of wastage of time—praying and waiting and, you know, stuff like that.
But have you ever dreamed, and that dream got hold of you? That dream caught your imagination and gave you a sense of what God wants.
Do you realize the low state the other eleven brothers were in? They were anything but the kingdom of God—anything but God’s children possessing their inheritance. They were as worldly, as crass, and as sinful as the world itself.
Then there was Joseph, with a dream possessing him, willing to speak up among his brothers.
“Come on, brothers, let us open the Bible.” Of course, they did not have a Bible, but you know what I mean. I am just imagining this. They had some devotional literature, I do not know. They had the book of Job, maybe.
“Let us read a couple of chapters from Job.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Well, at least let us pray before we eat our oatmeal.”
“Oh, shut up.”
You get in trouble like that. So Joseph shared his dreams. It was the same kind of thing.
He had to share the dreams for two reasons. Think about it. When they finally came to pass, what if he had not shared the dreams? Then he might have said, “Oh, by the way, you know what happened thirteen years ago? I had a dream.”
“Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
No, he opened his mouth and declared the dream, which came perfectly to pass.
The second thing is this: by declaring the word, that promise became the only thing that kept him alive when he was in chains.
That word tested him. He had nobody else—no friends, no other believers. All he had was that dream. That is what Psalm 105 says: while he was there in chains, the word tested him.
“Are you going to believe that dream?”
The devil came and said, “What a foolish dream. You reigning over somebody—especially your brothers? Foolishness, foolishness.”
Do you believe the dream when everything in your circumstances says the dream cannot possibly be true? Do you still believe the dream? He was tested on that.
If he had not had that dream, I do not think he would have made it through.
As a result of this dream, his sojourn began one day when he went out to the fields to meet his brothers. They found an occasion to say, “Let us kill the dreamer.”
That is what people think about dreamers—those who have a desire to be what God wants them to be. “Oh, boy, kill that dreamer.”
Then cooler heads prevailed, and they said, “No, just ditch the dreamer.” Then Judah, who was always in for a buck, said, “Hey, let us sell the dreamer.”
So they sold him off. Against his crying and pleading, they turned a deaf ear to him. They ate their McDonald’s hamburgers right by the ditch, according to the word of God. Well, not the McDonald’s part.
Thus began his journey to sonship.
Already we have come upon a couple of very important principles. The fulfillment of his destiny as a ruler and a reigner, as a son, had to be taken completely out of his hands. The circumstances did that well enough.
If Joseph had stayed among his family and his father had continued to push him forward, perhaps he would have grown in pride. We do not know. But the Lord knows the more perfect way and sent him down through the way of the cross.
That is the way into leadership and into sonship.
Joseph had dreams, and the Lord said, “Fine, that is your dream. Hold on to that dream, and I am taking those dreams right out of your hands. Now you cannot do anything about it.”
In fact, it took the dreams of others and his interpretation of those dreams for his dream to come to pass. He had to wait for others to dream—the cupbearer, the baker, and then Pharaoh.
Thirteen years after his dream, he waited for somebody else to dream and set him free.
The Lord does this with us. Oh, we have a dream of sonship. “I am going to rise up and up and up by the Spirit of God. I am going to learn about God. I am going to study the Word. I am going to preach. I am going to serve. I am going to do it.”
Then circumstances come against all of that.
The second thing we see—and we cannot understand this, but it is true—is that the Lord often uses those nearest and dearest to you to affect the greatest harm.
That could be family for you. Somebody really desires to serve the Lord, and the family stands in the way, binds them up, and throws them in the ditch. It could be a job that has stopped you along the way to sonship and has bound you in the pit. It is totally out of your hands and out of your control.
Sometimes it can be your brothers and sisters. That is why you need to be in the assembly life. They will kill you.
The Lord will use them to deal with you, even as Joseph was dealt with.
Now, Joseph was not sinless. But the interesting thing about Joseph is that the sufferings he went through were not because of his sins.
Jacob’s sufferings—we know why they were. God was dealing with his flesh, his self, and his nature. There was discipline and discipline and discipline upon that sinful part of Jacob.
But when Joseph’s story is told, we see that he was not being punished because he did things wrong. He was being punished for doing things right—just like our Lord Jesus.
He was hated by his brethren because he was loved of the Father. What could Joseph do about that?
He went through this intense suffering. First, they stripped away that coat, his beloved coat. They stripped away this love, then bloodied the coat and sent it back to the father.
Oh, what vile men. Reuben and Judah’s plot sent that bloody coat back to their dad, and he never recovered. For those thirteen years, he lived half-dead in grief.
That is what his brothers did to their own father, not to mention Joseph. Jacob would not be comforted. Oh, what a scheme. What planners these sons of Jacob were.
Joseph went through the agony of being sold into slavery. His brothers did the worst job on him that anybody could possibly do.
But when we look at what he went through after being sold into slavery, we see two things happening at the same time. First, it says, “The Lord was with him.”
There is where you see somebody coming into sonship. Throw him down to the deepest pit, and the Lord is with him. That is the key to overcoming.
How did Joseph keep bounding back? No matter where he was thrown, he rose to the top.
He was thrown into the ditch, sold into slavery, and then sold to Potiphar. The next thing you know, within a short time he became Potiphar’s number-one servant. He rose right to the top and was given a special servant’s tunic.
Of course, Potiphar’s wife had designs on him, betrayed him, and lied. Then he was thrown even deeper down into the dungeon. But what does the Bible say? Immediately when that happened, the Lord was with him.
The next thing you know, he became the best servant the jail had ever known. He was cooking ham and eggs, fixing everything for everybody, cleaning up the dungeon, and making it a nice little New York City apartment.
He rose to the top and became the jailer’s best man.
When somebody came along who needed help, there he was to interpret the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker.
With those dreams, he saw a chance. “Maybe now is the time of my deliverance. Now, cupbearer, when these things come to pass, remember me before Pharaoh.”
“Sure, sure, sure.”
When the cupbearer was blessed and brought back into the presence of Pharaoh, he pretty much deliberately forgot Joseph. Another two years in the clink.
Thirteen years, basically. We do not know exactly how many years he remained in prison—a number of years in Potiphar’s house and a number of years down in the dungeon.
No matter where he was, the Lord was with him. He was rising to the top. On the other hand, no matter where he went, the world betrayed him and threw him back down.
This was the situation of bondage that was going nowhere, and his dreams were being tested.
Why would the Lord make him wait those thirteen years, forgotten down there in the jail? Here he was, the top sheaf, down in the jail—forgotten, abandoned, alone, sweeping the cells. Why would the Lord do this? Why would the Lord make him suffer?
We sometimes do not understand why we go through what we do. We do not know that the Lord is dealing with things deep within us.
But let me say, first of all, he did not go through suffering those thirteen years mainly because of himself. It was for the sake of others.
When the Lord is teaching us the lessons of sonship, He begins to give us a distinct feeling that the things going on in our lives are not only about us; they are for the sake of others.
Why wait those thirteen years? Because it took that long for the famine to come onto the scene. Why wait those thirteen years? Because it took those thirteen years for his brothers to live with their half-dead father in that miserable household because of what they had done.
It was not just on account of Joseph that he was in there. He was waiting.
The second reason he was waiting is this: if he had gotten out because the cupbearer had remembered him after interpreting that dream, Joseph could have done something about his own sonship.
But the Lord had to take it all away. Even when he used his gifts, it was not enough to get him out. He had to come to be a barren womb. Even his promise did not work.
No, it took Pharaoh having a dream to finally bring him out. That only happened when the cupbearer said, “Oh, please forgive me, Pharaoh. I forgot all about this guy. Well, two years ago, he helped me out.”
Joseph stayed there because the Lord wanted to show him, “Only I can bring you out and exalt you.”
Submit yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Yours is to submit. Only the Lord can raise you up. You cannot submit and then try to raise yourself up.
Something very precious must have gone on in Joseph’s life. We do not know all the dimensions of it, but one thing we can see for sure.
When they finally released Joseph, washed him off, put new clothes on him, and presented him before Pharaoh, there was a changed man there. He was changed from that seventeen-year-old dreamer into a thirty-year-old man.
Something had changed in his heart. He had the heart of a son. And you know what that heart was? He had become a servant.
I do not know what he was like back at his dad’s house when he had the dreams. I am sure he had served. But through working for Potiphar, through working in the dungeon, and then through coming before Pharaoh, you can see in Joseph’s heart that there was no inkling of self-glory in his service.
He was serving to help people.
He came up with the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams and said, “You know what? This is what you need to do. You need to find somebody. You need to store up things for seven years. When the famine comes, distribute those things for seven years.”
He was not talking about himself. He never thought, for a moment, that Pharaoh would raise him up. He had lost that self-centeredness: “What is in it for me? Me, me, me. Where is my sonship?”
He had lost all of that. He was a servant.
Could I change that just a minute? When he was at Potiphar’s house, he became Potiphar’s son. When he went down into the dungeon, he became the jailer’s son. When he was brought before Pharaoh, he became Pharaoh’s son.
Why do I say “son”? Because he wanted to help his father. He had a servant’s heart.
He said, “You ought to do this, Pharaoh.” Pharaoh said, “I know of nobody else who is such a servant. Here, take this ring. Take this, and put everything on it.”
Just like that, Joseph was exalted up to the throne—number two.
Is that not interesting? Ruling and reigning with Christ—always number two.
Did Joseph consider himself the grand pooh-bah of Egypt? That may be hard to translate. Pooh-bah. “I am the big shot of Egypt. Whatever I say, you must do.”
No.
His ministry was to help Egypt overcome their famine and prepare for difficult times that had been prophesied.
It was not Joseph who said, “Bow the knee,” when he drove by. It was the servants who went before him.
Joseph had become a true son. He had a servant’s heart. Pharaoh raised him up at the right time, and he came to this position, exalted—really number two in the world, I might say, because at that time Pharaoh’s Egypt was the number-one empire. Leaving aside what happened in the Far East, I have no idea.
Anyway, back to the story.
It is wonderful to see this process of sonship, but Joseph had been through suffering, much of it beyond his understanding. Why do things happen to you in your life? Why is it that you set your heart for the Lord, and then everything seems to stand in your way?
Do you not know that is the only way the Lord can prove that the Lord is with you and raise you back up to the top?
The enemy will try to throw you down. The Lord allows that sometimes. The Lord allows brothers and sisters to hurt you so badly that you think you can never get over it. Then God says, “But I am with you,” and you rise back up.
This is how God produces sons. There is a suffering process that we have to go through. If we do not go through that process, we are just proud and arrogant instead of servants.
Joseph came to this position, but, dear brothers and sisters, was he where the Lord wanted him to be? His dreams had still not been fulfilled.
Now it was his part to be used by the Lord to bring many sons to glory—his own brothers.
He was in a position where he could bring his own brothers to glory. But wait, wait, wait. Did Joseph have any hand in bringing his brothers into sonship?
He was used by the Lord, but he did not have any plan. He could not fulfill his dream. How could he make his brothers kneel down before him? He was working for Pharaoh. He could not go down to Canaan and see his brothers. How could that all work out?
This matter of bringing others to glory is also out of your hands.
Even your own transformation into sonship and responsibility is something the Lord works in you through suffering, the cross, and the work of the Spirit.
Now, as a responsible person, let us assume for a moment that you are one of those dear brothers and sisters who have some capacity in the Lord. The Lord has touched you and broken you. He has done something in you, and you see something. You have some responsibility over the children of God.
Perhaps you are a sister who works among sisters and has some maturity about you. Praise God.
But do you not know that bringing others into maturity is not something you and I can do? Joseph did not sit there and begin to plot: “Now, let us see. How can I deal with my brothers?”
That might be our temptation when we are placed in a position of responsibility. “Okay, let us take care of some of the problem people.”
No. Joseph could not touch this thing. It had to be arranged by a God who can cause a famine to bring him together with his brothers.
Joseph was simply doing his work. Seven years of prosperity went by, and they filled up the barns. Then two, three, perhaps four years of famine went by.
One day, Joseph was in the counting house as foreigners came to get their wheat and grain. He stood there and saw ten men come in and bow down like sheaves before him.
He did a double take. “That is my brothers. Oh, that is my dream. Wait a minute—this is not my dream. I am alienated from these men. These men do not even know who I am.”
Joseph had one desire in his heart: that they might be reconciled. But his brothers were not ready, and Joseph had to be hidden from their view.
Joseph maintained his Egyptian disguise, speaking in Egyptian, though he could understand what they were saying in Hebrew.
The Lord gave him a thought, and he treated them harshly.
I am trying to move quickly here so you do not fall asleep, but you can read it in the Book.
Joseph spoke in street Egyptian. Then the translator told them, “You are spies! You are spies!”
They said, “No, no, no, we are not spies. We are one of eleven brothers. One of them is dead, and we have a father back in Canaan. We have just come to get some grain.”
“Yeah? You are spies!”
They threw them in jail for three days.
Before people can become responsible sons, they have to own up to what they have done.
These men had done a tremendous evil against Joseph and against Jacob. While they were in the cell for three days, their conscience woke up.
You can never remove from your conscience the offenses you have committed against other people, but you can try to forget.
These brothers had a good twenty years to forget what they had done to Joseph, but it all came back to them there in that jail. When they were brought out and again before Joseph, Reuben said in Hebrew, knowing Joseph could not understand, “I told you we should not have done that to Joseph.”
Joseph went out and cried because his heart was for reconciliation, but his brothers were not ready.
He said, “I will tell you what. I am keeping this one guy back.” He picked Simeon. “We are keeping him back. The rest of you go back. Take your grain, go home, and bring Benjamin back. Then I will know that you are not spies.”
How he ached to see his little brother Benjamin.
And, of course, you know the one question he had: “Is your father alive?”
“Oh, yes, he is alive.”
He went out and wept. “My daddy. My daddy loves me. He is still alive.”
So he sent them back. Halfway home, they broke open some grain to eat and found their money in the bags. Now they could not go back. What a predicament.
They went home and moaned and groaned. They were convicted. When they opened the bags and saw the money, Judah said, “This is the Lord. He is doing this to us.”
Now there was an awakened conscience.
We blame other people for so much of the unforgiveness in our hearts and all that kind of stuff, but it is you God is dealing with. He has nailed you now. “It is God. Why has God done this to us? What did we deserve? What have we done?”
Then Reuben said, “You know, I remember when there was somebody else crying out, ‘I do not deserve this. What have you done?’ Joseph, back in the pit twenty years ago.”
Their hearts really began to work on them. Conviction began to be born.
What else could Joseph do? He waited. The famine was severe in the land, and finally their food ran out. They had to go back, and they had to take Benjamin.
Jacob said, “Well, okay, just take Benjamin too. I will just die.” What a hopeless situation.
They brought Benjamin back, and when they came back, Joseph held a big feast. He really threw them off.
He talked to Benjamin. “Well, you are young Benjamin. How are you doing?”
“Oh, I am doing just fine.”
Joseph went out and wept.
“How is your father? Is he okay?”
“Oh, yes, he is fine.”
He went out and wept.
He came back in and sat at the other table, in the annex of the cafeteria. Everybody else was in the cafeteria. All the brothers were sitting there, getting a little drunk and having a wonderful meal. They wondered why Benjamin was getting five times as much food.
After that wonderful time, Joseph said, “Okay, go home. Take the grain and go with your father.” But he put the cup in Benjamin’s sack.
You remember. He sent his sheriff out, and they caught them, opened the bag, found the cup in Benjamin’s sack, and brought them back.
Something had changed among those brothers—those bunch of rascals.
Reuben slept with his father’s wife. Judah went out into Canaan, into the world, married a worldly Canaanite woman, and bore two sons so evil that God killed them.
Finally, Judah’s inheritance went through Perez, who was the son of Tamar, the prostitute. What kind of a lowlife was Judah? What kind of inheritance was Judah’s? What kind of purity was this testimony? He had lost it all. He was out in the world. What was he doing?
Simeon and Levi were the ones who destroyed all the Shechemites after having them circumcised by a terrible trick.
Jacob said in his prophecies, “You men are full of anger—Simeon and Levi—and you cannot have the inheritance.”
What kind of men were these? But now they were men under conviction.
When they came back, there had been a change. The sheriff said, “No, I am just taking Benjamin back. He is the one who is guilty.”
But all the brothers said, “No, we have to go with him.”
They had abandoned Joseph and all gone home. But they could not abandon Benjamin, or they would have killed their father. So they all went back.
When they got back, Joseph said, “Okay, what have you guys done?”
Judah stepped up and repented. That was the one thing necessary to finish the whole matter.
Dear brothers and sisters, I say this with all the seriousness that I can enjoy: we think that our sins that hold us back from sonship are things like watching television late at night, being lazy, lying at work, and doing such things.
The Lord has to deal with all our sins. But I tell you, the thing that prevents us corporately from coming to sonship as men is the damage to love we do to one another in the name of God.
These brothers had no idea of the damage they had done to their father and to Joseph. No idea.
We have no idea. We snap at somebody. We judge somebody. We accuse somebody. We think we are so righteous, and we are doing damage to our families.
There are families almost irreparably damaged by the self-righteousness of Christians who think they are right.
As brothers and sisters, we are out of sorts with one another because we will not admit and confess our sins or ask forgiveness. We are doing harm to one another beyond what we know.
What a shame. What a crime. What a division in the body of Christ we have even to this day.
Is the body of Christ—Is the church today—sons of God? Responsible sons?
Who will go first by this way of Calvary and help others find their place?
Judah repented and came clean. He told the whole thing, talked about Joseph and what he had done, and said, “I am responsible. Please, would you do me one mercy? Take me, not Benjamin, or else my father will die.”
That was it. That was what was needed for reconciliation.
Joseph sent out the Egyptian servants and began to bawl like a baby. He said, “It is me, Joseph. It is me.”
The brothers were stunned into silence. This great man standing before them was the man they had thrown in the ditch and hated his guts. Now he was the only man who could have mercy upon them.
They thought for sure that his second words after saying, “I am Joseph,” would be, “I am going to take all of you out and kill you now,” because they deserved it.
But you know what Joseph said?
“You sent me to prison. God sent me here through you so that I could help you and Daddy out.”
Joseph had forgiveness in his heart. Do you know why? Because he saw the purpose of God behind all the things that had happened to him over those twenty years of suffering and being away from his family and home.
He saw that God was in this whole thing to raise him up to help not only the Egyptians, but his own brothers and sisters and his own father.
“You meant it for evil. God used it for good. So, brothers, please, come to me.”
He hugged every one of them, and I believe he started with the most guilty first. I personally believe he went to Reuben first, the oldest son, who threw him in the ditch. He hugged him and said, “Reuben, I love you, my brother. I love you.”
Reuben must have bawled and cried.
Then he went to Judah, the next to blame for selling him to the Ishmaelites, and hugged him and loved him.
That is the only way to be reconciled. God has to come to us and love us.
The only way brothers and sisters can be brought back from the wilderness they are living in is for somebody to love them and reveal Jesus to them.
When they had their little time of hugging, the brothers still were not quite sure what was next. But Joseph said, “I have got some responsibility for you to do.”
I think the brothers would have died if it had just ended there. But he said, “Now I have got a job for you.”
Is that not mercy like the Lord? You realize you are so undeserving. You are standing in front of the man you have hurt, and the man you hurt says, “Now, I want you to go do something for me.”
“I want you to take these treasures down to Canaan and tell your daddy I am alive. I want you to show him the glories that God has given me in making me second in command in Egypt. I want you to tell him I am alive. I am alive.”
They went with a gospel down to Canaan. They came down with wagonloads and said, “See this? See this? Our brother Joseph is alive.”
Jacob’s spirit revived. He was raised from the dead.
“I have got to go see my son. He is alive. He is alive. My son is alive. The son that I love is alive.”
They said, “Yes, Dad, and he loves you too.”
I will bet none of those brothers told him what they did at the ditch. I will bet Joseph never told him either.
Now, that is forgiveness.
The last part of this story of bringing many sons to glory is that they had that glorious gospel mission. At this point, of course, we have to move beyond Joseph.
Our Lord, when we are the most disqualified, says, “Now go and tell all the riches of Christ. Tell of the One you have met, the One who has forgiven you, the One who has given you a new chance. Go tell people of the riches you have found in Jesus Christ.”
This is our glorious gospel. Who is worthy of this kind of thing?
Suddenly, these irresponsible, carnal men were lifted to a new level. The last sojourn from Canaan was a wonderful sojourn. They came into Goshen, which is the story of resurrection ground. It is just a picture.
Now all the brothers, their wives, the children, and Jacob himself were in Goshen—the resurrection ground—living on a higher plane, separated from the world.
The Egyptians wanted nothing to do with shepherds, so they said, “Here, take Goshen. This is the best land.”
It was all theirs—separated, multiplying, growing. You can read the record: throughout the rest of the famine years, Goshen had bumper crops.
Oh, what a blessing.
Joseph, in his responsible place of ruling and reigning, protected the children, blessed the children, and made sure they had all they needed.
This precious man is such a picture of Christ to us, is he not?
But there are brothers and sisters who go through an awful lot, and then lay their lives down to try to help other people gain the same ground.
Oh, how we need people who have been dealt with by God and have no grievance. They are able to forgive. They are able to bring reconciliation. They are able to reveal Christ in the midst of situations.
We are at a stalemate, brothers and sisters. If the church is to come to maturity, there have to be some responsible people.
With that responsibility, there is a certain amount of discipline necessary to help others come to glory. There is a lot of patience necessary, and a lot of wisdom.
If Joseph had anything as his inheritance, it was wisdom in everything that he did. All the time, even when he was treating his brothers harshly, his heart was for reconciliation. But the ground has to be there.
Sometimes there are deep wounds that have to be gone through and reconciled. There is ground that must be regained where we have been divided and fractured.
Oh, this costs. This costs sonship.
Each of those brothers, Reuben right on down through Benjamin, had to learn what it meant to be a child in the family of Israel—a head of a tribe in Israel.
It is just a picture, because we know from Jacob’s prophecies at the end that some of the brothers would not have a good end. That is our reality as well.
Oh, that all God’s children could be in the family of Joseph. Joseph, who in the end prophetically received the inheritance—a double inheritance. Ephraim and Manasseh, both of his sons, became tribes of Israel because of the faithfulness of Joseph.
But not all of the brothers did so well.
One last thing I would share: as we are taken on our way in our own personal lives, remember this—it is not merely for your sake that you are going through so much.
Sometimes you go through suffering, and the Lord is doing something wider and broader than you can understand. But you need to remember the dream. Hold on to that word that never changes.
Though you may be like grass, let the Lord bring you into something so that you can help other people.
Our lives at their highest are lives of service—people whose lives are laid down. Lay it down. If you are a responsible person, lay it down. Do not hold on to it.
We need brothers and sisters raised up in a ministry of helping other brothers and sisters, not this selfish Christianity that is self-absorbed with our own little lives.
Joseph was made a son in order to bring many sons to glory.
If the Lord takes us, leads us through in an unusual way, and raises us up responsibly with character, we are here, as long as we are on this earth, to give ourselves to others.
Oh, there is a son indeed.
Even our Lord now, up in the heavens, the Son of God and the Son of Man, ever lives to make intercession for us. He is not sitting around. He did not retire. He is giving His all for us even now, at this moment.
Will you not be of the same spirit?
Dear young people, you may have a long trail to travel to come to sonship, but I want you on the way.
The whole thing is this: if Jesus comes back at any time now, will you be one of those on the way? Even if you are going through sufferings and dealings and things that other people cannot understand, are you holding on to this vision that you see in the Lord Jesus of what He is calling you to be?
It is an important time. It is an important time. The world is demanding your soul.
In New York, I fellowship with young people in Manhattan. They are very, very precious young people, and the world is trying to claw their souls right out of their bodies—demanding more time, demanding more energy, demanding all their efforts.
I think we may be in tribulation already, on the borders of it.
The enemy has taken the souls. People are not able to go on. Well, you can go on, but you will have to overcome. You will have to rise up with an overcoming life despite the things you are thrown into.
This is the way to sonship. May the Lord help us.
Oh, how we need sons.
We are all sons on the way. There is no son who has been made all the way into sonship, as our brothers shared so wonderfully this morning. We are all on the way until the redemption of our bodies.
But that is just the point: are you on the way?
Think of the brethren around you—your own brothers and sisters. Somebody has to learn the lessons. Somebody has to live in that wonderful garment of the Father’s love and go through the way of the cross so that our other brothers and sisters can be helped.
This is the principle of our Lord Jesus’ life. That is the principle of the remnant. That is the calling in your own life.
May the Lord find us faithful when He comes back, moving toward sonship according to His plan.
He promises it, and then He sovereignly leads us through a course that nobody else can quite understand. Sovereignly, He leads us to sonship. He takes it out of our hands, and He leads us.
Oh, Father, we would just come to You tonight. How wonderful are Your plans for Your children.
Lord, when we get to see the end of the story—whether it is the story of Joseph or the story of Jesus—we always say, “Praise God for the victory.” But, oh Lord, the agony of the process—the suffering, the misunderstanding, the broken hearts, the betrayals, the stripping of glory, all the times of waiting and waiting in a jail all alone.
But there is One who knows, and we believe You love us.
As the apostle Paul says:
And tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, proven character;
And hope maketh not ashamed;
Because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts
By the Holy Spirit.
Oh, Lord, may we know the Father’s love and be so enclosed, endued in the Father’s love, that we can go on this way to sonship.
Oh, Lord, may it be that many sons can come to glory in these latter days, and that You find a bride—mature, responsible servant sons—waiting for You to return.
This is our prayer, in Jesus’ precious name.