Joseph in prison

[AI translation] I would like to pick up where we left off a week ago today! We have seen that Joseph, who was a slave, yet loved his master, preferred to remain a slave, but did not give up his purity. He respected, loved, served his earthly master and that is why he remained pure when tempted. And it was all because he had a real relationship with God. And yet, despite the fact that he behaved in the most honourable way possible, the way a true believer should behave in the face of the powers that be, he was humiliated for it. He was imprisoned, and suffered unmeritedly. A great trial fell upon him. And in the passage we have just read we see how a believer behaves in such a situation, in such suffering and trials. There is a deep meaning in this passage in our Word: "...and there he was in the dungeon. But the Lord was with Joseph." (Gen. 39:20-21) When he was at his best in Potiphar's house, we read the same expression, "The Lord was with Joseph." (Genesis 39:2) And behold, now when he is brought down, now when he is dealt with, now when darkness and hopelessness come upon him, even now the Word of God hastens to declare that the Lord was with Joseph. So whatever the change in his lot, whatever the change in his situation, his relationship with God has not changed. Joseph was as much a child of God in trial and suffering as in prosperity and temptation. God's blessing and blessing presence is independent of one's lot. And Joseph believed there in the dungeon that the Lord was with him. He never said so, but it was clear from his behaviour. How?1) First of all, by a mere negative: by the fact that he did not complain, did not lament, did not grumble, did not utter a single disparaging, bitter word. Even when his presence there is mentioned, he says only this of him: 'For I was brought by stealing out of the land of the Hebrews, and here I did nothing to be cast into the dungeon.' (Genesis 40:15) Yet there would have been cause for utter despair. It would not have been a miracle if he had been broken in prison. For it is because of his faithfulness that he is imprisoned. But the soul is soon ready to ponder thus: Loyalty is not a good bargain! It is impossible to obey God's command in this world. It is not lawful to be so honest. I should have given way to sin, for there is no other way to stand in the world! Yes, even a believing soul can so quickly become despondent if it does not immediately understand God's way. His faith crumbles under the burdens of his life, he wants to reconcile his fate with God's love and justice, and many painful "whys" arise from him! Why do you treat me like this, why have you forsaken me? God can have many different purposes in humiliating us, in making our lives miserable, but one thing is certain: it is never to draw us away from Himself, but the opposite: to draw us closer to Himself. The storm that sometimes arises is never intended to sweep someone away from God's heart, but to force you to cling even more closely to God's grace.
God never leaves anyone, only we leave Him! Only once did God abandon someone, and that was the only one who did not deserve it: His earthly representative, His only begotten Son! But then He abandoned Him so much that He cried out from hell and damnation, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Yes: Jesus also suffered the agony of abandonment to God for us. And that means that it is also true in the humiliation, in the suffering, in the dungeon in Egypt. It is true that "the Lord was with Joseph, and extended His mercy to him, and made him acceptable in the presence of the prisoner." (Gen 39:21) And it is then, right there, that this truth can be lived out, right there, in the humiliation of the dungeon. Joseph lived it. He did not retreat defiantly, offended, with this pain of his hurt sense of justice, but accepted from God that he now had his life within these constricted confines, that this was his way of life, so to speak: his God-ordained way of life! And this is not a resignation, not a resignation to the unchangeable, but a faithful assurance of this statement: 'But the Lord was with Joseph'!
2) He who believes that God is with him in the abyss can also accept that he did not get there by chance. Those of us who know the whole story of Joseph can see this particularly well. Well, he is thrown into the dungeon because of a hysteria, but God leads him into the abyss because he wants to prepare him to carry out his great plans. Viewed from a great distance, you can see the exact divine plan according to which every person and every detail and event is moving here! Evil forces are at work, and yet, in a wonderful way, God is at work! Through them too! Like links, the events are interconnected: the evil of Joseph's brothers was to bring Joseph to Egypt; he was to go to prison in order to meet Pharaoh's chief men, to be brought before Pharaoh, to be given great dignity and thus to help his brothers! In such a larger context, the why's and why's of the events are resolved, the meaningless riddles of the details. Yet even that larger context is only a detail of a still larger divine concept, the purpose of which is to bring the family of Jacob into Egypt, to make them a great nation of the holy nation, so that the promise to Jacob may be fulfilled!
But there is an even more distant purpose to these events: to prepare Jesus Christ, to prepare for His coming, to make Him Lord and Christ, Saviour of God on earth! And even more distant: the salvation of this world through Jesus Christ, through His Word and His Holy Spirit! The restoration of the whole sin-contaminated world, the fulfilment of the work, the validity, the scope of the redemption of Calvary! In this great divine plan that spans heaven and earth, what a trivial, dwarfing little thing is happening here to Joseph: God is working on the great plan of the redemption of the world, and a slave is thrown into the dungeon on the whim of a woman. And yet this tiny twist of fate is an indispensable part of the whole work. Joseph, of course, could not have known then what great purposes God had for him, only that he was a prisoner. But we, who have already seen with certainty that everything in Joseph's life then was done with Jesus Christ in mind, are free, and indeed must, see the events of the moment in a broader perspective: we must live our lives as a detailed event in the great, overall plan of God, knowing that God is working all things for Jesus Christ.
Astronomers say that each body attracts the other, however far apart they may be. It is not only the earth that is attracted to the falling apple, but the apple, however small, is attracted to the earth, and indeed to all the stars in the sky, and the movement of all the stars is affected when it falls from the tree. We cannot move our hand without disturbing the movement of the stars. Whether this is true, I don't know, but I believe the scientists who have tested it. But I believe it without reservation, because God's Word has declared that the smallest event in human life is an integral part of a vast divine concept, the real meaning of which lies in its effect on the whole plan and its connection with the whole.
Whoever believes that God is with him in the abyss, as with Joseph in the dungeon, is free to see life in a larger perspective, to see beyond the moment he is living and to see his own small destiny obediently integrated into the great universal plan for which Christ died, rose again, came again, and finally became God in all things!
3) However, being integrated into God's plan is not simply a matter of seeing, of perspective, but also of active participation in God's work. To say that the Lord was with Joseph in the dungeon is to say that Joseph is God's instrument in the dungeon. God also used Joseph in the dungeon, where he also had a commission. God's being with someone and extending His grace to someone is not that the person is spared trouble and hurt, but that the person becomes a blessing to others where he is, even in trouble and humiliation. The children of God cannot be prevented from pouring out the light that is in them around them - if they have light in them! The apostle Paul and his companion Silas could be beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, but they could not prevent their behaviour from leading a jailer to Jesus. They crucified our Lord Jesus Christ, but they could not prevent him from being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is how God gives His children the opportunity to serve where the world no longer sees the opportunity. There is no humiliated, penniless condition in which a child of God cannot find the service which only he can perform. Joseph was so helpful to the dungeon keeper that he no longer had any concern for the prisoners. I believe that the Lord is with me: it means, in practical terms, that people around me are lightened, someone beside me sighs with relief. Joseph did not preach to the jailer, but helped him. "And whatever he did, the Lord made him happy." (Genesis 39:23) Jesus once said to his disciples, who were debating who would be greater among them, "I am among you as one who serves." (Lk 22:27) The more like Jesus someone is, the deeper he or she can stoop in service. It is very difficult to stoop from a high place: everyone learns this when they are at the bottom!
But Joseph was not only of help to the jailer, but also to the prisoners. How good it must have been, for example, for the head porter-master to have met, in the darkest hour of his life, a man who had served him with the light of God, who could answer his questions. Even there, in his great misery, Joseph could be a light and a blessing, a mediator for broken, searching souls. In my Bible, I have underlined verse 6 of chapter 40: "And Joseph came in to them in the morning, and saw that they were mourning." When one has great cause for sorrow himself, he is not very likely to notice the sorrow of others. Joseph noticed and tried to comfort them. This is the best means of overcoming our own sorrow. Can you see your brother in distress, can you notice that his face is more sombre today than at other times? Do you wonder why? Does not God humble his children so that their eyes may be opened to see human suffering, misery and sorrow, so that their hearts may be made knives to comfort and help others? To make them light where the darkness is most painful?! There and then, this was the practical manifestation of the Lord's being with Joseph and extending His mercy to him. That is, in shining a light for others when he himself was in darkness. He proclaimed deliverance when he himself was a prisoner. He comforted when he was forgotten by all. He was a prisoner, yet he was not a prisoner of his own misery! Yes, practically, even today, here too, this is what it means to live the Lord's life with us in faith. Don't tell anyone that the Lord is with you, but live it so that those around you can feel it through you! Jesus, in his own words, came not to be served, "but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mt 20,28) The one the Lord is with is nowhere to be served, but to serve and give his life for others!
This is what the Lord teaches his own in humiliation and trials:
Praise Him, for the Lord will bless all your works,
His faithfulness, like dew from heaven, will abound upon you.
See what His good Spirit can do for you,
And what thy faith can expect from him.
Bless the name of the Lord, bless him in all that is in me.
Bless him, O my soul, and of him, O my tongue, confess.
Remember: He is your sunshine
Bless him for ever! Amen.
(Canto 264, verses 4-5)
Amen
Date: 9 March 1952.