When life becomes difficult, you can't be able to make a difference. Focus on your circumstances, on yourself. or do you focus on God? What about when life is easy and you're prospering? Does your focus change then?
Today on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg teaches how a God-centered life protects us from pride as well as despair. Um Here, as the story develops in chapter 41, we have this quite amazing. and dramatic change in the circumstances of Joseph. In just a moment in time, his whole life is turned The right way up. He has been a slave and now he is entrusted to the position of the palace.
And Joseph serves as a clear reminder to us of the fact that life is marked by a series of ups and downs. For all of us, that is true, and yet in each of our lives, it will not necessarily be so that the highs are as high and the lows are as low as those which we see here in the unfolding of the life of Joseph. Certainly in the story so far, we have seen that he has been in some unbelievable spots, and in it all, he has shown himself to be someone who recognizes that whether he is despised one day or exalted on the next day, he realizes that he is a man of frailty and that his security is to be found in God himself. We do not find coming from the lips of Joseph any proud assertions about what he is going to be and what he is going to do. Yes, we recall his dreams in which he reported that which he found to be in the watches of the night, an experience for him.
But subsequent to that, there is no sense in which he is marking out his own destiny. And in this respect, he would be well prepared to bow underneath the words of James the brother of Jesus, who in writing in his letter in chapter 4 says to his readers, Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.
And Joseph is a wonderful illustration of this perspective. We've noted it before, it is reiterated for us again this morning, and indeed it runs through the whole story. In order to try and come to terms with this large amount of material here in 41, I would like to gather your thoughts and mine around three headings.
So to the first of these, the interpretation God provided. It is a matter of some interest to me that in reading the commentaries, I found again and again the interpretation of the dream referred to as Joseph's interpretation. When in point of fact, Joseph himself in verse 15 and 16 was at pains to make clear that he couldn't give an interpretation. He had said to the Pharaoh when he called for him, I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.
Now we ought not to overlook this because it is very, very important. We have again noted and we reaffirm this truth that Joseph's life can be explained from a number of angles, but one of the clearest and most foundational elements in him is the fact that you cannot look at Joseph without realizing that he was a man who lived a God-centered life. His life was not me-oriented, it was God-oriented. And long before the psalmist writes the first Psalm, Joseph is almost like the archetypal character described in the first Psalm. Who the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night, who will be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season, and whatsoever he does will prosper.
Unlike the chaff, he says, which the wind blows away. And Joseph stands in the midst of humanity as an illustration of this great God-centered life. We saw it in his resistance to temptation in chapter 39. How could I do such an evil thing, he says, and sin against God? We see it later on in chapter 41 as he exercises his responsibility.
Towards his children. Indeed, in the naming of his children, he names them supremely in the awareness of who God is and what God has done. And indeed, in his reaction to the pain of injustice, as it comes to him at the hands of his brothers and others, he is able to say in chapter 45 and verse 5, that although his brothers were concerned that he had been on the receiving end of all their vitriolic hatred, nevertheless, says Joseph, it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. In other words, we couldn't rub shoulders with Joseph, spend any time in his company without being brought into an awareness of God and all of the unfolding of his dealings. And I suggest to you this morning that in that respect, these are very necessary studies.
This is a very necessary man with whom to spend time.
so as to correct ourselves living as we do at the end of three decades in which God has been shrunk and man has been exalted. where God has been shown irrelevantly and irreverently to be somehow or another the servant of man rather than that as the Bible makes clear, man is always the servant of God. And Joseph helps to correct that. And so it is no surprise that in the matter of Pharaoh's dream we find God the first word so frequently on his lips. In verse 16, as I just noted for you, and then again in verse 25, Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same.
God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. Verse thirty-two. God has firmly decided, or it has been firmly decided by God. and God We'll do it soon. And what we discover is that Joseph possesses a core conviction.
about the fact of God's providence. In other words, he recognizes that God determines at his own will. For his glory and for the good of his people What is going to happen? And Joseph affirms, not only in 41, but all the way through, that God is the speaker of his word and God is the doer of his works. And Joseph finds himself As a young man, doing the things that young men do.
Living is life as it is mapped out for him Living in the awareness of the fact that God is in control.
Now, again, this is a very necessary emphasis. Because Despite the fact that so much is said about the founding of this great nation. on the biblical and theological principles. Many of the founders of this nation were actually deists. In other words, they believed that there was a Creator.
Who was God? But they believe that God spun the universe off took his hands off it And then the people were left somehow or another to make the best of it. That is not biblical. The Bible says that not only is God the creator, but God is the provider, He is the sustainer, He is the Redeemer, and He is the end of all things.
So that men and women are not left to blind fate, they are not left to chance, they are not left to go into spooky ladies in spooky little front shops, they are not left phoning up 1-900 numbers to find out what in the world might happen to them. Why? Because of the doctrine of Providence. Because God is working all things according to the purpose of His will.
Now Joseph is not unique in emphasizing this. The Bible is full of it, and the prophets make much of it, nowhere more so than in the book of Isaiah, and perhaps classically so in Isaiah chapter 45. And if you turn there with me for a moment, let me point it out to you. As Isaiah gives God the glory that is due to his name, He attributes to God not simply his ability to reveal the future, but also the fact that God governs all the events by his own authority. There are obviously secondary causes.
But God is the primary controller of all the events of life.
So for example, Uh The secondary cause of the retaining of the people. In Egypt, was as a result of the rebellious heart of Pharaoh. The primary cause was that God determined that that should be so, and he chose to use Pharaoh's rebellious heart in order to achieve that end. The hatred of men against Jesus was a realistic hatred. Their scorn and their scoffing was real.
The rebellion of Judas Iscariot was exactly what he did. He was not a pawn and yet in the mystery of it all he was fulfilling the unfolding providential rule of God. And that's what you find in Isaiah chapter 45. If you look at verse 5, for example, it lays it down, first of all, I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God.
Stop there for just a moment and make a mental note of how different this is from the world in which we are presently living. If you watch the Discovery Channel with any frequency at all and are introduced to the tales of birds and reptiles and icebergs and all these wonderful programs, you will find yourself, if you are a believer, constantly having to editorialize over the voice of the narrator. Because the narration points to a worldview which denies Isaiah 45 verse 5. Denies flat out that there is a God, the creator of the ends of the earth, who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. rather suggesting that how we got here, we're not really sure what we're supposed to do.
We're just trying to scramble for an answer and where we're heading, frankly, we really haven't got a clue. In direct contrast to that, the Bible says, I am the Lord, and there is no other, and apart from me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me.
So that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is. No other. It's an interesting thing. If you go in bookstores, you will find in the religious section Books Which have been written, and there's one in my mind, and I can't pull it up.
I just saw it. But books that have been written. Mm-hmm. Have scripture in them, and they are written for the very purpose. of showing from the perspective of the author That this scripture could never be true and isn't real and shouldn't be applied and shouldn't be obeyed and it is just bogus.
Yeah. No. When you go, for example, to the Quran, or to some of the New Age writings. You don't find this interaction with it. Why is it?
that the Bible would be singled out. That the truth of God's word would be singled out for an attack against its authenticity. Because men and women have written into their very being by nature a moral compass, an awareness of God, a sense of eternity, and they have at least the sneaking suspicion that Isaiah 45, 5 is true. I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no God apart from me.
And so it is a great refusal on the parts of men and women to disregard the God who has made them. And it is a great wonder in the life of Joseph as he recognizes God's sovereign overruling power. Look at verse 9. Woe to him who quarrels with his maker. To him is but a pot among the pots on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter, what are you making? Does your work say he has no hands? Woe to him who says to his father, what have you begotten? Or to his mother, what have you brought to birth?
Now what is being said here? Simply this. The potter cannot and the parent must not be questioned. Because within their own spheres they possess total sovereignty. Total sovereignty.
Only within the paths of righteousness. Not in any disabuse. Not in any Victorian oppressive nonsense. Set all that aside. But simply within the framework of enunciating the truths of God's word and the framing of family life, you as a parent are in the place of God to your children, and that is why they may not question you.
And that is why your family is not a democracy. And that is why it is not one man, one vote to see what we want to do. And don't let the fact of the pendulum having swung so far out. Prevent us from a biblical perspective. The question is here: woe to him who says to his father, What have you begotten?
Or to his mother. And the same you see is true of the Lord who is the Creator and who is the sustainer of history. That's verse 12 and 13. It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hand stretched out the heavens.
I marshaled their starry hosts. I'm in charge. That's what God is saying. It's so contrary to our world view. It's so diametrically opposed to what we live with day in and day out.
And the challenge is going to be, simply and always, are we going to allow the Word of God to adjudicate on our puny minds or are we going to bring our puny minds and subject the word of God to them? You see, in the 60s, Francis Schaefer at La Brie said that the watershed issue in the 60s was the matter of the inerrancy of Scripture. Is this book true or is it not true? And particularly, he said, the issue of the historicity of the Genesis passages, Adam and Eve, and all the matters in Genesis 1 to 11. And said Schaefer, if you deny the authenticity of Genesis 1 to 11, then you will eventually begin to deny the other pieces of the Bible.
And as you begin to deny the other pieces of the Bible, then you will begin to deny the Bible itself. And then you'll be left with no Bible at all, and you'll be left with no basis for any decision-making whatsoever. And 30 years later, he's proved absolutely true. There is mass confusion, even in the evangelical church in the Western world, over the issue of whether this book is true. Whether you're supposed to obey it.
That's why wives don't know what it is to be a wife. That's why husbands don't want to be a husband. That's why kids don't want to be kids and why parents don't want to be parents. That's why no one will submit to the policeman and no one will acknowledge that God sets the precedents in place, even when we don't like them. There has never been a president of the United States that God did not want as the president of the United States.
And there never will be.
Now, that doesn't mean we do nothing and sit back and say, Give us the next one, because He has ordained that we should do. But we recognize that in the doing of it all, we do not look to Capitol Hill, we look to heaven. For he is in control, in control of Joseph. and in control of all the circumstances. of this old weary world.
Oh, it helps me to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning, knowing that I don't have to immediately go on the internet and start checking with all the centers of the universe to find out if the world is still here, you know, and if we're all fine. I can fall asleep in the back of the car as long as my dad is driving and I'll trust him to take me where we're going and I'll wake up when he wakes me up and it's all fine from there. And that is the perspective of Joseph. He slept in the dungeon and now he'll sleep in the palace because he believed in the providence of God. that God provides.
That is to be done with potluck dinners once and for all. Not the dinners, I like those dinners, we just have to change, just change the name. We can change them to Pot Providence, but it doesn't have the same kind of ring to it. But I don't know about you. I'm not coming to those affairs relying on luck.
I believe that I will get something to eat and that it will be a result of God's provision. Not the lock of the draw. And this is worked into the fabric of Joseph's life. That's why he's such a striking character, isn't he? That's why you want to meet him, don't you?
Goodness gracious, I hardly, every week goes by I go, I wish I could meet this guy. I just give my right arm for half an hour with this chap. One day we'll meet him. It's going to be good.
So, God is preserving Joseph. God is operating in Joseph's life. God is directing all things to their appropriate end. The reason we have trouble with this is twofold. One, because we are rebellious by nature, and two, because we see things through a glass darkly.
When you're playing golf and you put a ball in the water, And you look around for somebody with one of those big Ball retrievers. They bring it out of their bag, it's absolutely straight, they elongate it, you put it in the water. And you look at it through the water and you could swear that it was Crooked. Because of the refraction, it makes it such that that which is perfectly straight going in looks as though it's bent once it's in. But when you pull it out, it's perfectly straight.
So what do we know? That is the way we're looking at it that causes us the problem. And the fact is that in all of our lives, through all of our earthly journey, we will always look at things just a little off. Even at our best, we see things through a glass darkly. We see things dimly.
And that which one day appears crooked will tomorrow be straight when we see it like Jesus sees it. And the wonderful thing about Joseph is that while he was obviously not perfect, somehow or another he was not languishing in the jail, saying to himself, you know, I don't see why I should still be in here. I don't know why I'm not out of here. I don't know why this hasn't happened to me, and so on. Why didn't I get out when I told that jolly cup bearer, you know, please get me out of here, would you?
And he gave me the impression he was going to, and then I got stuck here for another two years. You don't get this coming from Joseph. Maybe it was in his heart, but we don't have it in Holy Scripture. Because the fact of the matter was that if Joseph had got out when he thought it was a good idea to get out, he would never have become the prime minister of Egypt. If he'd got out when he wanted out, he would just have been out.
But God knew he had to come out on this particular morning. God had him there so that on this morning, the morning after Pharaoh's dark disturbing doubts and dreams, he would be able to bring him out at just the right moment so that all that would yet unfold would be according to his divine providential rule. You don't live your life with the ifs and buts and shouldst and couldst and maybe the second best of God's will. I meet people all the time that tyrannize themselves with that stuff. Oh, if I hadn't done this then, then that wouldn't have happened over there and this and so on.
Listen, God is able in His providence to sweep even our chaos and our rebellions into the unfolding of His plan. Peter really denied him because he flat out was scared and chose to, but from eternity's perspective, Peter will understand that it was in God's providential plan that Peter would deny him.
Now you try and work that out on a rainy Tuesday. See the stick is a little bit crooked all of a sudden again, right?
So he tells them. There will be seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. The famine will be so bad that the good years will be forgotten. His interpretation is wonderful. It's marked by absolute clarity.
And it was the same time a matter of some urgency. The reason the dream, verse 32, was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon. How wonderful of God who when he said it once, has said it enough times, is prepared to say it a second time. Mm. Isn't that what parents say?
Do I have to say this a second time? That's the wonderful God that we have here. Yeah. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alastair Begg. We'll hear more about the Providence of God tomorrow.
Well, today is an exciting day. Alastair has a brand new book for children. It's called J is for Jesus, and it's available for the first time today from Truth for Life. This is an A to Z book for you to read to your children or your grandchildren. Alistair works his way through the alphabet, using a word that begins with each letter to teach young children about who Jesus is and why he came.
Alastair explains big concepts about the nature and character of Christ in a way that those who are ages six and up will easily understand, and he provides many Scripture references along the way, so that you can dive deeper into a particular characteristic by reading directly from God's Word. J is for Jesus can be read as a daily devotional by learning about Jesus one word at a time. Or you can use it weekly if you lead a Sunday school class. Each lesson wraps up with a couple of discussion questions and a prayer. All the pages are colorfully illustrated to engage young readers.
Ask for your copy of the new book J is for Jesus Today. When you donate to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life, you can give online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening today. Does Joseph's plan to store up grain during the seven years of plenty Contradict what Jesus has to say about laying up treasures on earth? Alistair provides the answer tomorrow.
The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. where the Learning is for Living.
