Reading Genesis recently, we
were impressed with the way Joseph gives God His rightful place.
In 39:9:"How then can I do
this great wickedness, and sin against God?"
To the butler and the baker
Joseph says, "Do not interpretations belong to God?" (40:8) "God
shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace," Joseph assures the king in
chapter 41:16. In interpreting Pharoah’s dream, Joseph explains to the King
that "it is because the thing is established by God, and God will
shortly bring it to pass" (41:32). Under Joseph’s influence even Pharaoh
talks about God. "Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the
Spirit of God is?" (41:38. See also v. 39.)
His sons are named with God
before his heart. "And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh:
For God, saith he, hath made me forget all my toil …. And the name of
the second called he Ephraim:For God hath caused me to be fruitful in
the land of my affliction" (41:51, 52).
In 42:18 he says to his
brethren, "I fear God"; perhaps this had some effect on them,
for in verse 28 they questioned among themselves, "What is this that God
hath done unto us?"
Seeing his brother Benjamin
after an absence of over twenty years, Joseph’s first words to him were:"God
be gracious unto thee" (43:29).
Pouring out his heart to his
brethren, after making himself known to them, Joseph says to them:"And God
sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save
your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither,
but God …. Go up to my father, and say unto him . . . God hath
made me lord of all Egypt" (45:7-9).
"[These] are my sons,"
Joseph tells his father at their reunion, "whom God hath given me
in this place" (48:9).
After their father Jacob’s
death, Joseph’s brethren are afraid of what he might do to them. Joseph,
however, assures them that they need not fear, telling them, "As for you,
ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to
pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (50:20).
Finally, Joseph, at the end of
his life, "said unto his brethren, I die:and God will surely visit
you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He sware to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob" (50:24).
How interesting and refreshing
to see this constant reference to God and recognition of God in a life so shut
away from human fellowship and subjected to so many and such great trials. That
we are sadly remiss in this we will all readily agree. How much brighter,
however, our lives would be, and how much more to His glory, if we acknowledged
God more openly, readily, and fully in the broad plan of and in the small
details of our lives. (Prov. 3:6 and Romans 8:28) May God our Father give us
grace to do so.
FRAGMENT "Wherefore also
let them who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in
well-doing to a faithful Creator" (I Peter 4:19, J.N.D. Trans.).