10-05-2025 - THE PERILS OF DECEIT - GENESIS 37: 13-34 1 Joseph (Series)

 MESSAGE BY PASTOR  ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

I invite you to pray together: O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servants for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon them with the eyes of thy mercy ( Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G,   Rosy Ch, Patricia L. Lina J.  Magda- Laci M.  Gloria F, Alicia G, Miguel A H.)   Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness; preserve them from the temptations of the enemy; and give them patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore them to health, and enable them to lead the residue of their life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally they may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can add names from family and friends who need prayer

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How would you be different if you were completely convinced that God was with you in every situation you are or will be encountering?”

That He was with you when you were awarded that raise and with you when you were fired from that job.  With you in that news of overwhelming joy and with you when that phone call overwhelmed with tsunami like grief.  

Oh I don’t mean with you like some puppeteer controlling the strings of your life or watching to be sure you’re pasting on an, ‘I’m good’ smile when you are definitely not – but with you guiding, comforting, sometimes correcting.

In those - Inescapable places.  Unfair places.  Hope stealing places.  

Places you and I justifiably ask – Where are you God?  

Ever been there?   Times where your heart is flooded with Why’s; your tongue more prone to question than praise?   

Most often these are times God doesn’t author but He will use.  In those places when I am left groping for footholds.  Not liking it when He shapes me, twists me, provokes me (and silences me) in order to mold my character so that it reflects Him.  But I know, if I allow Him to do His work, I am better for it.  God wanting us to trust and depend on Him in everything. The story of Joseph takes us into these places.  Deeply in.

The story of Joseph takes us into these places.  Deeply in.

Before getting into today’s heart of the story let’s do a snapshot revisit: His father, Jacob, had a way of creating adversity at every turn.  Deceit and exploitation was a way of life: costuming to deceive a blind and dying father, stealing his brother’s birthright - trading small grub for great treasure and robbing his father-in-law blind – retribution for he being deceived.  

Over time his sons, watched - attentive students in their father’s school of deceit.  Seize what others hold loose and pay back consequence in greater measure than what you received.  But their learning went deeper.  Driven by revenge, some of them demonstrated they could be murderously ruthless – far beyond any wrongs that had been done to them.  Such was the world in which Joseph was engulfed.  

Read Genesis 37:13-34

Joseph’s story confronting us with how should we live when life throws us into the pit

The story is told of a very bitter woman who was bitten by a raccoon.  Though the physical injuries weren’t great, the doctor thought it best to conduct some tests to ensure that the raccoon didn’t have rabies.  The news was not what she wanted to hear, “I don’t know how to tell you this but the test have come back positive – you do have rabies.” 

Hearing the news, she immediately got out a notebook and began to write down names. The doctor asked if she was making a will. She replied, “NO! I am making a list of all the people I am going to bite!”

And that’s how the brothers handled their hate.  They just took that raccoon bite and just started chomping down - wounding and infecting so that not one of them escaped the infection of hearts that foamed with anger and revenge.  

Three times we are told the brothers hated Joseph, despising everything he stood for, everything he was. They couldn’t say a good thing about him.  In truth, it wasn’t so much that they couldn’t say a good thing about him – it was that they wouldn’t.  

As we considered last week, it isn’t so much the events that come into our lies that shape us rather it is our response to those events.   The brothers were absorbers of life’s events - damaged and disfigured by the hatred and the injustice they chose to see and live from.  

But as we will see throughout our series, Joseph chose to let God redemptively shape his life - tough events strengthening him as a product of God’s workmanship.  I’m quite certain he didn’t think this at the time, he, just as confused, afraid and angry as you and I would be when tough and yes, ugly things come.  But in time he would understand that God was with him in every situation he encountered, not always preventing but always wanting to use.

As Christians we aren’t  exempt from pain - some experiencing that pain from people close to us, their actions narcissistic and self-centred.  The offences of betrayal are abhorrent, their actions disgustingly wrong.  The blame - theirs.  Sometimes the pain is from those not known to us, but given because of what we represent, what we believe - recent events in our world giving us example after example of this.

When things like these come, we can try to protect ourselves by becoming hard and respond in ways similar to what we have been given.  That is all the easier when we keep rehearsing the wrongs that have been done.  And to be clear, those wrongs were large.  But the more we rehearse, the pit continues to live within us.  Pit places that hold us prisoner.  It’s one thing to experience life in the pit, quite another when the pit lives inside of us. 

Pit places we are introduced to in :14 where the brothers grazed their sheep in Shechem. 

We can only wonder why Jacob’s sons were in the vicinity of Shechem in the first place.  They certainly weren’t there for its hospitality.  This is where their sister was violated and where some of them would later commit mass murder.  Brothers staying close to the place of offense that defined them, shaped them and almost destroyed them.  

As they made their way to the fields, they carried their offences with them - pre-charged with dreams and a coat.  Pre-charged with dad’s passivity following Dinah’s rape.  Pre-charged by Jacob not doing what should have been done - his reputation more important than justice.  

Satan loves these places where wounds live, where wrongs have been done.  He keeps us close to them so he can incapacitate and bind.  It’s no surprise then that when the brothers saw this dreamer, the raccoon bite infection had already taken a strong hold.  They bitterly holding onto wrongs, soon those wrongs tenaciously holding onto them.  Carried with them into the things they are prepared to see.  Carried with them into the things they are prepared to think.  And so what follows is ‘natural’, They saw him from afar and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him and throw him into one of the pits.  They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer.  Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.  Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams’ :18-20  As someone observed, There are no happy bitter people. Bitterness will make you critical, pessimistic, and negative. It will blow out the candle of joy in your heart.

Ironically in :20, they say, Then we will see what will become of his dreams which is prophetically true.  They would see exactly that, their destiny in fact depends on it.  Had they only known that as they sat having a meal, while he languished in a pit, they were actually participating in a devil’s feast.   Envy had made them deaf to the cries of desperate need. They spewing hatred and murderous threats, unconcerned about their brother’s terror hearing what he would.

Envy made them calloused and hard - their focus only on what they had been denied.  

:21 At first glance, one of the brothers, Reuben, acting differently - seemingly standing out from the others, his plan to spare Joseph from death but His solution what we seen in :22 to throw him into this pit.  Giving him time to head off murder and do what was right.  But Reuben did the practical thing NOT the right thing.   

Reuben’s intervention should have occurred long before Joseph appeared on the horizon.  As the first born – he had the capacity to speak and the authority to act to which they would listen.  But his solution was to scheme.  Perhaps he thought things were too far gone, the anger of his brothers, too far advanced.  So he did what he’d seen his father do – when in trouble, play the deceit card.  He would detour their plan, not stop it.  Let’s throw him into this pit - all the while intending to do what his brothers couldn’t possibly know - restore him to his father.

He hid in half-truths, relying on good old human ingenuity and deceit when what was needed was a voice of strong, unyielding truth.  Speaking truth to be heard in the midst of lies.  

But when truth is silenced, evil’s voice is the only one that is heard.  It’s voice demanding an audience.  Its set voice setting the tone for what is to be believed.  It’s voice determining what actions are to be done.  Where was the voice that raised objections to what the brother’s had determined to do?

I mean really, what would have happened if Reuben had said, ‘Enough’?  Would they have refused to listen?  I doubt it - one reason is that for their plan to work, they needed unanimity.  How else could they have something to say to dad, if there were a dissenting voice?   Would they have been angry with what he said that ?  Perhaps, but do you think they would have been any less angry later when they discovered that Reuben had deceived them?  

Instead Reuben played the, ‘I was going to’ instead of taking the stand that was needed NOW.  And his answer, I’ll stand but not now.  I’ll stand but not here.  I’ll stand but not in the surround of so many who oppose.  

And so Reuben resorting to hiding in a story of deceit, failed to step in to whom God called him to be.  God would work His purposes in it, but not because of it.  The truth is, speaking truth can take courage and often is costly but the cost doesn’t even come close to the cost paid out for deceit.  As Christians we are to be people of the truth.  Truth spoken, but spoken in love. Truth spoken but truth to be lived with compassion and grace.  Do we always do it perfectly?  Nope. Do I always do it perfectly, definitely not, but we are to be people who walk our faith in integrity.  And when we don’t, we, like Reuben and Jacob, find ourselves in a pit of our own making, in darkness, hiding, doing our best to make certain the true story doesn’t come out.   

What’s needed was the courage of one voice that would speak convincingly, emphatically and courageously.  Like 1 person who refused to give up her seat on a bus, 1 man who stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, 1 man who spoke his faith before antagonistic university audiences, 1 prophet who stood in front of an evil and ruthless king, 1 Samaritan who bound up wounds.  All these whose story is told long after their moment of showing up.  Doing what was right - the actions of one doing what others wouldn’t do. 

Reuben retreating into, Who will listen?  What can I possibly do?  But God’s math working differently than ours, One chasing a thousand, two putting ten thousand to flight... The eyes of the LORD moving to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His... I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me Deut 32:30; 2 Chron 16:9; Phil 4:13

But Reuben did his own math :29 and deceit’s plan got away from him.  

Deceit’s plan always gets away

from us.  That’s its slippery nature.  It may not ask for payment for a time but it always collects – often when you think “all is well” and “all is past”.

And with deceit, things change where you lose control of the story which is what happened to Reuben and is the cloud cover that will come to hang over the brothers.  Reuben’s plan changing not due to his actions but the actions of others who, in his silence, arranged a better deal than anything Reuben might have to offer.  Reuben’s plan changing because he wasn’t there when he needed to stay close. He knew the intensity of their anger so where was he?

When Reuben returned and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, The boy is gone and I, where shall I go? Then they took Joseph’s robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. :31-33  

His plan to return Joseph to dad was over.

Which now meant the creation of a new, seemingly airtight story - about a ripped and bloodied coat and a ravenous predator - without mention that the predators who struck were many and didn’t walk on 4 feet.  Sure - at the outset, their father’s grief would be great, but given enough time, those tears would pass.  For their part, they would just have to stay strong to get past dad’s initial stages of grief.  The problem was - dad’s grief didn’t subside, his mourning didn’t lessen.  The pit they dug for themselves just kept getting deeper and deeper.  

And with that, I’m sure the brothers doing their best to justify their actions.  Perhaps when sleep didn’t come and remembrances of Joseph’s cries re-visited, they tried to quiet their guilt by congratulating themselves that they didn’t do what they really intended.  In a funny sort of way, they likely convinced themselves that they were the ‘good guys’.  After all, they didn’t spill blood when every emotion told them to plunge the knife.  But what wasn’t accounted for was that the knife they spared Joseph was the one they plunged into Jacob.  His grief overwhelming despite best efforts by his sons and daughters to bring comfort, we are told, Jacob would not be comforted saying, I shall go down to Sheol, mourning.  And in this context, their stories of deceit were threatening to unravel.  

How could they be certain that one of the brothers wouldn’t crack after watching dad, tormented with grief that far exceeded anything they imagined?  Would one person break ranks and tell the secret they all pledged to keep?  Living on edge, the stain of their guilt not going away.  

Their lives in disarray.  

In contrast Joseph whose life should have been a disaster. Stripped, threatened, sold and forgotten, he had no reason to think of a better future.  All he had was a dream he could hold to. Just a dream that there could be more happening than eye could see or mind could understand.  Just a dream to ponder.  That dream which would still be tested yet though not realized now, in a time to come that dream was a prophetic promise.  It was also a gift of God’s re-assurance of His ‘eyes wide open’ presence.  God saw.  God knew.  

Into that place, God stepped in – quietly, imperceptibly.  No booming voice. No airtight assurance all would be well.  But told throughout the story, God with and blessing Joseph. 

For reasons I can’t explain and I so often don’t understand, God didn’t change how the events of Joseph’s life would unfold.  He didn’t remove the valleys and didn’t give a smooth path.  He just gave him a dream he could return to when life closed in.  He just gave him a promise – its meaning still unclear.  No assurances that soon all would be well.  Just a dream – that whispered hope.

I think it likely that as Joseph languished in a prison cell that Joseph revisited these dreams – wondering, asking – clinging – and in this being made aware, I haven’t forgotten.  Those who have treated you with contempt will one day bow.  Those who tried to have your name deleted from the family tree will not succeed. None of my purposes will go unfulfilled. None of my plans will be thwarted. 

You and I don’t have the ambiguity of a dream.  We have the promises God given us in His Word: 

O Lord, ….You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all…..   Where can I go from Your Spirit? or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,”even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day.    Ps 139

You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off; don’t be afraid, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.    Is 41:9, 10   

So  - Be still, and know that I am God.....  Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.     Ps 46:10, Is 30:21.

 And why can we put our   hope in promises like these?

Because His promises aren’t spoken in some global, God loves the world way but in the promise of new life Jesus offered to us at the Cross.  A living promise He triumphantly shouted outside an empty tomb.  A guaranteed, I’m coming back promise He told followers as He disappeared into heaven before their eyes.

Which brings me conclude with the question with which I began: 

“How would you be different if you were

completely convinced this God - our triumphant and

glorious King - is with you in every situation

you are or will be encountering?”

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