Yet again; this lesson teaches that God uses means apparently rough and stern to prepare his servants for higher responsibilities and more signal blessings. We can not say what Joseph would have been if he had remained in the bosom of his doting father’s home through all those years from seventeen to thirty, instead of being in God’s school of suffering and trial; but it is safe to say that he made rapid strides forward in this school of God—in his knowledge of human nature; in his quick and manifest sympathy with every one in trouble; in his skill to gain the confidence of those about and above him; in his capacity for business; and not least in his living piety and his humble walk with God. His surroundings threw him roughly upon his own resources, and at the same time sweetlyupon God’s resources; and in consequence he rose, as few men have even been fit to rise, from slave-life and from prison-life, to be the actuary of a great kingdom—the almoner of bread and of life to the nations of the then civilized world; and also to become one of the most exalted and spotless characters of all history. Are not the ways of God truly wonderful?
The ways of God toward Jacob must not be overlooked. We need not debate the question how far his sufferings were those of innocence, and how far he was criminally responsible for the lack of moral culture and the power of fearful depravity in his sons. Be this as it may, it was hard for him to lose Joseph—the one son who was a comfort to his heart among so many who were quite otherwise. Even after thirteen years his heart seems still to be sore with that great sorrow, so that when his ten sons say that Benjamin must go with them to Egypt, he exclaims, “All these things are against me”! And when at length he is compelled to consent, his words indicate that he bows to an inexorable fate rather than yields in sweet trust to a divine hand believed to be wise and kind, though utterly and inexplicably mysterious;—“If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”
Jacob lived to see the clouds of darkness lifted and rolled away. He lived to learn that all those things were not against him by any means, but were in fact shaped of God to save his great household alive through a seven years’ famine; and (what is far more than even this)—were designed of God for the salvation of those sons of his whose wickedness had brought these sorrows upon him, and whom God had faithfully taken in hand to bring them to repentance. Had he not learned ere this that it was always safe to trust in his father’s God? Had not the Lord said to him, “I will surely do thee good”? As to being “bereaved of his children,” was not the covenant very definite: “A nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins”? (Gen. 35: 11).——This discipline of the aged patriarch was sharp but wholesome. He might have said, “In faithfulness hast thou afflicted me.” The clouds of life’s stormy day cleared before sunset. It would be pleasant to hear, if we might,the experiences of his closing years when he came to understand God’s ways and to reap the blessed fruits of such chastening sorrows.
These methods and ends of God in the discipline and culture of his people reach onward into eternity. The faithful here are the rulers there (Mat. 25: 21). Those who take God’s discipline kindly here and turn it to best account according to his thought and will, have their reward above. It is not needful that we know in their details what the heavenly responsibilities are, and what the dignities and the honors of those who have been faithful over a few things here; but we are safe in the belief that earthly discipline and culture are not lost attainments as to the after life.——As one short day transferred Joseph from the prison-house of the kingdom to the lordship of that kingdom, so one day is long enough for the transfer of many a humble, suffering saint of God from dungeons of darkness and pain to palaces of royalty and bliss. In the story of Joseph these great truths of God’s administration with his people were breaking forth upon the minds of men by most interesting stages of progress.
2. From these lessons in God’s ways with the righteous, we turn to other lessons pertaining to his ways with the wicked. This history of Joseph shows how skillfully and mightily God manages the wicked, making their wickedness work (wholly against their purpose) to evolve abounding good.
We have seen how Joseph directed the thought of his brethren to these ways and designs of God. “Be not angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.” “So now it was not ye that sent me hither, but God” (Gen. 45: 5, 7, 8). And again seventeen years later, after Jacob’s death, his brethren being apprehensive lest Joseph might then relapse into revenge, he said to them; “Fear not, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen. 50: 19, 20). We should quite under-estimate Joseph’s knowledge of human nature and his sense of moral distinctions if we were to press hiswords to mean that God’s agencies in those crimes superseded theirs; lifted off their responsibilities and left them essentially faultless.——The reason why Joseph’s remarks took this turn seems to have been this. He saw that conviction for sin had done its vital work in their souls; that they were apparently penitent and leaning toward the most severe self-condemnation—at a stage where it was both safe and kind to turn their attention to God’s hand as evolving good from their sin. In so far as we can have confidence in Joseph’s judgment as to their moral state, his words afford proof that his brethren were truly penitent, and at a stage where consolation might properly be suggested as some relief to their mental anguish.
The use which God made of the sin of Joseph’s brethren exemplifies his consummate, far-reaching wisdom. He knew all the future. He saw the coming famine; knew how to advance Joseph to the lordship of all Egypt, and to put him there just in time to garner up the surplus of seven years of overflowing abundance, and then dispense these stores of corn for the sustenance of thousands less provident throughout all Egypt and all adjacent countries. The resources of God’s providence, guided by such wisdom, are simply boundless. What can he not do when he wills to do it?——The case is equally demonstrative of his love. Mark how he bends the great powers of his infinite being to the production of good, to multiply the means of happiness. This view of his character is doubly, yea infinitely precious when studied in its developments in a world, or rather a universe, with sin in it. If the Lord were obliged to say—I must content myself with the co-operation of the good, the unfallen, turning their agency to best account for the promotion of happiness; but as to the wicked, they are beyond my reach; I can do nothing with them; the evil they do must be endured as so much dead loss to the universe, never to be of any service toward virtue and happiness—the case would be, so far, one of unrelieved sadness. We may bless the name of our God that his resources of wisdom and power and the outgoings of his love are not thus limited. No indeed; some good results will be extorted from even those horrible crimes of Joseph’s brethren. Even the devil’s wickedness in which he exults as availing tofrustrate God’s plans and to shake his throne, he will find at length to his everlasting confusion and shame, has been made, by the over-mastering wisdom, power, and love of God, to subserve the very cause he thought to break down, and to break down every thing he had vainly hoped to build up! For is not God wiser and mightier than the devil? The final result of the conflict will prove it.——But it is in place here to note that this story of Joseph’s brethren and of God’s over-ruling hand in their case was shedding some rays of light on these previously dark problems, and therefore was indicating progress in the revelations of God and of his ways with sinful men.