(Gen. 42 to 44.)
FOR a long time I have been wanting to write to you, dear children, about Joseph making himself known to his brothers, and then getting them to come and live near him. We read of this in chap. 45, but every time I look over the chapters that come before I see so much I had not noticed that I do not like to pass them over without saying something to you about them. It may seem strange that Joseph should have treated them in the way he did, instead of telling them at once that he was their brother, and that he had forgiven them for being so unkind to him; but it was, no doubt, much better that they should have their sin brought to their mind by God in the manner it was, and that they should have time to think quietly and seriously about it. We never really enjoy being forgiven until we have been brought to feel in our hearts the wrong of the thing we have done. Sometimes persons, when they hear in the Gospel the message of the grace of God, believe in Jesus and find peace with God without having had any very deep sense of the evil that is in their hearts; but they do not enjoy being saved so much as those do who have gone through greater distress about being lost. If we have peace with God, we are not to give it up, and make ourselves miserable by always thinking of our own wicked hearts; but it is a good thing that we should ask the Lord to make us feel how much we owe to His grace, and what poor sinful things we are in ourselves. And we learn to love Him and lean on Him more, the more we learn that all His goodness to us is not because of any good in us, but because He is so full of goodness Himself. This is true of us after we have become “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus;” but it is also true of those who have not yet known “the grace of God that bringeth salvation.” They do not know the joy of being saved, because they have never found out in the presence of God what it is to be lost. He knows that we are lost, and He waits to save us, but waits till we too have come to know it, and have looked unto Him to be saved (Isa. 45:2222Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22)). And He often allows persons to go through a great deal of distress of mind, because they will not give up trying, and own that in themselves there is “no good thing.”
Now, it was something like this with Joseph and his brothers in these chapters. He loved them most tenderly, and had no thought in his mind of doing anything but good to them; but he waits till they are quite broken down in his presence before he even tells them who he is, and then he falls on their necks and kisses them. It would take too much space for me to go over all the things that are told us in these interesting chapters, but you will see in reading them that the first time they come to Joseph they say, “We are true men,” which meant, “We are all right and honest, and, if you think any harm of us, you are mistaken.” But the third time they are there, when they have fallen “before him on the ground,” they say, “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants.” And all that comes in between seems to have been done in order to make them feel that; as they had many years before sold their younger brother to be a slave in Egypt, so now they were all in the power of “the lord of all Egypt,” and must be his slaves if he choose to make them such. When they were brought to this, he, as it were, says to them, “Now I have you here, and I am Joseph, and I remember all you did to me. I will not punish you, though, but will nourish you (45:11), and instead of buying a little food, with a little present and double money (43:2, 11, 12), you shall dwell in the good land, and cat of the best of it, and pay nothing for it! Only you must go and fetch your father to enjoy it with you.” All this was, no doubt, in the mind of Joseph when he “made himself strange” to them, and spoke hard things to them, and put them all in prison for three days. His ways with them were as if he did not love them, but in his heart he did love them, as we see in chapter 42:24. “Before their eyes,” when he was with them, he took Simeon away, and tied him up; but when he was alone he wept about them. And it is what we do and think about any one when we are alone that shows whether we really love them or not. Any one would think about me when I was with them, but what I like to find out about my friends is that they think about me when they are all alone, and I am not with them. How wonderful it is to look back “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)), before any man or angel was created, and know that God and “His dear Son” were thinking of us, and marking out for us all the happiness that will be enjoyed forever by those who confess themselves lost sinners, and believe in Jesus, and are saved! (See also Proverbs 8:22-3122The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 23I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: 26While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 27When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: 28When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: 29When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: 30Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; 31Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. (Proverbs 8:22‑31).) And so Joseph, when quite alone in his chamber, thought of his brothers, whom he knew and loved, although they did not know him, and wept about them, as Jesus, many hundred years after, looked upon His city, Jerusalem, and His people who lived there, and wept over them, although He knew that only a few days after they would be crying out, “Away with Him! Crucify Him!”
This is the first time we read of Joseph weeping, but there are no less than eleven other places in these few last chapters of Genesis where we read about the tears of this dear man, who had been hated by his brothers, but who only loved them in return. I must leave you now for another month, to find these places and to think of the Lord Jesus as One who wants to make you happy near Himself, when you have learned that you cannot do without Him as your Saviour and your Friend.
W. TY.