Now Is Not The End

(26) And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?

(27) Come, let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him: for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren what content.

Who was the one who delivered brothers? Judah. Jesus is referred to as what? The lion of Judah. So, do you think it is an accident that Judah was the one who saved his brother? We are going to see this more clearly later on. His brothers sell him to merchants, who were Midianites. Now, jump down to verse 36.

(36) And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s and captain of the guard.

So, let’s review for just a moment before we go to chapter 39. Joseph has two dreams. In them, his family was going to be paying homage to him, but now Joseph finds himself in a pit far away from those dreams. And then, not only that, he’s taken out of the pit and he sold like a common slave.

Now let’s go to chapter 39. We’re going to read the first six verses.

(1) And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.

(2) And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the House of his master the Egyptian.

Hold your finger here and go to Hebrews 13. Remember when Joseph was in the pit and then he was sold? Do you think maybe he asked himself, “Where is God?”

In Hebrews 13, let’s look at verses 5 and 6.

(5) Let your conversation (your way of living) be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

(6) So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me.”

God was with Joseph the whole time. Whatever you are going through, it doesn’t matter how it looks, the Lord is with you. The problem comes when we take our eyes off of Him and focus on the problem. Then the problem overwhelms us to the point that we can’t see God.

Scripture tells us that while Joseph was going through these things, the Lord was with him. And we have to believe that when we’re going through things that we don’t like, that hurt us, that make us angry, that makes us want to take revenge – we have to realize that God is with us.

Sometimes the most difficult thing for us is not to do something when we have been done wrong. It’s something in our makeup. When you take a step to right a wrong, you step outside the will of God. If you’re trying to handle your business, God can’t. Whenever you want to take care of your business think about Adam and Eve. They took care of their business and it killed us all. If you want to kill God in your life, start trying to take over your life.

We see in Joseph that his circumstances were not an indicator of whether or not God was in his life.

I want to share something that you will find interesting. Joseph was a slave, but this verse says he was prosperous. How could he be prosperous in the way that we understand prosperity today? He didn’t own anything. Everything he had responsibility for belonged to his master.