Clough Manhood Series Lesson 13

Summary/review; Joseph: Male Drive without Wisdom – Genesis 30-32

Since we have come almost through the end of Genesis in this series on the doctrine of the Christian man, we’re going to summarize four or five different problems that we have covered so far, together with the verses of Scripture and the illustrations from Scripture to be used in meeting those problems. Therefore, this section would be most useful to those of you who have the gift of exhortation, that you might have the tools to utilize that gift wisely when the need arises. And these needs often arise because these particular problems were selected, not at random, but they were selected out of the feedback cards that men who came into this congregation at one time or another asked. So they are real questions asked by real people facing real situations; they’re not phony questions. And then when we finish this review and this outline of biblical contents and verses for these particular problems, we’ll go on to the last figure in Genesis, Joseph, and watch his climb to power. Joseph has two distinct parts in his career; his climb to power and his administration inside a government establishment. And so his career neatly divides into these two parts, tonight we’ll deal with his rise to power.

The first problem that we faced and that we’ll review and go back through in the areas of Scripture is the problem that was asked by several men, the priority of the man’s job and his relationship with his wife; the problem of the job versus the wife. And we said that this particular situation has to be answered on the basis of a law framework, and that’s why people from the very start have a problem. They have two situations out here and these things are rolling around with no framework, and they’re trying to juggle and balance them. And their feeling is chaotic; it’s not secure, and it’s puzzling. And the only way to solve that kind of a situation is bring law into the situation, that is law and order, some sort of ordering mechanism to define what that relationship is. It’s like we said this morning, there has to be some sort of organization brought in to measure these quantities and show where the biblical boundaries are. And so the Bible brings this in and the Bible brings it in through doctrine.

We said that part of this framework that is brought into the situation is the creation picture. The creation picture is the doctrine of man who shall subdue the earth and his mandate to subdue the earth is accomplished by his family. Remember that mandate in Genesis 1:30, “Be fruitful and multiply,” and then “subdue the earth.” Subdue the earth didn’t occur first because it couldn’t; it had to occur after there was a family. Why? Because the family is the reservoir of wisdom. If it weren’t for the family then each generation would have to start anew and so therefore God has wisely set up a system of accumulating wisdom. Ideally it is to accumulate wealth, but since the United States socialists have seen to it that inheritance taxes are put into effect that is effectively destroyed part of God’s divine institution. But the families used to be items and places where capital was accumulated. You didn’t accumulate capital by borrowing it.

This we will get into; a number of you have asked about how far should a man borrow in his business. There are guidelines given to us in the Mosaic Law and the reason why those guidelines don’t directly apply to us and we have to adapt them is because in the Old Testament, each family starting from point zero when the nation was founded, each family had capital, and through the wise allocation of resources through the application of doctrine, each family was to increase its capital, so that each generation would have a working capital on which to build their business. And there wouldn’t be this perpetual indebtedness. Yet what do we have in our vaunted wealthy society? We have the son who goes into business, he borrows money to go into business. By the time he’s sixty he might have paid back some of that money. And so he doesn’t any capital to pass on to his son, so his son goes out and starts business again by borrowing money. And it’s just a never ending cycle because the capital never builds up, it never accumulates, and when it does the government penalizes the accumulation of wealth. So we can thank, even people in the Bible belt, for voting in these kinds of policies, ignorant totally of the Scriptural position on accumulated wealth. Well, that shows the family and its necessity; the family is the storehouse, it’s the place where not only wisdom but also raw materials, physical assets are accumulated.

Now this family, of course, is brought in through the woman acting as the ‘ezer. If you turn to 1 Peter 3:7, that’s what that is talking about. Here’s a verse some of you exhorters ought to have down, if you face a situation like this. Maybe you’re a man who will meet another man on the job and this question comes up for discussion. Maybe that person professes to be a Christian; introduce him to the startling possibility that the Word of God might have something to say in this area. You’d take him to Genesis 1:28-30 and 1 Peter 3:7, “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life,” “…heirs together of the grace of life,” notice it is a grace, life is not a deserved product this side of the fall, but nevertheless it is grace and so God in His grace permits families to exist. And this obviously is talking about this and it’s a threat in this verse, and the threat is that if a man doesn’t exercise his leadership by living according to knowledge, then both the prayers of the husband and wife are going to be hindered, “that your prayers be not hindered,” both of your prayers are going to be hindered.

So this is at least a recognition in God’s sight, whether men recognize it or not is another story. But at least God recognizes spiritual unity in the marriage relationship. And we can play games with it but nevertheless God still recognizes it; that is the way it is. All right, that’s one test that clearly shows the wife and the job work and fit together in the same mandate; they’re not considered in competition, not in Scripture, not under God’s law.

Now there’s another passage that dramatizes the need for a family institution, well run, with the man doing his role and the wife doing hers, Ecclesiastes 2:18-19, this summarizes what we’ve been trying to say, and this is a good specific Bible text to use in this kind of a situation. This is the answer to the man who says well, I am going to run my business and the hell with my family. Now if that’s his attitude this is a good rejoinder to that attitude. “Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun, because,” Solomon recognizes something, all his vast enterprises, he says, “because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me,” that’s his sons. [19] “And who knows whether he shall be wise or a fool? [Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have shown myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity].”

In other words, what good does your accumulated business do you? Are you going to pass it on to the village idiot? And what is the village idiot going to do with all your vast business. You see, there’s no future in it, and therefore the corollary to someone who says “I” will accumulate wealth for me and my sons and my family can take care of their way is a present centered person. He’s not thinking, but what about tomorrow, what about when your children are in the driver’s seat. How will they drive the car if you haven’t trained them; if you haven’t introduced them to point after point after point, then what happens. Solomon tells us what happens; Solomon is so concerned about it that’s why he uses the verb “hate” in verse 18. When he thinks of the fact that he has no control over his children and the future generation, then it makes him despise his present business and his present work, because it has no future if his family isn’t there; it’s that simple.

And so that’s one point that we’ve made, that from creation, Genesis 1:28 illustrated with 1 Peter 3:7 and Ecclesiastes 2:19, we have the priority of the job and the wife graphically shown. They both fit together; there is not inherent competition. The competition comes because they have un-agreed upon agendas, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Also in this area, if you want to use illustrations in encouraging someone, concrete simple stories that anyone can understand, pick a few between Genesis 12 and 21; you’ve got notes on that passage showing you how Abraham and Sarah worked it out, how when Abraham believed, that he was going on with the Lord then he would accept Sarah’s advice, but he would use discernment in applying that advice. We found that when Abraham was faith-resting things and faith-doing things properly, Sarah was a contented wife. She was following her husband. But we also found when Abraham rejected the plan of God for his life, when he failed to apply the promises, then he either rejected Sarah’s advice completely or when he did take it he didn’t take it with discernment and became deceived. And we found he placed his own wife in extreme danger, at least twice; he put, therefore, the entire holy seed that was promised to him by God in extreme danger, in fact, danger of annihilation. And we found at this point Sarah had to become leader in the relationship, like so many women have to because their men are not exercising spiritual leadership. And so it is that we have this role extreme that occurs when men do not get with the Word of God.

Now that’s the theory, but in practice how are these verses put into effect; suppose you are on the job and suppose you are placed in a situation, suppose you’re an employer and you have a male employee and this man has a home so badly torn up that he’s going to quit your business and maybe when he quits your business he walks out of the office with the talent you need to run your business, look at it that way. Even if he weren’t another Christian, whom you might owe some exhortation and guidance to it; just look at it from the practical point of view. You can hold the thing together if you can counsel him in the situation. Well, you can give him the information of the Scriptures and give him the picture of what ought to happen. Well, then how is he going to go home and apply that; what are some practical things that can be done? A very simple thing can be done, ask him to go home, he and his wife, sit down, and agree to a mutual agenda.

For example, such things as their priorities; let them state it in writing, on a piece of paper, together. There ought to be mutual agreement on when, if they’re in this state, when, for example, they are just going to have recreation time together; when is he going to be out in the evening, that kind of thing, specifics. And that’s how to take this picture that we’re observing here in Scripture and make it very, very practical by offering them something to do. They have a problem, here’s what you can do, you can start solving your problem tonight; all you have to do is take a piece of paper and a pencil and Scripture and sit down and get some specifics down on a piece of paper and communicate on the basis of this problem. What is the problem? What are we going to do about it? How are we going to apply Scripture, and you have a sharing that we see in Genesis 21:1-14 with Abraham and Sarah; that’s what they were doing. They were exchanging information and agreeing upon a common agenda, and they had to agree on specifics, in that case, getting rid of Hagar, but at least both of them came to the agreement. So that’s one particular question that came up.

Another question that came up, asked by several men, was the question that we’ve been answering over and over, and that is the question of the balance between compassion and strength in the man’s character. The balance between compassion and strength; and we said that balance is directly affected by the balance between sovereignty and grace. Some verses to use in dealing with this kind of a problem, Romans 4:20-21; Hebrews 11:8-10. These are verses that explain how Abraham was constantly trusting in the situation, and how, therefore, he had strength because of his inherent confidence in God’s sovereignty. It was that that made Abraham strong. The strength source, in other words, for Abraham’s strength was not in himself, it was in heaven, outside of himself, and that’s what made Abraham so strong. Illustrations of this in Abraham’s strength: you can use the illustration of Genesis 14 with someone, point out to them that Abraham didn’t tolerate terrorists coming in and ripping off his family and their resources; God had given that family those resources, and Lot’s resources were his family’s resources, and that was part of God’s blessing, and he wasn’t about to let some weirdo come in and run off with God’s promised blessing. So he went after the guys and killed him; that’s how he solved the problem, he didn’t negotiate, he didn’t run to the United Nations, he took care of the problem. And there is a good example of Abraham, the tough man. He will not permit himself to be ripped off.

But on the other hand, Abraham is also a man of grace. A beautiful illustration you can use to show how Abraham was a relaxed enough man to allow someone to do something for him and not come right back on him and that’s Genesis 13, with Lot. Remember, he said let’s have a pick; you pick your land, I’ll pick mine. And Lot picked what, from the natural point of view, was the best property, and left Abraham, from the natural point of view, with the worst property. Well, Abraham didn’t gripe about it, he went back to the Lord and the Lord rewarded him. And so there was grace on Abraham’s part, and so there was the compassion side. So there’s the balance and you see it operating between sovereignty and grace.

And then we had the question asked about choosing a wife. We’ve seen Genesis 24 and we’ve watched how Isaac’s bride, Rebekah, was chosen. She was chosen on the basis of her character, and in that model of Genesis 24 there are certain features that come out and ought to be discussed. You can bring up the fact that, number one, he didn’t go where statistically there weren’t any girls with character, with maturity. He went to the place where these girls had been raised in a Semitic background, not a Canaanite background. And the importance of this is that a girl can become a Christian but that doesn’t change her character. It takes years to build character—years! And that’s why Abraham went back in Genesis 24 and got Rebekah out of a home; yes, it wasn’t the best home situation but it was the best possible of all the probabilities and that’s where he looked.

Another thing that came out of the Genesis 24 story, if you recall, that one of the things that the servant looked for was a woman who was perceptive to needs; in other words, a selfless one, and so Rebekah was picked because not only did she offer the servant water but she also recognized the need that he had to water his camels and so on. And that, though it seems trivial, is a concrete illustration of Rebekah’s attitude. The primary issue, then, is character. A verse reference for this, go back to the first bride, Genesis 2:19-22. In that situation Adam was given wisdom and Adam was to exercise that wisdom in looking for Eve. And God sent him on a search, you remember; true, he couldn’t miss because there was only one, but the emphasis is on wisdom, not direct revelation. And that’s why; though God in His sovereignty does have an individual picked out that doctrine has become so misapplied we have dropped it. And as I’ve said, we’ve changed the wedding service to reflect that; right man/right woman is a nice doctrine but you can see the weird ways it’s applied, fatalistic applications of it. So because of that we refuse any longer to use the term. And it’s because we’re trying to invoke the principle of Genesis 2:19, that you use means and the means include the works and principles of spotting character.

A fourth question that was asked, and often comes up with men in their situations: what about the Christian at business? What about the Christian who’s at business under a non-Christian. What about the Christian business under a carnal Christian? Let’s look at some, and summarize some passages, specific places where you can locate advice to meet this kind of a situation; there’s a lot more but these are the ones we’ve covered. The first one is in Genesis 13; that one showed you that Abraham picked a general spiritual environment for his business. He didn’t choose to set up business in Sodom and Gomorrah. He took a short-term business loss but made a long-term business gain by not doing business with Sodomites. Now that doesn’t mean a pharisaical attitude in business because Abraham dealt with a lot of people that were gross individuals. The point there was that Abraham didn’t get himself enmeshed in an entire culture that was degenerate; he stayed away from degenerate cultures.

The application of this is be in foreign investing, don’t invest your money in some decrepit country where a bunch of non-Christian kooks that control the situation. Invest it where there are some sound people; don’t waste your time with the degenerates. They can’t feed themselves, it may be, probably is due to their socialistic system, and if that’s the way they choose to live, fine, but don’t you be part of it. So this is what we mean by exercising discrimination and Abraham surely did.

Another principle of business: Abraham utilized government force in his business only to prevent theft; that was the terrorist incident of Genesis 14. He did not use the government to provide him with subsidy, price support for unprofitable goods. What he did demand of the government, and when the government couldn’t do it he did it himself, and that was protect me physically so I can do my business; never mind price supports, just give me protection and I’ll take care of the rest. If I’m a truly productive person I don’t need price supports; what I need is protection so that I can make a business contract with somebody and have some sort of a legal reliability and that’s one item that ought to be looked at in business relationships.

You have another principle given in Genesis 21 with Abraham and in Genesis 31 with Jacob, and that’s the principle that these men were hard bargainers; they considered nothing impious about driving a hard bargain with their business situation. After all, God uses means to bless and one of the means that God uses to bless is business moxy.

Another principle that we noticed, and this one is a vital principle, Genesis 31:36, remember that principle about Jacob and his hard work? That principle is based on two verses; I want to give the two verses that back up that passage. First the passage, Genesis 31:36-42 which we studied last time, in that passage, remember, that was the recitation by Jacob how he worked with Laban, he worked in the heat of the day, he worked in the freezing conditions at night, he worked in this hardship, he worked in that hardship, and he worked his way up through the system. But behind that is a Scriptural principle and we’re going to look at two verses that go with that principle. And these can be used, oftentimes in your own application of when you’re working in a very difficult situation under a very difficult supervisor, when do you make the break? How far do you take it before you finally say it’s time we parted company? How far do you go? These verses offer some help.

The first truth is given in Proverbs 11:8, this is the underlying principle and then we’ll see a New Testament mention of it. In Proverbs 11:8 is the simple truth that “the righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked come into his place,” notice it doesn’t say that the wicked is punished, though that’s obviously meant. But it says punished in a particular way; it says “the righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked man takes his place.” Now that’s obviously a replacement factor and that’s a long-term proverbial truth. That doesn’t help us, maybe, in the short-term but it’s a long-term truth that helps make short-term decisions, in this, that eventually the guy who was dishonest in business is going to get judged. Somewhere along the line he’s going to get judged. He’s going to get it; if he’s a cutthroat competitor he’s going to get it. And there ought to be at least some trust in God’s moral reign in history. But if instead you panic, and insist that this guy, who’s out to get everyone, has got to be your personal target, because if you don’t handle him, no one else will. Now sometimes God will put you in that place but you have to learn to relax with the situation and Proverbs 11:8 is a statement of the truth that just don’t worry about it, if you can’t do anything directly about it the Lord has moral cause/effect operating in history.

That is coupled with an interesting passage which will make sense to you now, 1 Corinthians 13:5-7, the passage on love, a passage which is often misunderstood and a passage which Christian men in business say has no application whatsoever, and yet it does. Jacob used it and he used it very skillfully, with much reward. 1 Corinthians 13:5-7, you’ve heard this again and again and most of the time when you’ve read verse 5, verse 6, and verse 7, maybe you’ve kind of inferred from it that it’s passive; in other words, it’s commending that the Christian man just kind of bear all things, believe all things, like some naïve idiot and hope all things even though it’s obviously wrong, and endure all things, become the world’s doormat.

Now that’s how usually that verse is interpreted, but that’s not what it’s talking about. What it’s talking about is succeeding on the basis of law, this way. Suppose we have the situation where the Christian person is dealing with a non-Christian person; we’ll make the case real easy; this person is not only the non but he’s a non-Christian who is quite vicious in his business practices. Now here’s the Christian who wonders what he can do with it, and he faces this verse, verses 5-7. He says boy, this is a recipe for business suicide if I ever saw one. Not at all, not when applied wisely.

What it says is that the Christian, say for example, put out a contract with this person; he may suspect this guy is going to breach the contract, break it in some way and so on, but at least he establishes a framework of law controlling the relationship. Now let’s see what happens; once the contract is established and the non-Christian welshes on the contract you’ve got a measure, you’ve got some sort of a structure in the situation where now accusation can be made; like Paul did in Acts 16. See, that’s how Paul operated; you wouldn’t call Paul in Acts 16 lying down becoming a doormat, but Paul’s the one that wrote this advice. This is [can’t understand words]. And are we going to argue that Paul didn’t follow his own teaching? Not at all, Paul “believed all things.”

When he walked into Philippi, “believing all things” meant that he was a Roman citizen and “believing all things” meant that he expected to be treated like a Roman citizen. See, that’s what “believing all things” is. He expected, he anticipated the best, that he was going to be treated like a Roman citizen. And so he didn’t walk in saying oh, they’re going to get me, they’re going to do this, they’re going to do that. No, I expect to be treated well, I’m a Roman. Well, he might have had intimations that he wasn’t going to be treated well but he went in with a positive attitude, he’s going to be treated well.

Now when he wasn’t treated well, what did Paul do? He fell back immediately and pressed home charges. Why am I not being treated well, I deserve it and it’s right, that’s what. So there’s this optimism but it’s an optimism based on some sort of a legal framework that connects these people, and it’s an optimism, not in the sense that we’re naïve and think people aren’t going to break the standards, but it’s optimism that the standard will prevail and I’ll see to it that it does prevail. That’s the attitude in this “believe all things.” In other words, it’s putting, basically the non-Christian under the control of law and refusing to let him squirm away into some sort of a chaos of undefined, just nothing, just sheer chance. So, there may be someone who will break contracts, but after you’ve made contracts then push it on him. Chase the breech down, that kind of thing; not out of vengeance but like Paul did, insistent that there will be law and order in this area and if necessary I’ll see to it there is, but there will be law and order.

It’s that kind of confidence and you’ll see Jacob using that with Laban. Yes, Jacob assumed losses but eventually it came to the point when Jacob insisted upon the right, and what happened to the business relationship between Jacob and Laban? It fractured. But what was the ultimate thing that fractured it? Ultimately it was Jacob “believing all things,” he got to the point where he kept pressing right and wrong against Laban and Laban couldn’t take it and the Lord said you’re clear now; if you’d walked off the job three weeks ago you’d be wrong; but now you’ve made the point and you can walk off the job with complete clearance because you’ve made your testimony that there’s a breech of principle involved. We’ll see that, by the way, in much more clear form with Joseph.

Some other business principles that we’ve noticed. In Genesis 32:7-8 we have an opportunity of contingency planning; there’s nothing impious about that either, about the Christian businessman not putting all of his eggs in one basket but spreading them out. I have heard Christian men say well, I can’t do that, that’s confessing that God isn’t leading me in my business. Well why not? Jacob, in Genesis 32:7-8 had clear guidance of Scripture, but yet, remember he divided his flock in half so that if Esau attacked he’d only use 50% of his investment, he wouldn’t lose it all. So the principle of diversification in the face of contingency is complete sound in Scripture; that is not wrong. And incidentally, I think some of you can see the after effect of this; this is the biblical justification for insurance. Insurance is a whole business endeavor begun by Christians in this country, if you want to state it historically. It was believers who started the whole concept of life insurance; it was the Presbyterian ministers who were the ones who originated it. So there’s nothing impious about betting on longevity, lifespan and so on. That’s part of business relationships and Christians ought not to feel hesitant about doing this.

All right, finally, the other thing that we’ve noticed in Christians and business; Genesis 32:13-21, this is when Jacob gave Esau the presents; if you’re dealing with degenerates that like glittering toys, give them their glittering toys; nothing wrong with it. Don’t give them a bomb in the box, but Esau was given his toys. Jacob knew that when you deal with this kind of a person you’ve got to give him his toys, so give him his toys then, don’t worry about it; God is not going to hit you with lightening because it’s not an act of moral compromise to give the guy his toys. So here he’s giving Esau a present and if Esau needs presents, fine, put a red ribbon on them and give it to him.

So that’s the Christian at business and those are some Scriptural principles to which we will add later on. And there’s one more area of illustrations and Scripture references that you might need some time and that is the review of divine guidance; the three standpoints of divine guidance. In divine guidance we said in this series a good way of looking at it, a good way to kind of get a handle on it, come at it two, three ways and come up with different pictures is to look at first from the standpoint of rules, that is from the standpoint of ideal, what is God’s ideals in the Scripture. You have Genesis 1:28, that’s the broad ideal; Matthew 28:18, that’s the New Testament counterpart to Genesis 1:28. You have Genesis 2:19 which is the principle of creative wisdom, and then you have the innumerable cases in the New Testament of “thou shalt not steal,” these kind of things, these are the rules and the norms and the standards. And that’s one way to approach divine guidance. If I face a problem and a decision what are God’s ideals; where are the rules that control it.

That’s one system of divine guidance, but there are two others and they ought not to be overlooked. All three of these systems ought to be called upon in making decisions to follow the Lord. One of them may give you an answer; it may not give you an answer or it may give you a deceptive answer, but when you use all three you can get a coalescence of answers.

The second system, we said, is looking at it from the standpoint of time or personal growth or personal history; your own personal history, where you are going in time. This gets away from the ideal and gets more on the principle of continuity. And there’s one and maybe two verses that I often use in this. The first one is 1 Corinthians 7:19-20 and that’s the principle of abide in the calling wherein you were called, but then obey God’s Word. And I said when I taught that that you could summarize that principle by saying, obey your way into a change, so you start where you are and you follow the Lord where you are.

Again, we’ll observe this very graphically in Joseph’s life. Joseph sits in the prison and he does what he can do in the prison. He doesn’t conduct a federal case to get out of prison because he couldn’t. But he could do something in the prison which he does, and that thing that he does in the prison is precisely what gets him out. Now what’s happened; he sat down at his point in time, he has obeyed his way, he wants to get to freedom but how he gets to freedom, he’s led to freedom indirectly by simply putting one foot in front of the other, a bang here, a bang here, a bang here and suddenly the door flies open and he’s promoted out of prison. Now how did he get free? Not directly, but he obeyed his way to a situation where God opened the prison door for him.

So we have the principle “abide in the calling wherein you are called.” Said another way, this principle means that God doesn’t guide you like this; God guides you in smooth curved lines. There’s a continuity in your life; it isn’t one big zigzag. There’s meaning and purpose to things you do, things that you did even before you became a Christian will be later on employed on down through the line here. So beware of these people, God led me to do this, well, God led me to do this, the Lord led me to do this. It’s ridiculous; they’re being led but not by the Lord. God just doesn’t lead that way. Where do you have Scriptural precedence for somebody following a “Z” in their divine guidance, that kind of thing? It’s not there.

Another principle or a verse associated with this idea of looking at your personal history, is Romans 14:21, that’s an admonition not to try to believe beyond what you are able to. So don’t try to manage high voltage if you can’t manage it spiritually. If the thing is too overbearing for you then just back off and come around again when you’re stronger spiritually to handle the situation. Maybe it’s a charged situation at business, you’re going into the lion’s den and you’ve got a choice of going in this department or that department and you know if you go in here you’re not so sure you can handle it. Romans 14:21 says “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” The conscience is telling you; hold it, make sure you know what you’re getting into. So there’s a verse that can be used.

Now the third perspective or system of divine guidance that we’ve referred to is the grid of our relationships; the gird of my personal relationships. Here I’m not looking at ideals; here I am not looking at my personal history, I’m looking at my relationship to God, my relationship to man, and my relationship to nature. And I have biblical controls on those areas, so this looks at it from just a little different perspective. All these perspectives are not in competition, they just cluster and they’re just different ways of looking at something from this side, then you come around and look at it from that side. And that’s the way we have to solve our problems.

All right, looking at it from this way we have 1 Corinthians 7:35 which controls our relationship with God and that principle in 1 Corinthians 7:35 says that you do what you can to increase your relationship with the Lord; you want to mature that relationship. So for example, if a guy has a business endeavor at point A and a business endeavor at point B and at least economically he can’t see any difference, so the business differences cancel out on his plus and minus thinking about the problem, and he can’t decide that way because there is no clear business indication, but over here at point A he has a situation, where there’s good opportunities for Christian growth and over here there are no opportunities for Christian growth; that’s the decider, 1 Corinthians 7:35.

Another verse to be used along in this situation is the relationship with men, Romans 12:18, which says “live peaceably with all men insofar as is possible.” That’s conditioned very carefully because the Christians can’t live peaceably with all men all the time. Jesus Christ said the world hated Me, it’s going to hate you; you’re not going to be at peace. So Romans 12:18, the principle is you be conservative about ruffling feathers until it’s the right time. And there’s a time to do it and there’s a time not to do it; so don’t prematurely ruffle feathers. Application of this in a specific situation: when you walk in you don’t hit everybody over the head with the Scriptures in the office; you wait, your time will come. Your opportunity will arise, you don’t have to force the issue and cram it down everyone’s throat and create some situation where they think you’re some religious nut that dropped down the air conditioning vent or something. So that’s the principle of being conservative in that area.

And finally the relationship to nature and circumstances; you’ve got a classic reference to that in Psalm 23:4, “I will fear no evil, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” the ultimate attitude of the Christian toward adversities and nature. So that’s a perspective that can be used. So these three perspective, the perspective of looking at what is the idea of God in the situation; looking at where I am in the situation, and then looking at the grid of my relationship, how it’s going to affect this.

Now let’s look at Joseph, the last man in Genesis that we will study; the last great character in Genesis. We’ll study Joseph a little tonight and some next week. Genesis 39. Joseph grew u somewhat spoiled. He was the youngest person, at least when he was growing up in the home he was the youngest of the… Benjamin came along but Joseph basically took the role in the family of little baby brother. And the older brothers didn’t care too much for him, he apparently had a few bratty tendencies and this irritated his brothers to the point they were willing to murder him and almost did, except some of them got hold of themselves at the last minute and they decided they’d throw him in a hole instead. And finally, you remember the story, how Joseph was sold down in Egypt.

Now the story picks up in Genesis 39:1-6. “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, and Egyptian, bought him out of the hands of the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there. [2] And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. [3] And his master saw that Jehovah was with him, and that Jehovah made all that he did to prosper in his hand. [4] And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had put into his hand. [5] And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that Jehovah blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake,” notice, not for Potiphar’s sake but for Joseph’s sake, “and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that Potiphar had in the house, and in the field. [6] And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not what he had, except the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a handsome person, and well favored.”

Now this story shows a tremendous model for a Christian believer. It shows, in a very realistic situation, the Christian man trapped in a world of pragmatism. Time and time again this is the problem with the Christian man on the job. He doesn’t face people who recognize he’s doing a job as unto the Lord. Don’t ever get hired by somebody thinking that person is going to reward you because they look down and see, oh, you’re doing this as unto the Lord, I’m so happy, I’ll give you a raise. That just isn’t the way it works, and Joseph knew this. So how did Joseph operate in the situation? Notice, in verse 2, “the Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man,” that doesn’t mean he was wealthy, he was a slave boy. Well, what does it mean, then, to prosper? It means that Joseph always did a good job, and not only did Joseph do a good job it seemed like whenever Joseph was on an assignment there was clarification on the assignment. In other words, there was a pragmatic empirical evidence that this guy knew what he was doing. Now here you have a Christian man giving his testimony by the work that he does for his employer. And Joseph is the illustration of this. His work is his own testimony.

Let’s watch how this works because Genesis 39, by the way, this whole Joseph narration in Genesis is the first setting for wisdom in Scripture. The word “wisdom” occurs in the narrative in the Hebrew and this is the signal that we’re starting to pick up something that later on develops in Proverbs, but right here is the first real biblical wise man, Joseph. The reason he’s a particular wise man is that very rarely… well, at no point in Joseph’s career does he ever see God face to face. He has no theophany whatsoever, like his father, Jacob, like Isaac, like Abraham. How does Joseph make his decisions? Purely on the basis of the Scriptures that he had, the knowledge of doctrine that he had, and circumstance. This is why we can identify so easily with Joseph, because you can’t get out of it by saying well Joseph had a hotline to God. Well, he didn’t. Jacob did but not Joseph. So since Joseph is cut off from verbal type revelation, he has dreams I think but basically he doesn’t really have this solid revelatory link that the patriarchs had. Joseph can be used as a model for us.

All right, Joseph does a good job, and that’s what it means when “the LORD was with” him, the Lord favored his circumstances. Joseph obviously was praying about a job; Potiphar would give him a job to do and before he did it he ask Him, Lord, now show me how I can do the best job I can for my master. And he had this relationship and that’s how he prayed about it and the job showed it.

Now what happened? Genesis 39:3, “And the master saw that the LORD was with him,” now that does not mean that Potiphar became a believer. That’s not what the text is talking about; it’s not saying that Potiphar is just, oh, Joseph, your testimony is so great, I just want to join your church; tell me, when do they meet. That’s not what’s happening here. I say this because a lot of guys are sold this bill of goods that all you have to do is do a good job and everybody is going to become a Christian. Now that’s not how it operates, and Joseph is a good illustration of this. Potiphar does not become a believer. What happens is that Potiphar recognizes that God is with him.

Watch how this works; it’s very clever and its something we have to pitch back to God-consciousness. Here’s Potiphar, unregenerate. All right, but he does have God-consciousness. We know that by Romans 1 and Romans 2; every unbeliever has God-consciousness. He knows that God is there. Now let’s look how it works. Here’s Joseph out here, and in the God-consciousness of Potiphar, way, way down in the depths of this thing, buried, is the Genesis mandate. Potiphar, unbeknown to his own autonomous self, still knows that somehow production is right. He still sort of intuit, he’s sort of intuits that when a guy is successful at subduing the earth, that’s good. Now he hasn’t thought this through why, just like most men in business have never thought it through why, they just somehow all implicitly assume this, but we as Christians know why they’re assuming it. They can deny Christ and all the rest of it but down underneath the reason they’re acting that way is because God-consciousness is asserting itself. So here’s Potiphar, he’s got this standard in his soul, put there by God, even though he’s a non-Christian, and that standard looks out at Joseph and it recognizes success. And Potiphar recognizes that thing and that’s what verse 3 is talking about. The God-consciousness of Potiphar is being witnessed to by the great performance of Joseph. So “his master saw that the LORD was with him,” and now he is promoted. And this is why it says in verse 4 “he made him overseer,” and then it goes on as far as verse 6, where he made him so much of an overseer that he didn’t know… he just turned the whole thing over, he didn’t know what was going on in his business any longer.

Now this is a most interesting phenomena, and Christian men have… we’ve had them in the congregation, I’ve seen this time and time again, both in the civilian business world, in the military and so on. Responsibility flows into the hands of the responsible people. Now you listen and watch how this works; it worked time and time again. There are certain laws of life and these are here simply because God is here and this is the way he’s made the universe to work. In economics it’s Gresham’s Law, that bad money drives out good money. What do we mean by that? We mean that if the government pulled off today what the Mexican government has done, in Mexico we have a situation where they’re coming out with a hundred peso piece of gold. Well what’s going to happen the moment this hundred peso piece of gold comes out? The collectors are going to hog them. Why? Because I want that hundred peso piece, that’s got gold in it. I don’t this other subway tokens that they call pennies and dimes and quarters. So what has happened; as fast as they spew out good currency it’s eaten up by hoarders, and then the government makes all sorts of bad clucking noises against the hoarders. See, that doesn’t solve the problem; the problem, the reason why it’s happening is that Gresham’s Law is operating because your currency is bad and bad currency always drives out good currency, always has, always will.

All right, now this is a principle equally true in the business world. People who can assume responsibility always get responsibility. It doesn’t mean they always get promoted, but you watch it; we’ve had illustration after illustration. When I came to this church there was a man at Reece who was a D.O. and they wouldn’t promote him and they wouldn’t do anything; in fact, they were apparently downright snotty to him. And yet he did a fantastic job, fantastic job, fantastic job, and they have an I.G. or something like this come up, guess who they’d call, guess who they wanted to be on the commander’s advisory staff, now what shall we do to prepare for this inspection and what shall we do for this. And his advice was usually taken. Now isn’t it strange that the advice was taken selective; the advice was always taken in these areas but not over in certain other areas. Why? Because the world is pragmatic; it doesn’t respect what you believe, it respects only what you produce. And that’s the principle here; Joseph is a producer. And so his boss likes him, not because of what he believes, he’s some Hebrew from up in the hills some place and talks about Jehovah or something. Well, he doesn’t care about that. He just knows that Joseph is a responsible guy and so he puts responsibility and more responsibility on him.

The key to Potiphar’s thinking is in verse 6 because Potiphar is so much against responsibility he can’t wait until he has somebody that assumes responsibility; fine, just like one big bulldozer, we’ll just all pile on, plop, on Joseph and then whew, now that job’s done, now I can go off and play golf every afternoon on the Cairo golf course. You see, he didn’t care any longer because he had thrust his responsibility away, not because… repeat, not because he liked Joseph’s God, not because he liked Joseph. Not because Joseph was a Hebrew and not an Egyptian; race had nothing to do with it. Religion had nothing to do with it; production had everything to do with it.

Now, let’s apply that little principle. In business today it’s not the problem of the minority who can’t get a job. The problem today is that people just don’t assume responsibility. You take a person out here, I don’t care if he’s purple, if he can assume responsibility he’ll have a job. That’s always the way it will work; it is not a case… a man would be nuts in business to discriminate against anyone who is a responsible individual. And I cannot believe that in most cases, there are many exceptions, of course, but in most cases, businesses do not discriminate on the basis of race or religion; they discriminate on the basis of responsibility as much as the unions will let them. So the principle goes back to this problem of responsibility and Joseph is a responsible being and therefore he’s rewarded. And this should act as an incentive on a Christian man. Your promotion will come, not because of your witness verbally; your promotion will come because of your assumption of responsibility, and let the Potiphars of the world, and the non-Christian’s, let them bulldoze their responsibility over on you and put them out of work. That ought to be the Christian answer to that situation. If they don’t want it, fine, I’ll take it. And then I’ll take your job away from you, that’s what’ll happen. So any time a Christian can do this, more power to you. All right, this is Joseph, and this is how he’s come about his job.

Now Genesis 39:7-12, a little seduction scene in Potiphar’s bedroom. “And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. [8] But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master knows not what is with me in the house,” there’s the understatement of the year, “and he has committed all that he has to my hand; [9] There is none greater in this house than I; neither has he kept back anything from me but thee, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? [10] And it came to pass, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. [11] And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his work; and there was none of the men of the house there within. [12] And she grabbed him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got himself out.”

That’s one of the most picturesque statements in the Hebrew language that you can find; the picture is that she’s grabbed his garment and he takes off and he leaves her, literally, holding this garment up there, that’s how fast he evacuates the area. All right, let’s watch how he handles this one. This again is a situation of responsibility and of course we have here this woman… now why she’s this way we can speculate, one reason is that Potiphar may have been a eunuch, so you can put two and two together. But there are usually at least two reasons for these kinds of situations. One, it goes back to Genesis 3:16, the last part in Genesis 3:16, in the curse, where it says that you will desire the man to rule over you, but that you will hate it while it happens. And it’s the desire, the perverse desire that women want men to rule over them but yet they want to rule over the man. And so this is a desire that expresses itself in seduction; I have power over the male; I love to exercise my power over the male. So you have some bra-less wonder that walks by and thinks she’s going to whip every man into shape. Well, why is this? Because they want power. And Joseph said forget it.

Now watch what Joseph does in this situation. Here’s how he handles it. First, the theology, verse 9, he traces it back to God and he points out… notice what he does, and by the way, this is about the only place I’ve ever found this expression other than Psalm 51 which is an analogous situation. And here is a clear expression that the sin is directed against God, not against Potiphar. Just like David confesses in Psalm 51 that the sin is not against Bathsheba or Uriah, it is against God. So that tells us a lot about Joseph and where he got his strength from to handle himself. And inside Joseph’s soul he had it very clear that his responsibility was to God; not even to Potiphar. Now you see, had he been in a situation where his responsibility was human viewpoint directed, and it was over here to Potiphar, that isn’t a strong enough platform to handle this kind of a pressure. So it shows you right away that Joseph was not only a responsible person, but he was responsible all the way up to the Chief; he followed the chain of command all the way up. So he had directed responsibility.

Okay, now what did he do? He didn’t just think about and like a lot of Christians do, well, I’m praying about it. Well, in verses 10-11 he did something about it. What did he do about it? He had a studious program of avoiding her. She walked in one end of the dining hall, he’d walk out the other end. And it probably insulted her. Joseph was probably a very good looking individual and this is the first time that this woman, because obviously she’s in a high position here, she’s been around men for a long time, and this is probably the first one that gave her the heave-ho, and she can’t stand that. And so this just turns her on more because she is going to conquer this man. This is an expression, again, of the perverseness of Genesis 3:16 and how it works its way out in women. If you also want to cross reference, Isaiah 3:16; Isaiah addresses the same problem.

All right, so she goes after him, finally she ambushes him, and Joseph does the only thing that he can do and that is evacuate, and then the follow up, verses 13-20, “And it came to pass,” and you watch the change not, just watch it; Potiphar is a pragmatist, and his wife is just a power hungry woman, they have no consideration whatsoever for people that are involved, it’s just manipulating them, that’s all they want. Now watch; watch how perverse they are. Why was Joseph in the position he was in? Because pragmatically he benefited Potiphar’s household. Right? Remember we said Joseph wasn’t promoted to his position on the basis of religion. Joseph was promoted to his position on the basis of his production. But what happened? These people become so vindictive, so anti-Scripture, so human viewpoint that they are going to sacrifice production for the standard of Joseph’s God.

Now sooner or later this will always happen in this kind of a relationship; a Christian will go to work for someone and they’ll gravitate up through the system and as long as they produce, fine; but sooner or later, you watch it, sooner or later the testimony of your job will start to expand your influence until sooner or later the standards of the gospel spread out and you touch somebody in that business organization with your standards. Sooner or later it will happen. At first it won’t because at first everybody is oh boy, he does a good job, nobody else does a good job, we like him, we’ll promote this guy. But then as you get up through the system, now you have to start making decisions, and here, when you start involving yourself with policy, then the standard comes out, you can now no longer avoid the confrontation. And it’s got to go one of two ways; either the people in the organization go with you and they say okay, we’ll submit by your God’s standard; this is the ambassador for Christ addressing the world; this is the standard of Scripture and this is the way I operate and if you want me around this is the way it’s going to be. Or, the person can say no, we hate your God’s standards so much we will sacrifice production to avoid bowing our knee before the Scriptures. And here we’ve got it and here’s the breaking point. Both Potiphar and his wife, at this point, through that slow accumulated testimony of Joseph, just doing a good job, suddenly they’re face to face with his standard and they can’t stand it, and they hate those standards so much they are willing to blow their whole organization.

So Genesis 39:14, she calls the men, “See,” and she claims rape. This is a false claim of rape. [15] “And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and got himself out. [16] And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home. [17] And she spoke unto him [according to these words, saying], The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought unto us, came in here to mock me. [18] And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment [with me, and fled].” [1] And it came to pass, when he master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke unto him, saying, After this manner did your servant to me, that his anger was kindled.” Notice, there’s no search for Joseph’s side of the story; there’s no objective consideration of the other person involved. He doesn’t care about the other person involved. And so he’s in jail.

Now that looks like a setback. But it isn’t. Genesis 39:20, “And Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison,” is a Romans 8:28 situation. Now let’s back off a minute, we’re into the details but let me back off a minute and look at the theology of Genesis a moment and see the significance of what just happened? What happened to Abraham? Remember, God gave Abraham certain promises. What are those three promises? Land, seed, worldwide blessing. Those promises are transmitted to Isaac. Along with the promises of Abraham, what other promise did God give? What forecast? He said you’re going to spend your seed 400 years in slavery, that was just a prediction. But by the time of Jacob’s generation, I mentioned last week that there’s a weakness in this family that’s got to be thrashed out. There’s just a character weakness in this family. So what happens? Here’s Jacob, and Jacob’s got good business sense but he has no concept of the future. So he doesn’t care about his family. So how is God going to solve the problem? Servitude in Egypt. And down the pipe, 400 years later, it’s going to emerge a divine viewpoint nation, but it can’t emerge from this household; not without severe correction.

All right, the problem is though, how are we going to save the family. How are we going to keep this family protected for 400 years? All right, God’s plan is to put someone high up in the Egyptian administration for that family and thus their security for 400 years is granted. What you’ve got here over and above all the fine details, of Potiphar’s bedroom and the jail and so on, apart from all that, way up here is this mighty sovereign program of God that says I will make My nation, I will bring them out of Egypt. And so you have a tremendous working of sovereignty because the prison where he goes, notice where it says in verse 20, “”where the king’s prisoners go,” and Joseph, under God’s sovereign decree, has got to meet the Pharaoh. That’s in God’s plan. So here’s how God has a way of promoting Joseph.

Now I imagine if you had your little portable cassette and whipped down to the prison and interviewed Joseph at this point he wouldn’t give you a glowing testimony about how great things were going. In fact, he would consider it a disaster. But what has happened is one of these situations we’ve diagramed for you before; go along in the life, hit a crisis and you come up out of the crisis higher than you went into the crisis. And there’s the situation Joseph was in; he was a slave in someone’s camp; he wound up number three man, number two man in Egypt. Fantastic accomplishment. But he didn’t go this way; he went down and up. So there’s encouragement. Oftentimes there’ll be very severe reversals; very severe reversals and yet those reversals themselves are intended to bring you into contact with the people that you will do business with in years to come, that will be very meaningful, that will be a cause of your promotion and advancement.

So it goes on and we need not go into the details of the story but just notice how the chapter ends; Genesis 39:21-23, “But the LORD was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. [22] And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners.” Now what’s happening in the prison? Same thing that happened in Potiphar’s house. What is with this guy, Joseph. Wherever he is he’s subduing the earth. Right there in the prison he’s a man who assumes responsibility and what’s the rule? Responsibility always flows to those who accept it. And in that case, all of the things being equal, the Christian man ought to have more responsibility than the non-Christian man, all other things being equal of course. But here Joseph accumulates it.

Verse 23 is almost identical to the language previously in the chapter. “The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand; because the LORD was with him, [and that which he did], and the LORD made it prosper.” Again, don’t read that as a direct testimony, it’s an indirect one; the guy just empirically notices this guy, Joseph, handles himself well; he prospers, I trust the guy. And it goes on, summarizing the story, you ought to read it if you haven’t; if you’re a new Christian and haven’t read it it’s a very exciting story, it goes on through the rest of Genesis but Genesis 41 through about 45, Joseph gets in the prison, and he exercises his gift which appears to be discerning, discerning dreams. And so two men have a dream and he interprets the dream correctly. But then Joseph slips; he makes one big mistake and it costs him a year or so more in prison. The slip is that when he tells these guys, hey, when you get out of prison, because that was the process, when you get out of prison be sure and put the good word into Pharaoh for me, and the Hebrew text indicates… it’s one of these circumstantial clauses, where it says “and the men left the prison and they forgot Joseph.” It’s deliberately stuck in there because see, that was where Joseph was trying to work a little ahead of the Lord’s time schedule. He wanted out of the prison. I’d want out of the prison, you’d want out of the prison too. But God said you’ll get out of the prison when I promote you. And sure enough, he was promoted and instantly he rocketed to fame.

Next week I’ll try to show you some evidences why we think Joseph actually is a figure of history, he’s well known but he’s been misidentified. And that actually Joseph’s records have been known for thousands of years as men outside of the Scriptures have sought to study Egyptian history.

Tonight we finished with the first part of Joseph’s career and we’ve got a model for the Christian man operating in a pragmatic situation.