Repentance takes many forms. When a man repents from lying he should tell the truth. When a man repents from stealing, he should restore what was stolen and add some to it. When a child disobeys her parents, she should ask for forgiveness and then do what she was told. Repentance turns away from the sin committed just as a doctor prescribes exercises for the hurting part of the body.

Joseph’s brothers were in need of repentance and, while Joseph couldn’t recreate the exact scene, he does create a similar opportunity to see what was in his brother’s hearts. A silver cup becomes a crucible for testing.

Joseph’s ten older brothers hated him. Resentment toward his side of the family started before he was born since their father loved Rachel more than Leah, though Leah gave birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Jacob’s first four sons. There were six more sons born to Rachel’s servant and Leah’s servant and Leah all before Rachel bore Joseph and Benjamin. So the brothers grew up in a household of favoritism before Rachel died, and then a husband’s doting turned to a father’s doting on Joseph.

It got to the point where Joseph’s older brothers “could not speak peacefully” (Genesis 35:4) to him because he was loved more than them. When he told his dreams about reigning over them “they hated him even more” (Genesis 35:8) and “were jealous of him” (Genesis 35:11). So “they conspired against him to kill him,” but while making their plans Judah saw a caravan of traders and got the idea that there was more “profit” in selling him as a slave than killing him. All they had to do was lie to Jacob, but what would be so bad about that? It’s not like their dad cared about them.

The scene in chapter 44 is a little more complex, namely because they didn’t know how long the famine would last, so they didn’t know how long they would need to keep dealing with “the man” in Egypt who seemed to be concerned about their younger brother. The older brothers have the opportunity handed to them to get rid of the new favored son, an opportunity that required nothing from them but to tell the truth. More than getting rid of Benjamin, here was their opportunity to get rid of Jacob, to get out from under the burden of his erratic headship, and to take hold of the inheritance coming to them.

Not only do they not do any of those things, they, at least through Judah’s leadership, show that true repentance had taken place.

Joseph and these eleven Hebrew men feasted together (Genesis 43:26-34) and, most importantly, “Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs” (Genesis 43:34). But they all “drank and were merry with him,” so it seems that they aren’t peeved at this preferential treatment. That was a good sign to Joseph, and now Joseph frames his brothers by recreating a similar scene as a final test.

Joseph clearly trusted his steward. His steward was in on the setup again. The first time these Hebrew men visited Egypt to buy food Joseph had commanded the steward to put their money back in their sacks (Genesis 42:25). When the men came to get Simeon and buy food the second time, the steward said, “Your God and the God of your father has put the treasure in the sacks of for you” (Genesis 43:23). He did it, but he said that God did it.

After the party was over Joseph gives instructions again to fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry and also to put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. The steward was especially trusted when Joseph said, put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest. It was silver, not gold, so the point isn’t about the costliness as much as it is about the uniqueness. This was Joseph’s cup, easy to identify as his, and he had likely just used it in front of everyone at the banquet.

After sleeping off the night’s merriness, as soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. That knock on the door came early, and it was pushy; “It’s time to leave.” Yet from their perspective, this was great, they could go home! But the upbeat was about to come down.

Though they had only gone a short distance from the city Joseph put the next part of his plan in play. Joseph said to his steward, “Up, follow after the men, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this.’” The steward won’t even need to say the word “cup.” Thieves know what they thieved.

But, as we know, and more importantly so does the steward, these men aren’t thieves. He overtook them and confronted them, but they said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!

They deny that they are guilty and they make a case for their innocence. ”Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? This is a greater to lesser argument. They had to do more work to be honest in bringing back the money, and they did that work. Why would they take something of lesser value? Besides, they have to guess what the steward is talking about, silver or gold.

They are so confident of their innocence that they make an (foolishly) excessive vow. ”Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants.” This isn’t necessary, either the extreme nature of offering the death penalty or by making a group penalty. It’s a drastic offer to show that they have nothing to hide, similar to Jacob’s claim to Laban that “anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live” (Genesis 31:32).

The steward accepts their terms, but only sort of, since he changes them. ”Let it be as you say:, but actually instead, he who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.” He may not have accepted the terms “as is” because he knew that in doing so he would be agreeing to kill Benjamin.

The men are still confident so each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground and each man opened his sack. They help the search. He searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. This also sounds like the suspense of Laban starting the search where the search would take the longest. The steward knew it would be, but he saw the scheme through.

Here is the first part of the final test. Would the brothers abandon Benjamin? According to the steward’s terms they were free. They didn’t take the cup. Maybe Benjamin really had. The steward wanted him, not them. They had already abandoned one younger brother to slavery in Egypt, would they do it again?

They don’t accuse Benjamin, at least not that Moses narrates. Here is the first sign of repentance: Then they tore their clothes in united grief, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city. They were a family even if one of them was favored.

Judah pleads to take his brother’s place, and not for his gain alone. It’s for sake of a son’s love to his father, a filial response.

Back at Joseph’s house, Joseph was still at home. He hadn’t gone to work yet, presumably waiting to see the outcome of the steward’s errand. He said, ”What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?” It’s as if he asks, “Did you really think you could get away with this?” Joseph is also keeping up the appearance of an Egyptian, one with supernatural powers. There’s no reason to assume that he has started to take up Egyptian mystical practices in addition to depending on the LORD for interpretations. But he wanted them to think that they couldn’t hide from him anywhere in the world.

Judah steps forward. He was the one who successfully persuaded their father to let them bring Benjamin back to Egypt. Now he speaks for the family to Joseph. ”What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants.” They have no defense. There are no words. Proving their innocence is not possible. He does not say that they stole the item, but he knows, as do the rest of the brothers, that they are guilty of something. Here is the second sign of repentance: they stop fighting and they accept the consequences. ”Behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.”

But Joseph pushes one more time to see if the repentance will hold. He’s going to give them an out. ”Far be it from me that I should do so! Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father.” It would be just for them to leave their brother behind. “The man” made the rules, what else could they do?

The rest of the chapter is the longest speech by any individual in Genesis. Judah, on behalf of his youngest brother, on behalf of all his brothers, on behalf of his father, tries to persuade Joseph to change his mind. Judah demonstrates the third sign of repentance: he offers himself as a substitute for Benjamin. He bases his pleading on three parts about the possible death of his dad.

Judah knows that he is stepping out onto a limb, let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. There is no higher appeal than to “the man” himself. He couldn’t say, “Can I talk to your manager?” The pleading begins by retelling the story of their first visit. Judah avoided blaming “the man,” yet it was the man’s initial set of questions that got them into this current spot. ”My lord asked…’Have you a father, or a brother?’” Judah didn’t realize at that point how closely related the questions were. He still doesn’t realize why it’s so important to Joseph because he doesn’t realize that he’s talking to Joseph. The point is, they already told the man that if this younger brother came and didn’t go back to his father, his, that is Benjamin’s, father would die. Maybe it seemed as if the men were exaggerating. They weren’t.

Judah’s pleading continues by describing to “the man” how the conversation with Jacob went. They told their father the terms immediately upon return to Canaan, and acted like they were crazy. They told their father the terms again, as if he was crazy, when he wanted them to return to Egypt without Benjamin. And, as they suspected, their father, overly dramatic or not, claimed that he would die if something happened to Benjamin. He had already lost one son of his favorite wife and, ”If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.” He threatens that he will die a miserable old man.

Judah recapped what has happened and finishes his plea by offering a view of what may happen and also by offering himself in Benjamin’s place. If they get back to Canaan ”and the boy is not with us, then, as his life life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die.” Jacob will die from shock. This will be the fault of the brothers and, by implication, the fault of “the man.”

Judah takes responsibility. ”For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy,” being willing to ”bear the blame before my father all my life.” So he offers to be the substitute. ”Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” In other words, “Take me instead.” He already put his father into sorrow over Joseph, he didn’t want to put him in that place again.

Presented with the opportunity to ditch the favored brother and stick it to his old man, provided with a royal excuse from the “lord” in Egypt and the presumed guilt of Benjamin, Judah demonstrates that his heart is nothing like it had been before toward Joseph. For the first time in Scripture one man offers to be the substitute for another man, to take that man’s penalty instead of him. Judah does it for sake of his father, not because his father showed favored to Judah, but because his heart desired to honor his father anyway.

Joseph’s response comes at the beginning of chapter 45, and we’ll have to wait another week for a sermon to narrate the next events. Spoiler: it’s a happy ending!

The brothers don’t ask Joseph for forgiveness because they don’t know it’s Joseph, they think Joseph is dead. But their behavior shows that their hearts have changed.

“No more moving example of true contrition and repentance is to be found in Scripture, unless it be the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15).” (Wenham)

Three signs of repentance:

Judah especially embodied these changes.

All three of these are most visible in Judah’s offspring, the son of Joseph, Jesus. Though He didn’t need to repent, He did what was right, which is what happens when a man turns from sin to obedience. First, Jesus aligned Himself with our need, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things” (Hebrews 2:14), “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). He didn’t see us in our need and stay away, He identified with us to save us. Second, though He truly was innocent, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:22–23). And third, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18, see also 2 Corinthians 5:14–15).

These are the right actions that Judah and his brothers demonstrate that make it clear to Joseph that their hearts have changed. These are the things we can look for in others, as well as the things that ought to be true when their is true repentance in our hearts.

In order of testimonies:

Easter—and I’m not fussy about calling it that—is one of my favorite holy days. It is still one of the least commercialized holidays, and it features what is of first importance: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

The resurrection of Christ—the historical fact of it and the biblical doctrine coming from it—is the most important truth in Christianity. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus our faith is in vain, we are still in our sins, those who have died have truly perished, and we are to be pitied for our false enthusiasm and peace. We are even found to be misrepresenting God. Since it's true, nothing should be so valuable to us by comparison. Death and resurrection is also integrated into everything; it is one of God’s favorite tales to tell. Winter to spring, seed to fruit, and daily dying by disciples to bring life to others.

Christ’s resurrection and life is our resurrection and life. Can we say that? Are we able to see that nothing we are or have accomplished comes close to the value of life in Christ? Are we willing to put everything from the “pro” column into the “con” column for Christ’s sake? If we can answer the comparative test, do we see Christ’s dying and resurrection integrated into our decisions and evaluations? Are we oriented around a cross and an empty tomb?

These are questions for Christians. Paul wrote about these resurrection categories to the church of believers in Philippi. At the start of chapter 3 he told them that he was going to remind them. The reminders were about the comparative nothingness of religious assets next to the gift of acceptance with God, and he used his own testimony to make the point. The reminders were about the power of resurrection and how we know Christ as we share in suffering. These reminders are summarized in verse 7. “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” The rest of the paragraph, verses 8-11, are one sentence in Greek, and give a reinforced explanation of verse 7. Even the way verse 8 starts should be more than “Indeed” (ESV), but something more like “But even more so also…I count all things to be loss.” Then Paul describes four parts of counting on the resurrection.

Paul does the math and nothing ever adds up to more than Jesus. I count all things to be loss for the sake of the surpassing worth, the “raised-up-above-and-beyonding, highest-over-all-excellingness” of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (verse 8). The surpassing worth is a verb made into a noun; this is the all-other-things-that-could-be-known-eclipsing knowledge. This is much more than mental awareness knowing, this is relational intimate knowing. This is Old Testament type knowing and being known. The relationship is with Christ Jesus my Lord, a specific and personal phrase used only here in the New Testament.

This is Christ Jesus, the one who was/is God, who took on flesh, who became a servant, who humbled Himself to humiliating death on a cross, to whom the Father gave the name above every other name (2:6-11). Paul knew Him. We know Him. And Paul said, for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things. Calvin comments: “It is a similitude taken from [sailors], who, when urged on by danger of shipwreck, throw everything overboard, that, the ship being lightened, they may reach the harbour in safety.” Nothing matters if we can get to Him.

Even the things we might want to have honored are “feces” compared to Jesus, and count them as rubbish. Rubbish (ESV, NAS) is not coarse enough, neither is “garbage” (NIV). Skubalon is the equivalent of our four-letter vulgar words for excrement: “dung” (KJV), bull, muck, crap. Skubalon happens. It’s the best the flesh do.

What kinds of things are crap compared to Jesus? Our liturgy and the symbols (i.e., circumcision), our family and worship community (i.e., of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews), our morality (like the strictest Pharisee), our commitment level (zealous even to punishing heretics to death), and we could add our education, our best Easter outfits, our organic ingredients, our Bible reading plans. Count up all of these and they are millstones that drown us. Invest them all into the project of your life and the final outcome is loss. Every Christian comes to the point when he realizes it (so the past tense “counted” in verse 7), but it is an ongoing evaluation (two present tense “count”s in verse 8). They are all good to be flushed for the sake of knowing the resurrected Christ.

The mind cannot bite down on any knowledge more fantastic and beautiful, the heart cannot be bound to any person more magnificent than Jesus. Our longings for greatness are satisfied in Jesus. So are our questions about being accepted by God.

All things are counted loss in order to gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but having righteousness through faith in Christ, righteousness from God by faith.

Gain ties back to verse 7. The true profit is Christ, and being found in Him means we are united with Him. In Him is one of Paul’s favorite ways to express the bond between each Christian and Christ. We are in Him in that the Father receives us and relates to us as in His own Son.

We didn’t earn this status by following the law, it can’t come from the law any more than breathing comes from a medical dictionary. His rules are great, but we can’t achieve acceptance by them.

We are accepted by faith. God gives us righteousness as a gift, it is from God. Our status is divinely imputed, not merited; God Himself is the ground of our welcome with Him. Being justified by faith alone means that we must give up counting on all our self-considered strengths. Being found in Christ is worth being lost to the world.

The first part of verse 10 returns to the knowing idea in verse 8. It fleshes out how we gain Him and what kind of practice is normative in Him, not just our position in Him. If verse 9 talks about our justification, here is our sanctification (with verse 11 referring to our glorification). Here is where Christ not only surpasses everything else in our life by comparison, here is where Christ is known as integrated with everything else in our life.

We count all things as loss to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

To know Him is to know about Him and to be untied to Him. If things to know were on a scale, this is the best of the knowledge (verse 8). Knowing Him is also where our righteous standing with God comes from (verse 9). There are no other avenues to acceptance with God.

We’ve been to court and seen Him work as our Advocate. We’ve been to school and learned from Him as our Teacher. We’ve been to His table and eaten the food of His flesh. But do we know Him?

What does such knowledge look like? How do we experience it? How is that knowledge integrated into our days? Is it possible to grow in that knowledge?

Yes, we can progress in our knowing Him, and what we come to know in experience is His power and His fellowship. The progression works in the reverse of the order in verse 10.

Sufferings refers to that which has to be endured and is almost always plural. It covers persecution, privation, weakness, sickness, burden and distress, pain—physical and mental, all types of tragedy. It will happen; God gives faith in Christ and opportunities to suffer for Christ’s sake (Philippians 1:29). Suffering brings us into knowledge of His sufferings. This includes His sufferings on Friday to death, but it includes every difficulty and pain that lead to Friday. He hurt. He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. They mocked Him and accused Him and slandered Him. When we suffer, we are sharing with Him. When we lose reputation, health, sleep, jobs, ease, we are knowing Him more. This is what His life was like, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We will be acquainted with Him more as we are more acquainted with grief.

Our sharing of suffering cannot be separated from the first part of verse 10; maybe that is why Paul puts sufferings second so we won’t forget the resurrection(s). In the older Greek manuscripts there is one article that governs both nouns (the of Him power and of Him fellowship). We are those who fellowship in His pain and in His power, not only power to escape, but power to come alive. This is divine power, an overcoming power. The power that overcame death keeps overcoming all our dying.

More suffering pulls us closer to the center of fellowship with Him. The more we share with Him the more we experience resurrection like Him. The more resurrection power we know the more we know Him. So to be dying is gain.

Easter will not let us forget the pattern of growth. What a necessary and glorious reminder. It only works in a context of everything else being loss by comparison. Gaining Christ means embracing dying for the sake of experiencing resurrection power. When you don’t believe you can go on, is His risen from the dead? When the pain overwhelms you, when it seems like it won’t quit, when your time is demanded and you're already in days of debt, you can know His resurrection. This is our objective, to experience Easter every day, to have multiple mini-Easters throughout each day.

The final phrase in verse 10, finished in verse 11, is about the process and final goal of our union with Christ. The suffering is part of being conformed to His death. Paul regularly talked about dying, not once and done physical martyrdom, but as an ongoing, frequent reality. The nature of the Christian life is taking on a dying shape. The verb is passive, meaning that you don’t have to put this on your todo list, God will take care of it.

Think of 2 Corinthians 4:10-12 where he talks about carrying the death of Jesus in his body so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in his mortal body.

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:10–12 ESV)

To be killed, which was always a possibility for Paul, could only happen once. A clay pot can only be shattered once. But it can gradually be worn out day by day. Carrying death is continuous, not complete, and “the life of Jesus…manifested in our mortal flesh” is a dying and rising daily.

He expected that it would lead in the future to his physical death and his physical resurrection from the dead. The dying would eventually lead to death, or the Lord’s coming, and he would attain the resurrection from the dead. This is the last piece of the transformation, the first piece of glorification. He shared the suffering, he began to know more and more resurrection power even while being “moulded into the pattern of his death” (Knox), and he fully expected bodily resurrection “out from among the dead ones.”

This hope puts death in its place. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:29). Dying is gain in knowing Christ, death is gain out of the pain of dying to be with Christ. Easter changes our own dying, and it changes how we evaluate death. My sister put her faith in Christ last Easter, and how thankful we are now that she’s with Christ today. Our Christian brothers and sisters who are being bombed and killed in other parts of the world are gaining.

The next paragraph talks about pursuing the prize, the upward call (verses 12-16). It is a heavenly call, yes, but everything is upward from the grave.

What else could we want than what we gain in Christ? In Him we have truth, forgiveness, wisdom, righteousness, power, hope, joy, and life.

To know Him more, God brings us to share more of Christ’s image, and that includes practicing Good Friday sort of love, laying down our lives for others, every day.

It all changes when we know Christ. Charles Spurgeon said,

I cannot describe the difference between my spirit, water-logged, worm-eaten, ready to sink to the bottom without Christ, and that same spirit, like a strong stanch ship, with sails full, with favorable wind, speeding into harbor, with a golden freight. (“Do You Know Him”)

From “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”:

Soar we now where Christ has led

On resurrection Sunday, we remember the “choice consolation” of resurrection power. It raised Jesus from the dead almost 2,000 years ago, and it also enables us to give up all things and endure all things and believe all things. We are a company of sufferers, a fraternity of those who die and also keep standing back up for another round. We are lifted by the same power that raised Christ from the dead. All this belongs to all who belong to and know Christ. There is no knowledge more beautiful and no other Savior to behold.

I’m not going to teach Genesis 44 today. I’ll get to it, Lord willing, the Sunday after Easter—on which I’m planning to preach a resurrection message—and not leave us hanging in the middle of an acute conversation between Judah and Joseph that’s divided between chapters 44 and 45.

I’ve also been hearing some rumbling, maybe even more like grumbling, about being questioned or even confronted, or parents upset that their kids are being questioned or confronted by teachers or by some older people trying to serve them. It seemed like a good time for some reminders.

In the gospel we learn that Christ has done everything for us that we need to be saved. And though the gospel is offered freely and received freely, it costs us everything. Those who believe the gospel are also called to live worthy of it.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ (Philippians 1:27)

Becoming like Christ is not only God’s plan, it is to be our pursuit. Those who are shepherds and those who are sheep are called to walk worthy of the Lord.

so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him (Colossians 1:10)

we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:12)

Walking is a figurative expression of a person’s conduct or pattern of life. Every believer is obligated to live and walk worthy of the gospel and worthy of Christ. The word worthy is an adverb which refers to a balanced scale, indicating things that are equal in worth. Therefore, the “worthy” walk is one that matches up, one that is proportionate to the life which the Lord Himself lead while on this earth and the truth of the gospel.

So we are responsible to live worthy of the gospel. We will answer for living worthy of Christ. For these things are are accountable.

Accountability has gotten much bad press. It is almost a dirty word. As I was looking around the internet doing research on accountability I saw one website that didn’t even want to spell the whole thing out, putting a dash after the A- and that was it. The little research I did confirmed that many professing evangelical Christians do not want to be held accountable to anything by anyone. Some are so extreme as to call any kind of accountability unbiblical.

You probably know the passage those people regularly point to: Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” But an actual reading of the passage shows that Jesus is not condemning judging, He’s condemning hypocritical judging. In the process of confronting sin in someone else, the problem is not confronting someone else’s sin, it is confronting someone else’s sin while you keep living in yours.

The conclusion of the paragraph is first deal with your sin and then you will see clearly enough to deal with your brother’s sin (verse 5). Jesus assumes that it is right to hold others accountable. But He also expects us to not be hypocrites in doing so.

It is true that hypocritical, impatient, unkind, judgmental, self-righteous, legalistic, prejudicial, and/or ignorant accountability is no good. Job’s friends were wrong as they held Job accountable, and got meaner as the story went on. But--and this is critical—accountability does not equal judgmentalism and those who hold others accountable are not by definition arrogant, overbearing, big-headed, spiritually abusive jerks.

We don't like accountability because:

Accountability is "giving account; it means that a man is required or expected to justify his actions or decisions; he is responsible, liable, answerable."

Spiritual accountability is another way to say that there are certain expectations (namely to walk worthy of the gospel and worthy of the Lord) in the Christian life. Therefore we are required to give an account, to answer for our decisions and our actions.

God has established Three Levels of Accountability to God.

The prepositional phrase at the end is very intentional. There is a sense in which we are accountable to fellow human beings, and we’ll see that in two of the levels. But our ultimate accountability is to God. Answering to one another is part of His plan, but only as we are helping one another to answer to God.

This is information you need to have. There is no one in our culture, no movie, no music, no social media network that is going to promote accountability (though they do often illustrate why we need it). We fancy ourselves as self-contained, independent persons who don't want, who don't need, the input or (constructive) criticism of anyone else. But like I said, God has constructed various accountability keepers around us.

This is the ultimate and most direct level of accountability. Every one of us will answer to God. No one—except Jesus for those of us who are believers—stands between us and Him.

In Romans 14 Paul gives instructions on not holding one another accountable for superficial, legalistic things. He is not removing our responsibility to help each other in the pursuit of holiness, but he is reminding us that holiness is the primary issue, not secondary issues like valuing some days being more important than others, etc.

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. (Romans 14:12)

And the writer of Hebrews is encouraging his readers toward obedience that comes from grace, because,

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)

The same verse is translated in the KJV as "but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." For true believers, though we can't lose our salvation, we will receive God's discipline and chastisement if we fail to pursue holiness. That might be through another person's rebuke or through some other means, but it is evidence of God’s love (Hebrews 12:6).

It is this accountability to God that provides motivation for accountability to others. It is worse to try and hide your sin from God than from another person. When we ask for prayer, ask for advice, share our burdens and struggles, we are asking others to help us so that in our accountability to God we can give a good answer. Augustine recognized accountability with others as a form of self-watch, so that we'll be most ready before God.

There is parental accountability as well, that is every child is answerable to his parents. We are also accountable to government, both national and local. But we’re working to make a case for the importance of accountability in local body relationships. As God has given parents authority over their children, likewise, God has put spiritual authorities in the lives of His children.

These passages address the sheep and their accountability to their shepherds.

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. (1Thessalonians 5:12-13)

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

The sheep are to listen, heed, and follow the shepherd. They are to respect and obey and submit to their pastors. God gives overseers to His church to feed and protect the sheep and they are accountable.

Jesus explained the system of spiritual accountability that extends to the church and her leaders in Matthew 18:15-17. The discipline process is a process of accountability that begins on a private, interpersonal level, that progresses to the leadership level. When one of the sheep is out of line, another sheep is to do what they can, then the shepherd gets involved, then the whole flock.

Part of the reason we are accountable to our pastors is because our pastors are accountable to God for us (Hebrews 13:17). And there is much at stake, as we pastors are stewards of a very precious people.

Richard Baxter’s book, The Reformed Pastor is basically an extended meditation with application on the following one verse:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with His own blood. (Acts 20:28)

There is great responsibility here, to care for the health and holiness of those purchased by Christ on the cross. This this is no new accountability that sheep have to shepherds, or that shepherds have to God. Consider the prophets in the Old Testament. Even though the situation was different for a prophet to the nation of Israel, it functions as an illustration of the kind of work God expects His shepherds to do:

16 And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me: 17 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 18 If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. 20 Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. 21 But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul." (Ezekiel 3:16-21)

See also Ezekiel 33:1-9, 34:1-6, 16.

We in spiritual leadership as pastors, and even by extension as leaders or our Life to Life groups, will give an account to God. And though we can’t make anyone do anything, we are responsible to urge the sheep to live worthy of the gospel and worthy of Christ and you are accountable to listen and obey.

The New Testament is full of actions for pastors to hold sheep accountable to God's desire for holiness. We are to admonish, appeal, argue, ask, assert, beseech, call, commend, console, declare, demonstrate, discern, edify, equip, feed, implore, inquire, lead, model, pray, proclaim, reason, upbuild, labor and work. Furthermore, God’s Word is full of actions for sheep to follow their pastors in the pursuit of holiness. Sheep are to listen, follow, repent, do, love, remember, seek, consider, respect, honor. We are accountable to our shepherds.

We are accountable to spiritual leaders and we have accountability to, and from, spiritual friends. We have responsibilities to our authorities and to one another.

Scripture is filled with obligations we have toward one another. For example, as Paul transitions from our personal responsibility to walk in the Spirit and not in the desires of the flesh at the end of Galatians chapter 5, what if we see a fellow brother or sister not walking in the Spirit?

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

There is no room for arrogant, unkind, impatient accountability. But there is also no room for silence, indifference, or inaction when it is appropriate. Sin is serious. Sin reflects on Christ, it steals personal joy, and if a person persists in a pattern of sin, then we are unable to affirm their spiritual destiny. If there is not a pattern of holiness, then they won't see the Lord.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

Admonish. Encourage. Help. These are all very messy things. They are viewed by some as meddling. But we are to rebuke the lazy and slothful. We are to stir up the timid and nervous. We are to aid the feeble and tired, but this is all toward the goal of being complete in Christ.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. (Jude 22-23)

It is not loving to leave someone in their sin. Unconditional love is proven when you confront and get rejected and mocked. Not confronting when it is necessary is conditional love, on the presumed condition of their negative response and is really love of self.

And for those of us on the receiving side, hating correction is stupid.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,

Mutual accountability helps us when we give account to God. It helps us not be so stupid. This doesn’t require pastoral approval. The pastors approve obedience to the one-anothers.

Still there are those who want nothing to do with accountability. I guess they don't want the protection. But I've never heard anyone complain about guardrails as they navigate narrow, windy mountain roads that keep cars from slipping over the steep cliffs. So what if the car gets banged up, at least they have their life. God-given accountability is like protective guardrails.

Even more than protection, accountability helps us glorify God more. A lot of people seek out financial input/counsel (accountability) in their investments. They do research to find the best of the best, counselors that can help them get the most out of their money. They listen to their advisor, buying some stocks and selling others to get maximum gain. They are willing to put up with a lot in hopes of getting a lot. We aren't willing to put up with much spiritual input because we don't care about much holiness.

Parents are often the worst at keeping their kids stupid. They don’t want their kids talked to.

Better is open rebuke

We really ought to ask: Is this person confronting me for sake of breaking or increasing fellowship? Most of the time, love like this shows that you belong, not that we have voted you off the island.

Remember:

Iron sharpens iron,

This is a different sort of friendly fire, fire that comes from sharpening. You could avoid the fire, just love being dull.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Let's pray. Father, as we look upon this topic, help us to hear it with fresh ears, help us to hear it correctly, even if I teach it wrongly. And just thank you that you have reached down and touched us and changed our minds and brought us to you through your spirit. We thank you for that and now let's glorify you by talking about it in your son's name we pray amen okay this is our first of the series on the tulip the tulip is total depravity unconditional election limited atonement irresistible grace and perseverance of the Saints it was in an acronym used to summarize the five points of Calvinism which were codified in the Canons of Dort by the Synod of Dort in 1618 and in 1619 which meant to address the points raised by the Armenians of that day. Actually Jacob Arminius's teaching was the discussion. The Canons of Dort constituted the judgment of the Synod held in the Dutch city of Dortek in 1618 through 1619.

These canons are actually a judicial decision on doctrinal points and the dispute from the Armenian controversy of that day. Following the death of Jacob Arminius, 1560 to 1609, his followers set forth five articles of Ermonstrance published in 1610, formulating their points of departure from the stricter Calvinism of the the Belgian Confession. The canons adored as the judgment of the synod against this remonstrance. However, Arminian theology later received official toleration by the state and has since continued in various forms within the Protestantism.

The canons were not intended to be a comprehensive explanation of the Reformed doctrine, but only an exposition on the five points of doctrine and dispute. These canons set forth what is often referred to as the five points of Calvinism. Today, the canons adored form one of the confessional standards of many of the Reformed churches around the world, including the Netherlands, Australia, and North America. The synod convened on November 13, 1618, consisting of 39 pastors, 18 ruling elders from the Belgic churches, five professors from the universities of Holland, 19 delegates from the Reformed churches in Germany and Switzerland, and five professors and bishops from Great Britain.

France was also invited, but did not attend. The Senate was thus constituted of 1886 voting members in all. There were 154 formal sessions and many side conferences held during the six months that the Synod met to consider these matters. The last session of the Synod was held on May 9, 1619. So then how did the tulip come to us? There is no certainty regarding the origin of the anachronym tulip. However, five points of Calvinism were discussed as such before the popular rise of this anachronism. For example, in R.L. Dabney's work, The Five Points of Calvinism, around 1878, Dabney's five headings are total depravity, effectual calling, God's election, particular redemption, and perseverance of the saints.

The earliest of the tulip in this regard appears to be in 1905 by Reverend Cleveland Boyd McCaffey in a lecture before the Presbyterian Union in Newark, New Jersey as recorded by William H. Vail writing in the new Outlook, 1913. The popular use of tulip as teaching device was stimulated by Lorraine Betner, a famous Presbyterian teacher, and the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, first published in 1932. So that's the history of how we got to the Tulip, and tonight we're only going to talk about total depravity. So now, I handed out the kids' corners to some of you kids that didn't pick one up. So pick up your little kids' corner and turn it to the back.

This is kind of a unique kids' corner. This isn't a cute little coloring for kids of, you know, Jesus has a little lamb or something like that. I told Gail Martin that what I was going to teach on it, I told her to find somebody stuck in the miry pit from Psalm 40 that says this, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined me and heard my cry. She drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry bog and set my feet upon a rock making my steps secure.

Well sure enough she searched the internet and found a picture out of Pilgrim's Progress with him stuck in the slow of despond and he's reaching up and praise God I asked my little granddollar Keela I said who do you think he's reaching for and she looked right at me and said, God. And I said, good, good answer. All right. So now that we understand total depravity and how we get out of it, reach for God, we can stop, right? Okay. So total depravity, also called radical corruption or persuasive depravity, is a theological doctrine derived from the Augustinian concept of original sin. It is in the teaching that that as a consequence of man's fall, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin as a result of their fallen nature and, apart from the efficacious or prevenient grace of God, is utterly unable to choose to follow God, refrain from evil, or accept the gift of salvation as it is offered.

It is advocated to various degrees by many Protestant confessions of faith and catechisms, including those of some Lutheran synods and Calvinism and Armenians such as Methodists hold to depravity, albeit not in the same way as the Reformed people. Total depravity is the doctrine that fallen man is completely touched by sin and that he is a complete sinner. He is not as bad as he could be, but in all areas of his being, body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions and so on, he is touched by sin. In that sense, he is totally depraved because man is depraved and nothing good can come out of him. Romans 3, 10 through 12. And God must account the righteousness of Christ to him.

This righteousness is obtainable only through faith in Christ and what he did on the cross. Total depravity is generally believed by Calvinistic groups and rejected by Arminian groups. So to summarize, the doctrine of total inability or total depravity teaches that men are not by nature inclined to love God with their whole heart, mind, or strength, as he requires. But rather, all are inclined to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God. Even religion and philanthropy are destructive to the extent that these originate from human imagination, passions, and will. Total depravity does not mean, however, that people are as bad as possible or as bad as they could be.

Rather, it means that even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive, and weak in its implementation. And there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this condition. So even when the guy builds a hospital, he's doing it to make himself look good or to help this guy, that kind of thing. It's not the right motives, even when it does look good. But keep in mind, we're not saying everybody's as bad as they could be. That would really be a bad thing if everybody was as bad as they were being. So if man's total inability to respond to God.

John 6 Jesus said no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the father Apart from Christ man is foolish dead in sin Ephesians 2 1 through 3 Enslaved to sin Romans 6 17 and following the spirit of power of the air Ephesians 2 2 a Natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for the air foolishness foolishness to him and he cannot understand them Because they are spiritually appraised, 1 Corinthians 2.14, his wisdom is demonic and earthly, James 3.15. He cannot hear the word of Christ and God. John 8.43.47, he is not able to subject his flesh to the law of God, Romans 8.

Just as people cannot change the color of the skin, those who are accustomed to doing evil cannot do good, Jeremiah 13.23, every intention and the thoughts of man's heart are only evil continually, Genesis 6.5, the intentions of my mind's heart is evil from his youth, Genesis 8.21, surely we were brought forth in iniquity and in sin we were conceived, Psalm 51.5. Now, after all that cheery little bit of news, we would think, oh, well maybe there's a way that somewhere inside of me there's something good and all I need is understand that. So there's the libertarian freedom and and universal, pre-viant grace. Some affirm that man, this is a different opinion now, so some affirm that man would be bound by a sinful nature, a kind of depravity in which he is in bondage to and cannot escape.

However, they say, to keep with libertarian freedom, where did that come from? Libertarian freedom, I say from the Renaissance and start of humanism. God gives man universal prevenient grace in which he is able to escape just enough from his sinful nature and to have the ability to choose. So there's this little speck of good in you that when the opportunity comes you're going to choose God. I don't know about you but I think those of us that came to the Lord later in life would say, I don't think so. I think this is people trying to be kind and not want to really understand how depraved they really are. So the command implies a moral ability.

Why would we be commanded to follow Jesus if we were not able to do so, comes the cry. Some have asked. The Bible is clear, however, that the law brings wrath and was added, that sin might increase, Romans 5, 20. Romans 7, 13, and 14. Precisely because man cannot obey the law it was commanded. This was to show our utter dependence on God's grace. The whole thing is set up to do what? Worship God, which is why we're here. The scriptures do teach that man is responsible, but they also teach that he is unable to turn from sin and trust in Christ if left to himself. The idea that responsibility implies ability is not a scriptural idea. We are responsible but the ability does not come from us. Okay? The biblical commands to repent and believe just like commands to obey do not imply ability. The command is based on man's responsibility, his is due to your obligation and what he ought to do.

And ought does not imply can. Human ability is not prerequisite to responsibility, nor implied by the commands of scripture. This necessarily implies utter depravity or total depravity. So that's their argument. We have this little spark in us and everything. But the closer you study the Bible, the more you know yourself. You know that's straight from the pit, the miry pit. All right? So now I'll give you some verses to support this. Now when I started this out, I had 5,500 words. We're only supposed to have about 2,500 words for a sermon or our little teaching here. So I cut it down to 3,500. Most of it now from now on is just Bible verses pounding this point home, in case you still don't get it.

But the joy of this is, and we'll see that in the end, we're going to end on a high note of why this is good. But first of all, you really do need to see that this is a really important doctrine. It's incredible how much of our evangelism does not bang on this. It is the point that brought my wife to salvation, because she had gone to church as a little kid and all of that and just couldn't understand, well, I'm a good person. I haven't murdered anybody, that kind of thing. But until she understood that you needed to be perfect to be in God's eyes and that she couldn't be perfect, the old illustration of the guy shooting the arrow and missing the bullseye by one arrow, That's not perfect, so therefore you've fallen short.

The idea that you can have a drop of poison in the glass, and yeah, it's only a drop and you've got a whole glass of liquid, and so you drink it, but you're still poisoned, that kind of thing. So even though you think, well, I did some good things, and I'm really not as bad as Bob over there because he's murdered six people, and I only murdered three or whatever, that doesn't cut it. And so the understanding of what God has saved us from and how he set this whole system up, I think, brings us to our knees and helps us to worship him as we should. So this Jeremiah 17.9, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it? It's not good. My heart's not good, not healthy, right? It is man who is deceitful and full of evil. Mark 7, 2023. And he said, Jesus, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, evil, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. John 3, 19. And this is the judgment that light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. Man loves darkness, Romans 3, 9 through 25.

This is one of the favorite ones that I like people to read when they tell me how good they are. And you're taking them through Romans. And then what then? Are we Jews better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that both, that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written. None is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their path are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified and are justified by His grace as a gift short of the glory of God and are, I'm sorry, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God put forward as a propitiation for His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. So all of that first part is just pound pound pound and yet by His grace He reveals Himself to you.

Man does not seek for God, Romans 5-6, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. He came to die for us, the ungodly. Man is ungodly, dead in his sins, and by nature a child of wrath, Ephesians 2-1, and you were dead in trespasses and sin. You've probably heard the preacher pound this thing if he's preaching from the text.

You were dead. Do dead men do anything? Do you respond? Can he roll over? Can he breathe? Can he see? Can he talk? No. You're dead. In which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the Prince of the Power of the Air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we once, we all once lived in the passion of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Man cannot understand spiritual things. 1 Corinthians 2 14 the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are falling to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Who helps us understand? The only person that can.

God himself through his Spirit is the one that reveals these truths to us. Not Not our intellect, not our study, not our parsing of all the verbs, writing out all the verses, memorizing them. Until it's inside of you in your heart, you're still dead. Man is a slave of sin, Romans 6, 16 through 20. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are a slave of the one whom you obey? Either of sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin became obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now you present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

The unbeliever can respond to God. His response will be in accordance to the scripture that says he cannot do good. He is a hater of God, is full of evil, and so on. Therefore, we conclude that his free will response will be to reject God according to the limits described in Scripture itself. Okay. So keep that in mind. He can, the natural man, the unbeliever who's not touched by the spirit is full of evil. Therefore we conclude his free will response will be to reject God or accept God with all his preconditions of who God is. He might say, I believe in God. But then when you really further define which God he believes in, It's not the God of the Bible.

It's the God he invented. I believe in God. Let me tell you about him. Well, what does the Bible say about him? Well, no, no, I need to tell you, my God wouldn't do some of the things that the Bible says. That's not God. So who chooses God? Romans 3, 9 through 12, we've already read that one. No not righteous, no one, no one chooses God, right? On their own, nobody. It is God who appoints people to believe, Acts 13, 48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of God, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. It is God who chooses who is to be holy and blameless.

Ephesians 1, 3 through 6, blessed be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has blessed us in the beloved." We could go home just after that, right? It really is amazing, and The more you think about it, what he has done to open your eyes to this and bring you into his eternal kingdom is like, whoa.

It is God who calls according to his purpose. Second Timothy 1, 8 through 11. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifest through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed as a preacher and an Apostle and teacher.

It's amazing, isn't it, how these things, before the ages began, before the foundation of the earth, I mean, these passages stretch that there's no little time limit, it's not this, not that, you know, it's before it ever started, this is the way it's supposed to work. Who chooses us for salvation? Second Thessalonians 2, 13 through 14. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers beloved by the Lord because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ who granted the act of believing, Philippians 1, 29 through 30.

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now here that I still have." So God is the one that grants you to believe. 2 Timothy, who grants you to repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patient, enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

It is God that causes us to be born again. First Peter 1, 3-5. Blessed is the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. God draws himself, or draws people to himself. John 644, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day, John 665, and he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father. All these things should give you great security if you're a true believer that God is the one at work in you. It's not you working in yourself, it's God working in you. God predestines us to salvation, Romans 8, 29 For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he also glorified. The whole package. So if he calls you, he will keep conforming you to the image of his son. son. I bring it up all the time in my prayers and talking with people. First John 3 2 he is conforming you to the image of his son and he's not done with you yet if you're still here no matter how old you are, how young you are in the Lord. He's working and twisting and forming you into what you will be when you are justified. Well you're justified right away as soon as you believe but but then all the way to your glorification.

He also predestines to be adopted sons. We are all adopted into Christ. Ephesians 1.5, he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. Not your will, his will. God predestined according to his purposes.

Ephesians 1.11, in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purposes him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. God makes us born again not by our will but by his will John 1 12 through 13 but to all those who did receive him who believe in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. God works faith in you. John 6, 28 through 29. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them and said, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. So what do we have to do? Believe. Who gives us the power to believe? God. Thank you. Man apart from God. Jeremiah 1323, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

Romans 5-10, for if while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, Much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. So now that we're on this side, we're going to become new creatures. Romans 8, 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh has hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot.

Now we get to the point of choice. So verses that talk about, well, that means I don't have any free will. I didn't choose. John 1, 12 through 13. But to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, nor the will of man, but of God. It's God's will they come. Okay? John 3, 27. John answered, A person cannot receive even one thing, and unless it is given to him from heaven. Romans 9, 14 through 16. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means.

For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends, not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy." Romans 9, 18. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. That's a lot of Bible. That's a lot of pounding. Those are hard verses. Some churches won't even talk about those verses. Some Bible studies won't talk about those verses. ones because they don't want to cause controversy amongst denominations. They'll have a multi-denominational Bible study and to bring up the things we just talked about causes people to ask questions.

Well, what about my denomination? What about that? That's why we always have to go back to what does God say. And it really does bring us to our knees and causes to worship him. Now there is a name for what we believe. Theologically it's called Monergism, okay, and it comes from the Greek word mono meaning one, erg meaning word. It is a term for the belief that the Holy Spirit is the only agent who affects regenerations of the Christians. This view held by Reformed and Calvinistic groups sees salvation as the work of God alone from first to last. He has chosen an eternity past whom he will save out of lost humanity, often referred to as the elect.

And in his timing, he will bring the elective faith through the work of the Spirit for the sake of the Son and save them forever to the praise of his glorious grace." Romans 8, 29, following. This is opposed to the synergistic view as held by Arminianism and its theological predecessor, Semiplegianism, where salvation is seen as a cooperative effort between God and man. I do these things, God will do this for me, I'm gonna make this trade. Not happening. He makes it happen. He prepares you for the good works prepared for beforehand, Ephesians 2.10. Quoting John Hendricks, monergism simply means that it is God who gives ears to hear and eyes to see.

It is God alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe. It is God who raises us from the dead, who circumcises the heart, unplugs our ears. It is God alone who can give us a new sense that we may, at last, have the moral capacity to behold His beauty and unsurpass excellence. That's just really crazy that God set it up this way. Because it means that everything, if I'm really communicating to you, and you people are believers, there's a supernatural event that's going on. God's Spirit is opening your mind to what you see this as and blending all those things together. And what does that do?

It doesn't make you, oh, thank you for whatever. It makes you, oh my goodness, thank you God for revealing this to me. Thank you for giving me your word. Thank you for giving me this example in my life to constantly remind you that you're God and I'm not. I have a t-shirt I wear that there is a God and you're not him is on the front. And then on the back, I'm not him either. And it's amazing how many people that you meet that will tell you they're Christians and you get to talking with them and everything. And they're Christians by their own definition of who God is that they worship. They redefine God into their own thing.

I don't know how many times I've heard it said when I get into serious discussions, well, the God I worship would not do such a thing, you know, when you read something and you read it straight up out of the Bible. That's why I like reading the verses. A favorite preacher of mine that I listened to back in the 70s, he was one of the people that I was allowed to listen to by the guy that brought me to the Lord. He allowed me to take two programs and there were only two people I could listen to. But this guy would say, because he would read the scripture he was going to preach on, and then he would always stop and say, I probably ought to sit down now before I mess up what I just read.

because God's delivering you the unadulterated word, and then we get up and try to explain it. And a lot of times it's used, you know, if we have the gift of teaching and preaching and all that kind of thing, obviously there's an exchange and you do learn from that. But there's a great capacity to screw it up also. So anyway, the bottom line here is, you didn't do it, God did it. And you are depraved. That doesn't mean you're going to be as wicked as you could be. And if you are saved, he is conforming you to the image of his son continually. He's relentless at it, which is fantastic, which is a whole nother point, perseverance of the saints and all these kinds of things.

But tonight we want to focus on this. So now, after hearing that joyous message that should make you happy, not sad, Not depressed. We did all right, Jubal. I didn't. He asked me this morning, he says, how does it work that, what do you say to people that build hospitals and they maybe even save some guy from a burning car or is a war hero or whatever. That's great. It's fantastic. He did it for certain reasons that we can't understand but And if he's not one of his, he didn't do it for the right reasons. And I can think, it's one of the kind of crazy parts of being saved late in your life at 37. I had a lot of years that I would have told you I was a Christian, but looking back on it, there was no way.

I couldn't have lived like that with God's Spirit in me. And then once I finally realized that and crossed over to the other side, constantly, I'm going, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I learned this and I learned that. Another problem in the Christian life, and I say this all the time, studying this kind of thing that we're evil, oh me, you know, with myself and all that roll around on the floor like Luther, and oh, I'll never be pure enough. Don't get caught in that hole either.

Part of the Christian life is as you learn more and more about Christ and you learn more about God, the more wicked you know you are, even though you're way above where you were when you started, you climb the ladder and God is conforming you to the image of his son. But then you realize, oh my goodness, now I have to take care of this in my life. And he's gracious and he's merciful to you that he doesn't back the truck up and dump the whole load off on you at once of how He's going to change you. That would be astronomical, you know. You go instantly from this to, you know, glory. I mean it would be a lot easier, but He wants you to understand the gift. And what does that do as you understand those certain levels? As you get another step up on the rung, it causes you to be on your knees and worship Him. He's a jealous and consuming God, and that's what He wants, your worship.

And as we worship together, all these things then get together and do all kinds of different things. And it does do good to the world. It passes out good to our families, people we know. We can help other people that don't even understand what we're doing, trying to change the society through because we're being changed, we want to change the community. And we're not in our stained glass aquarium, and we're trying to reach out and be that to the world. So that's the bottom line. And if you haven't been touched by that, I would pray to God that He touches you and brings you to the knowledge of His Son. So that's the only way out of this predicament.

That's the only way you're gonna get out of the miry pit. God will reach down and grab you out of it. So with that, we can go home. That was a lot of words. Most of them were from the Bible, so I didn't make too many mistakes unless I just misread them. So let's pray. Father, we thank you that you reach down to touch us and bring us together as a congregation to worship you. And we thank you that all throughout the world you reach down and touch people and they worship you and you do put out your light in that manner and allow those people to be an influence wherever they are. And we pray for them, especially those that are being persecuted now.

Some of the people in places that are being martyred for you have very little tools and Bibles and all the things we have with our computers to discover all this stuff and Study it and yet they're willing to die for their faith. They're put on the line and they die And I would ask that you instill in us that live in a country like this that we understand that great commitment they have and give us further strength and further boldness in our proclamation of the gospel. But we thank you most of all for your son, for without his sacrifice we couldn't even pray to you or even come to you with our supplications. So we thank you and we pray in his name, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Adults pretend way better than kids. Adults have a wider variety of background material to work with. Adults have more mental horsepower under the hood. Adults produce some fabulous and complex fictional worlds, sub-creations as Tolkien labeled them. Bestselling novels and blockbuster movies and role-playing video games all provide astonishing evidence that we can pretend real good.

But that’s not the first fiction I’m thinking about when I say that adults are way better at pretending than kids are. I mean that adults are way better at pretending that they are in control.

I am not a fatalist or a hypercalvinist. I believe that man is responsible, that todo lists and doing the todos are good things to do, that our responses matter, that goals should be made and pursued, and that enjoying the process is right and necessary for humanity. I don’t think anything happens by blind chance or luck or fortune. I am the kind of Calvinist who believes that I am responsible to drink enough coffee every day to keep myself healthy.

But it just doesn’t take that much looking around before being confronted with the reality that I am not in control. “The way of man is not in himself” (Jeremiah 10:23). “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21). That reality punches me in the throat daily, minutely. Not one of us can control time or our own heartbeat. We can’t control the weather, we can’t control gravity, we can’t control growth, we can’t control other people. We can barely control ourselves.

It is make-believe, as in, footloose and fantasy faith, to imagine that we are in control. We might not pretend that we are omnipotent, but more like we are semi-sovereign, and enough of us do it at the same time so as not to deflate our collective illusion. But we need to come to terms with our dependent status. We are at the mercy God and, because of how He made the world, at the mercy of others God puts into our lives.

Joseph, Joseph’s brothers, and Joseph’s dad have to come to terms with things out of their control. Not even Pharaoh can boss his way out of a famine, even though he took measures to counteract it. Yet he only took those measures because God revealed beforehand what God was about to do, and because God sent Joseph to interpret the dreams, and because God gave Pharaoh advice through Joseph for sake of God’s plan to save Joseph’s family. Pharaoh did not have, nor did any other character, control on the macro level of human history or on the micro level of seed sprouting and Joseph’s chariot wheels staying attached as he circuited Egypt building barns.

In Genesis 43 we are around two years into the seven year famine (see Genesis 45:6). Joseph’s brothers have already come to Egypt to buy grain, and Joseph recognized them and put them to the test. He gave them grain but kept Simeon. He told them that if they wanted to see their brother again, they must bring their youngest brother back to Egypt. When the brothers told Israel, he flipped out at them and said such a thing would never happen or else he would die. He’s about to die anyway, not from sorrow but from starvation.

Two parts to this chapter: negotiation and resignation (verses 1-14) and fear and feasting (verses 15-34). The brothers, in particular, are at Joseph’s mercy.

Things are even more intense than they were at the beginning of chapter 42. The famine was (still) severe in Canaan, the cupboards were bare like before, but now one of the brothers is in jail in Egypt and their father is as rigid as a petrified tree. They are between a rock and a hungry place.

When they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” How long it’s been between chapter 42 and 43 we don’t know, but the sense is that it’s been at least a few months, maybe even a year. They’ve been surviving, but they apparently haven’t been talking. The sons had been willing to go back to Egypt as soon as they got home, not just for food, but for Simeon’s sake. But the terms “the man” gave them required them to bring Benjamin as well (Genesis 42:34). Had Jacob forgotten it? Does Jacob think his sons had forgotten it? How can he talk like this is just running out to the store for some milk?

It’s not Reuben that steps forward this time but Judah. The last time we saw Judah was in chapter 38 when he spurned the family and married a Canaanite woman, then he pledged a goat to a woman who he thought was a prostitute but was really his daughter-in-law whom he had been cheating. Judah appears to be different now as he appeals to his father.

Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down” and then he repeats the terms from “the man.” It is straightforward and willing.

But Israel wants reality to be some other way. Since he can’t actually change it, he complains. ”Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” “It is easy to be wise after the event, and Jacob’s grumble about their indiscretion is really just stalling” (Wenham). But why is it their fault?

They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to the questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” These specifics of Joseph’s interrogation aren’t provided in chapter 42, but this is certainly what the brothers felt was required of them in defending themselves against the charge of being spies.

Then the rest of the response to Israel comes from Judah, a response that is respectful, realistic, and also responsible. Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.” Three generations will starve to death. ”I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.” Reuben offered to sacrifice his two sons. Judah offers to take the blame himself. Judah also jabs at how Jacob had dragged their feet. ”If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”

Israel resigns himself to the inescapable facts of the situation. He can’t pretend that there are other options anymore. ”If it must be so, then do this: followed by seven commands. He urges his sons to collect a gift for “the man,” a gift of things they had, even in a famine, things that would be of value but not things that a family could survive on. He also urges them to take money, double the money, money to purchase more grain and the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks from the last trip.

After all of that he finally gets to the linchpin. ”Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man.” Without this the wheels fall off. The present and the money are fine, but “the man” didn’t raise the rate or take offense at their failure to honor him the first time. This is all about the Benjamin.

Then Israel offers a benediction. ”May God almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin.” “Mercy” could also be translated “compassion,” and we’ll see that word again near the end of the chapter. The final comment is a full resignation, ”And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” It may seem strange to follow an optimistic prayer with a pessimistic acceptance of something undesirable, but he acknowledges that it is out of his control.

The final half of the chapter happens back in Egypt. The brothers took double the money with them, and Benjamin and stood before Joseph.

It’s at least been a few months, yet the picture is of Joseph keeping his eye out for the return of his brothers. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” He must have been back at the store, overseeing the selling of grain, and his brothers came back to the same store as well.

The steward did as Joseph told him. He pulled the men out of line and whisked them to Joseph’s house. But the brothers did not interpret this as a good sign. The men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.” This is nothing like how they were received the first time, and their minds defaulted to the worst case scenario.

In a desperate move they initiate an explanation to the steward. They swore that they didn’t know how their money got back in their sacks (verses 20-22). But the steward, who was likely the one who put the money in their sacks, replied, ”Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you.” He senses their panic, but they appear not to listen to his comment about “the God of your father.” How did the steward know about that God? The brothers are blinded by their anxiousness, but Joseph certainly must have communicated his worship of Israel’s God in his household.

The steward showed them hospitality and they prepared the present since they knew that the man would be coming home for lunch.

The brothers gave Joseph their present and bowed down before him again, but Joseph was focused on other details. ”He inquired about their welfare and said, “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” This question wouldn’t make much sense if it had only been a few weeks since their last conversation. They answered that their dad was doing fine and then bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.

Then Joseph lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?” But he doesn’t even wait for them to answer. ”God be gracious to you, my son!” And he’s overwhelmed such that he hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there. Joseph was “at the point of tears” (NET Bible), though “had a good cry” (The Message) misses the timbre of the text. “Compassion” in verse 30 (“deeply stirred” NAS, “bowels did yearn” KJV, “overcome with affection” (NRSV) is the same word (rahamim) as “mercy” in verse 14; they could/should be translated the same way. May the man have compassion, and now the man does indeed have compassion. Though the object of Joseph’s compassion is Benjamin in particular, there were benefits of compassion toward all the family.

And controlling himself he said, “Serve the food.” He pulled himself together and ordered lunch to be served. Joseph ate by himself, in a position of honor. There were two other tables, one for the Egyptian officials and another table for the Hebrews because it is an abomination to the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews. It was decisively detestable, probably more for religious than simple racial reasons.

More significantly, the brothers sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. They were all grown men by this point, and since they didn’t have the same mother, and some were born the same year, how could they be set in order so correctly? At the start of chapter 42 Israel accused them of looking at one another in apathy. Here the men looked at one another in amazement. The providence was too coincidental.

The final observation was also not coincidental, it was a test. Portions were taken to them from Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. Joseph loved Benjamin most, true, his only brother with the same mother. But Joseph wanted to see the reactions of the brothers. They did not respond well when Joseph received favoritism. How would they handle this?

And they drank and were merry with him. They responded just fine. They had been humbled. They didn’t appear to be bothered whatsoever that Benjamin got special attention. It’s not as if he could eat five times as much. He was being honored, and whatever explanation the brothers imagined, they did not take it out on him. Were merry is a word that usually means drunk, but they were in high spirits.

The story isn’t done. We really do need to read through chapter 45 to get to the actual resolution. But what I want to point out is that, especially from Israel’s perspective and his sons’ perspective, they are not in control. They can’t control the famine, they can’t control the terms of “the man” in Egypt, they can’t control “the man” with their pleading or with their present, they can’t control how many portions he gives to which of them, they can’t control if they will make it back home with Benjamin.

They are at the compassion of God, and at this point, at the compassion of God through Joseph. Both God and Joseph know more. Joseph knows them and what he’s planning for them. He knows that it will test them and be for their good. They keep being astonished along the way. Little things pop up that should cause them to see the connections. But they would have to pretend if they thought that feasting and merriness were produced by themselves.

We all must come to terms with God’s sovereignty, that we are not in control, that we are dependent on His compassion. When we come to terms with God’s mercy, we do not reach agreement with how He shows it but that we can’t live without it. We need mercy, but we don’t negotiate for it.

There are no statutes of limitations on sin before God. A statute of limitations sets the maximum amount of time that is permitted to pass for the bringing of certain kinds of legal action. In Washington State there are some crimes for which legal action must be taken within one year, others within two years, three years, and up to ten years. For example, lander and libel and assault must be reported within two years, trespassing and property damage and personal injury must be reported within three years. The more time that passes from the offense the more difficult it is to discover and examine the facts.

Some crimes have no statute of limitations. Most states have no limitations for prosecuting kidnapping, arson, or forgery. No state has a limitation for prosecuting murder.

Israel’s family did not live under 21st century American law. Israel’s family did not even live under Mosaic law. But law exists in the universe because the Creator is righteous. God is a certain way and He has made the world, and all men in the world, whether in ancient Egypt or modern America, in such a way that sin requires a reckoning. Every sin must be dealt with before God. Even if it appears that sin goes unnoticed or unproven and so unpunished, it only appears that way to us and for a time. No sin escapes God.

In a spasm of envy and bitterness and anger, Joseph’s brothers sold Joseph to traders heading to Egypt. Joseph was a tattle-tale. Joseph was favored by their father and flaunted a many-colored robe. Joseph was the eleventh of twelve and yet crowed about his dreams of preeminence. One time when Joseph went to check on his brothers they schemed to kill him, but decided to make a little money by disposing him into slavery. Their brother’s blood was still on their hands.

They had maintained this lie to their father for twenty years. Who knows how often they thought about Joseph; they probably tried not to. But while God may harden a man’s conscience, God has not decreed a time restraint on guilt. Even after two decades the brothers recall their sin. There are no statutes of limitations in the conscience.

In chapter 37 Joseph was sold as a slave in Egypt. In chapter 39 he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and put in prison. In chapter 40 he interpreted the dreams of the baker and cupbearer and was forgotten again. In chapter 41 he was summoned by Pharaoh to interpret a dream, and then he was appointed by Pharaoh to oversee the collection and distribution of grain during seven years of abundance and seven years of famine respectively. The famine has hit, hit hard, and hit not only in Egypt but “over all the earth” (Genesis 41:57). The stage is set for a family reunion.

The land of Canaan was affected by the famine (as stated in verse 5). In Abram’s day, a famine in Canaan caused him to seek food (food refuge = “refood” maybe?) in Egypt. Though Egypt wasn’t growing grain at this time, Egypt did have grain in the bank.

When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” How he learned that food could be purchased across the border we don’t know, but we do know that he was still recognized as the leader by his grown sons. His question scorns their passivity, as if he said, “Sitting around staring at each other isn’t going to get us any food.”

He urged them, ”Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” There’s no reason to think that Jacob exaggerated. Their situation was desperate and warranted the difficult trip.

Verse 1 identified Jacob’s “sons” but now ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain. Referring to them as brothers is a signal, and that only ten of the eleven depart will also be a major part of the next events. Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s (only other full) brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Jacob may or may not have suspicions about the older ten, but he is nervous that he would lose his next favorite son. Accidents happen.

Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, is a third description of the men and more associated with their national identity.

Of all the grain barns in all the world, Joseph’s brothers come to the place where Joseph is.

Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. But was he the bottleneck to whom everyone came to buy? “He put in every city the food from the fields around it” (Genesis 41:48), just as he advised Pharaoh (41:35). There must have been more than one clearinghouse, even though all of them were under Joseph’s oversight. How often was Joseph himself behind the counter running the till? How was it that his brothers “just happened” to come into his store?

Joseph was marked out in some special way since his brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Pharaoh made others “Bow the knee!” to Joseph (Genesis 41:43), and the brothers learned the protocol. Immediately Joseph recognized them but, as verse 8 clarifies, Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. Why would they? He was clean shaven like the Egyptians, wearing the royal clothing of Egyptians, talking in Egyptian (see verse 23), and giving order to Egyptians. Plus, more than any of those things, this man wasn’t dead.

Though he knew who they were Joseph treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” He “pretended to be a stranger” (NIV) and he interrogated them like criminals without apparent reason. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” But Joseph doesn’t buy it. And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

This accusation follows Moses giving us a look at Joseph’s thought process. Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said… What was it about the dreams that caused him to accuse them rather than identify himself immediately and say: “Behold, your brother, before whom you have bowed down, fulfilling my dreams!” I think it’s because, while he does connect them bowing before him with his dreams, he recognizes that his dreams aren’t totally fulfilled at this point. There were eleven stars bowing down, plus the sun and the moon (Genesis 37:9). Here there are only ten. Joseph is not being unnecessarily mean or spiteful, he’s setting them up to give him more information.

”No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies. Of their four assertions, one is certain (sons of one man), two are debatable (come to buy food, never been spies), and one is patently false, the one where they say, We are honest men.

Joseph calls them spies a total of three times. He asserts again, it is the nakedness of the land you have come to see. They’ve come to see the weak spots in Egypt, the possible targets for attack.

”We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.” Now Joseph has more information, but still no certainty of seeing this other brother or his father. These same ten sold him for dead, what if they now went and did something worse? One is no more would be an interesting way to hear others talk about you.

Joseph devises a test. ”By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested. Calling on the life of Pharaoh kept up appearances; they have no reason to suspect Joseph’s identity. And he put them all together in custody for three days. They taste imprisonment, though this hardly compares to the thirteen years of enslavement and imprisonment Joseph endured. It does seem to open their eyes.

Perhaps Joseph changed his mind, or perhaps this is what he had in mind all along.

On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die. (Genesis 42:18-20)

Instead of swearing by Pharaoh again, Joseph seems to want to connect with them by saying I fear God. He also recognizes that if only one goes back, that one won’t be able to take enough provisions for the family that remains in Canaan, family that Joseph is concerned about. So instead of sending one, he’s going to keep one, and the others can take food so that they shall not die. Though this is certainly a better deal than the one from three days ago, and a better deal than staying in prison, they can ignore their guilt no more.

Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” (Genesis 42:21–22)

This includes new information to us and to Joseph. By their own admission, they saw the distress of [Joseph’s] soul and did not listen to his cries for mercy. Their consciences connect their hardness of heart twenty years ago to the hardship of their present situation. The oldest brother, Reuben, says in so many words, “I told you not to do it.” He had planned to deliver Joseph but didn’t get the chance. He agrees that this is payback: now there comes a reckoning for his blood. Whether or not Joseph was actually dead, which they assumed him to be, they sold him for dead. Joseph didn’t know Reuben’s motivation until now.

They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. And based on this new to him information, he turned away from them and wept. Old, painful memories were renewed, memories that even his son Manasseh (whose name means “to forget”) couldn’t make him forget completely. Joseph was shrewd but he wasn’t cold.

Joseph took Simeon from them and bound them before their eyes. He didn’t take Reuben, which presumably he would have before hearing Reuben say that it wasn’t his idea. Simeon was next in line, and Joseph leaves a vivid picture in the eyes of the nine.

He also gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. One of the three was why they came (grain), one of the three was extra kind (trip provisions), one of the three may have been kind, but causes all sorts of consternation (putting the money back).

On the first night when the group made camp at the lodging place, one of the brothers

saw his money in the mouth of his sack. He said to his brothers, My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” (Genesis 42:27-28)

More stones ripple their consciences. Their hearts failed them could be translated, “their hearts went out” (NASB note).

Upon return to their father they tell him what happened. It is mostly the same story as earlier in the chapter, but there are some strategic differences. They make it sound as if the man, the lord of the land forced them to say that they had a younger brother. They don’t mention the three days they spent in jail. They also make it sound like Simeon was just invited to stay, not that he was bound and taken into custody.

Jacob accepts the report initially. But

as they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me. (Genesis 42:35-36)

Even though the sons appeared to be disturbed, Jacob has too many suspicions raised. Why would their money be back in their sacks? (Why hadn’t all of them looked in their sacks after the first brother found his money?) Had the brothers sold Simeon to get food? Did Jacob wonder about Joseph’s disappearance? Could the loss of sons be coincidence? Jacob said, with characteristic self-absorption, ”All this has come against me”, as if the hunger wasn’t shared and their journey wasn’t difficult and Simeon wasn’t detained in Egypt.

They didn’t come clean and say, “But we won’t kill Benjamin like we did Joseph.” Instead Reuben said, ”Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” Why would the death of two of Jacob’s grandsons make Jacob feel better about losing two sons and possibly a third? Even if it would, Jacob isn’t about to let it happen. Benjamin is the only son left of Rachel. Jacob, still showing favoritism, says “I would die if something happened to Benjamin.” At this point, Simeon will rot in custody and the other sons will die from starvation along with Jacob.

The chapter started with possible death by starvation (verse 2) and ends with possible death by sorrow (verse 38). Jacob not only chooses Benjamin over Simeon, he obstinately chooses certain starvation for the entire family rather than possible fatherly sorrow. It’s a “suicidally defensive posture” (Kidner).

For every sin there comes a reckoning. By God’s grace, after many sins there will come a reconciling. The story of Joseph and his brothers isn’t finished yet.

Would it have been better for Joseph’s brothers never to have sold him? It depends. They certainly committed an evil. Joseph certainly suffered. Twenty years of separation is a long time. But because God is sovereign it wasn’t too late. His exile was not in vain. He grew up. So did his brothers. Now they are going to be better together.

Don’t waste your guilty conscience, repent. Don’t waste your exile, trust and obey. Don’t waste the broken relationships, grow up. Don’t waste what God has given you, He means it for good. Wait on the Lord. He’ll work it out in His timing, the way He wants to.

I am a Calvinist. I asked Calvin into my heart almost twenty-four years ago, a tongue-in-cheek comment I once heard R.C. Sproul use. I didn’t grow up as a Calvinist, nor do I remember hearing that name until I was in college. More than a fun topic to argue about at Christian parties, it is a way of life. My wife and I named our only son, Calvin. I even have the bobblehead.

We—the elders and I at least—believe and teach Calvinism at TEC. The next part in the Reformed and Still Reforming series will work through the Five Points of Calvinism. We are reading Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper with the men. Our apologetic methodology, our homiletic philosophy, our worship liturgy, and our hopeful evangelism are all informed by Calvinism.

Someone usually will ask, Why focus on a man? I’ve had enough conversations over the last two decades to know that at least three things are possible. One, it’s possible to hate talking about other men and be ignorant. Two, it’s possible to idolize other men and be ignorant. And three, it’s possible to “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). Obeying the Bible means listening to and learning from those who teach the Bible.

Another person might ask, Why use names? It’s okay to go without names, but sometimes we can be more biblical by using extra biblical names. If a man doesn’t believe in the Trinity he is going to hell. A man doesn’t have to believe in the word “Trinity,” but he most certainly has to believe in the eternal divinity and equality of each the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit while understanding that the three Persons are one God. “Trinity” summarizes that, and quite nicely. The same is true with “Calvinism.” Calvinism is a summary of cosmological and soteriological truths, that “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6) and “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36). Calvinism asserts: God saves sinners. That is the gospel, and Calvinism is a nickname (per Spurgeon) that summarizes a God-centered gospel.

Calvin built libraries’ worth of mental categories for theology proper, for biblical exegesis, and for cosmological/worldview. Calvin himself could not have imagined the generational and tectonic shifts in the church and in governments and Western Civilization—perhaps no where else more than in the United States—that his theology would create. His views are anything but truncated, and his attack on dualism is surprisingly spiritual.

I have never thought that being a Calvinist meant believing every particular thing that Calvin taught. Nor did I realize how exhaustively universal were his teachings, or at least the implications of his understanding of God’s revelation.

Abraham Kuyper summarized Calvinism this way:

[T]he persuasion that the whole of a man’s life is to be lived in the Divine Presence has become the fundamental thought of Calvinism. By this decisive idea, or rather by this might fact, it has allowed itself to be controlled in every department of its entire domain. It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang. (Lectures on Calvinism, 26)

Tectonic relates to large-scale processes, in the context of geology regarding what happens on the earth’s crust and by analogy with any considerable development. Calvin’s life and theology brought and are still causing tectonic shifts.

John Calvin was a pastor, theologian, and writer committed to soli Deo gloria.

Calvin did not belong to the first generation of Reformers. He was born on July 10, 1509 in France. That means when Luther posted his theses in Wittenburg Calvin was eight years old. By the time Calvin entered his work as a reformer, the first wave of Protestant battles had already been fought. But things were far from settled and there was a lot of work to do.

We know very little about his early home life. Calvin's father, an attorney, sent him to the University of Paris to study humanities and law when he was fourteen. At the College de Montaigu he “he was instructed in the traditional curriculum of the trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy)” (Gordon, Calvin, Kindle loc. 215-216).

His first book was a commentary on Seneca’s book De clement).

Calvin also made considerable use of Livy, Tacitus and Plutarch, his primary source was the second-century Roman historian Suetonius (69-122?) with his pithy and dramatic accounts of the first eleven emperors in his Lives of the Caesars… (Gordon, loc. 447-448).

But somewhere in 1533 he was converted and joined the protest against the Roman Catholic Church. Calvin immediately knew what he wanted. He wanted the enjoyment of literary ease so he could promote the Reformed faith as a literary scholar. He wanted to be left in isolation. Calvin wanted to serve the people, but not necessarily by being among them. He wrote of himself:

Being of a disposition somewhat unpolished and bashful, which led me always to love the shade and retirement, I then began to seek some secluded corner where I might be withdrawn from the public view. (Commentary on the Book of Psalms)

Shortly after his conversion he was forced to escape Paris due to rising persecution against the Protestants. He eventually left France entirely, exiled to Switzerland. To redeem the time he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew! It was during this time in 1536 that he published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion—what is now a two volume tome--a detailed systematic theology. Calvin was only 27 years old. Years later he explained what motivated him:

While I lay hidden at Basel, and known only to a few people, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France....It appeared to me, that unless I opposed to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institutes of the Christian Religion....It was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith of those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed.

Calvin could not sit idly by without some effort to vindicate the faithful. These were truths worth dying for.

Later in 1536 there was a temporary period when protestant offenders could return to France without punishment. Calvin returned, put things in order and headed out for Strasbourg near the German border. But a war broke out between Charles V and Francis I resulting in troop movement that blocked the road to Strasbourg, and Calvin had to detour through Geneva.

Calvin planned on staying in Geneva one night. But Calvin's arrival was brought to the attention of the towns' leading Reformer, a man named William Farel. Calvin tells us what happened that night in the introduction to his commentary on the Psalms:

Farel, who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquility of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance, while the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken.

So imagine you're moving, spending the night in a hotel, then someone from the town comes and asks you to live in that town for the rest of your life and be their pastor. And you say, "No. I'm on my way somewhere." "Okay, well God curse you." "Thanks for that, Will." John Piper says,

In retrospect, one has to marvel at the providence of God that He should so arrange armies to position his pastors where he wanted them. (The Legacy of Sovereign Joy)

His life was irrevocably changed. Not just geographically, but vocationally. Never again would Calvin work in what he called "tranquility." Being a shepherd is not tranquil work. Within four months he was appointed Pastor of St. Peter's church. Within two years the city council banished he and Farel--they appreciated Calvin's work that much. But they begged them to return in 1541, where he was to stay until his death in 1564.

One of Calvin's acquaintances, Colladon, who lived in Geneva during these years described his life:

Calvin for his part did not spare himself at all, working far beyond what his power and regard for health could stand. He preached commonly every day for one week in two. Every week he lectured three times in theology....He never failed in visiting the sick, in private warning and counsel, and the rest of the numberless matters arising out of the ordinary exercise of his ministry. But besides these ordinary tasks, he had great care for believers in France, both in teaching them and exhorting them and counseling them and consoling them by letters when they were being persecuted, and also in interceding for them....Yet all that did not prevent him from going on working at his special study and composing many splendid and very useful books.

He just didn't have enough to do, so he decided to write some books. During these years he lost his wife, Idelette de Bure—an Anabaptist. He wrote to his doctor and described his coughing blood and gout and kidney stones, along with blood loss in his bowels leaving him exhausted and anaemic. There were threats to his life.

And in all of this he was the ultimate exegete--pulling out the meaning of Scripture--of the Reformation age. He has commentaries on almost every book of the Bible that take up four or five feet of shelf space. He was the Reformation's ultimate theologian--explaining how all the pieces fit together into a whole in his Institutes, which went through five editions until the final version in 1559. I appreciated how John MacArthur described it at a Shepherds’ Conference: Calvin dragged his theology through the entire Bible to see what needed adding and editing or omitting.

Calvin was committed to teaching in print and preaching. He began his series on the book of Acts in 1549 and finished in 1554. After Acts he want on to the epistles to the Thessalonians (46 sermons), Corinthians (186 sermons), the pastoral epistles (86 sermons), Galatians (43 sermons), Ephesians (48 sermons). On the weekdays during that season he preached 159 sermons on Job, 200 on Deuteronomy, 353 on Isaiah and so on.

One of the clearest illustrations that this verse-by-verse, line by line style was a self-conscious choice on Calvin's part was the fact that on Ester Day, 1538, after preaching, he left the pulpit of St. Peters, banished by the city council. He returned in September 1541—over three years later—and picked up the exposition in the next verse. That is what we call stick-to-it-iveness, or maybe stick-it-to-them-iveness.

But what he gave more than anything else was a clear view of the great God. Calvin hated the ignorance about God and the false worship dominating so much of the church.

It is said that the driving passion of Calvin's theology and work in the church was to free the church from all forms of idolatry." (Sproul, Whatever Happened to the Doctrines of Grace, xiii)

Calvin was against abstract idols like fame and power and money and ourselves just as he was the concrete just as much as worship of images and relics and even the bread of the Mass. He called the human heart an idol factory and stressed that the tendency toward idolatry is rooted in the human heart. We pump out the idols. There is an internal production line spilling over with idols to worship. We exchange the truth about God for lies. We worship idols. We worship ourselves.

[A]lthough the Lord represents Himself and His everlasting Kingdom in the mirror of His works with great clarity, such is our stupidity that we grow increasingly dull toward so manifest testimonies, and they flow away without profiting us....[Y]et we are much alike in that, one and all, we forsake the one true God for prodigious trifles....Surely, as waters boil up from a vast, full spring, so does an immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one, in wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God Himself."(Calvin, Institutes, 1:63-65)

Any view of God that is not the revealed God of the Bible is just as much an idol as an additional god. Any time a person says something like, "My God isn't like that" or “If that’s what your God is like, I want nothing to do with Him” it is likely they have created an image of the true God that they like better. Why? Because the god they've invented serves them better. Who is acting like the god at that point?

This was Calvin's passion. He aimed with all his life to set before man, as the prime motive of existence, to illustrate the glory of God. Piper calls this the banner over all of Calvin's life—zeal to illustrate the glory of God. The essential meaning of John Calvin's life and preaching is that he recovered and embodied a passion for the absolute reality and majesty of God.

Therefore the unifying root of all of Calvin's labors is his passion to display the glory of God in Christ. When he was thirty years old, he described an imaginary scene of himself at the end of his life, giving an account to God, and said,

The thing [O God] at which I chiefly aimed, and for which I most diligently labored, was, that the glory of thy goodness and justice...might shine forth obvious, that the virtue and blessings of thy Christ...might be fully displayed.

Twenty four years later, and one month before he died at age 54, he said in his last will and testament, "I have written nothing out of hatred to anyone, but I have always faithfully propounded what I esteemed to be for the glory of God."

It is easy to love Calvin too uncritically. There are things for which he deserves criticism. His biggest problem, though, is not the handling of the heretic Servetus. He had little to do with the execution and, if anything, he tried to have the method of execution changed to a less tortuous method. Here is a very helpful article about the Servetus Affair.

The longer I spend time with him, getting to know God and myself as Calvin described, I think Calvin’s primary problem is that he considered himself to be too precious.

Bruce Gordon wrote a long biography and selected some of the worst excerpts of Calvin’s letters. Gordon seems to have had little sympathy for Calvin, but there is no reason to ignore Calvin’s issues.

Calvin was ruthless with heretics, and with some of his closest friends. He was very agreeable to everyone who agreed with him. He longed for unity of the Reformed churches in Europe and yet did just as much to divide as to collaborate. He loved and he gave grief to Martin Bucer, Huldrych Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Philip Melanchthon, Theodore Beza, and his closest friends, William Farel and Pierre Viret. He severely criticized those who accommodated to Catholic worship in France to avoid persecution, while he himself had escaped in exile. He preached a liberating gospel of forgiveness and also held grudges and settled old scores when given the opportunity. He criticized untrained pastors and kings, and was at times overly sensitive to criticism of himself. He got angry. A lot. He had a large personality, and took things personally. “He was always at his most vicious when cornered” (Gordon). For a man known by his teaching on the doctrine of predestination, for a teacher who explained the sovereignty of God in sweeping terms, Calvin often responded like an Arminian.

agitation about events, about the thoughts and actions of others and about his own perceived inadequacies was a constant and unwelcome companion. (Gordon, loc. 2126)

Men hated him. Numerous biographies were published soon after his death, more than a few of them as an attack, painting him as the heretic and tyrant. Here’s one taste:

“we have given this account of Calvin's life as neither his friend nor his foe. I will not be lying if I say that he was the ruin and destruction of France. If only he had died in childhood or had never been born! For he brought so many ills to his country that it is only just to hate and detest his origins."' (Gordon, loc. 4880-4883).

Ironically, how many people hated Calvin is a good reason for considering what he had to say.

He never felt that he was doing enough. And yet,

Such was the man who rarely, if ever, changed his mind on a topic, yet continuously and restlessly reformulated and rewrote his thoughts in pursuit of greater clarity and insight. (Gordon, loc. 145)

B.B. Warfield said, ”No man ever had a profounder sense of God than he.” Warfield was a theologian who lived 300 years after Calvin. He never knew Calvin through face to face interaction, but he knew this from reading Calvin. That's a good thing when someone picks that up from your writings. It was this relentless orientation on the glory of God that pushed Calvin in life and the Reformed tradition that followed.

When possible, I will read Calvin’s commentary on whatever passage I’m preparing to preach. He is almost always helpful 500 years later.

The dominating principle [of Calvinism] was not, soteriologically speaking, justification by faith, but, in the widest sense cosmologically, the Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. (Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” 488)

I love being a Calvinist as regards the sovereignty of God in salvation and over every thumb’s width in creation. It is worth remembering Calvin’s teaching of the word of God, considering the outcome of his way of life, and imitating his faith. I look forward to meeting my brother and teacher in heaven some day.

I am a Calvinist. I asked Calvin into my heart almost twenty-four years ago, a tongue-in-cheek comment I once heard R.C. Sproul use. I didn’t grow up as a Calvinist, nor do I remember hearing that name until I was in college. More than a fun topic to argue about at Christian parties, it is a way of life. My wife and I named our only son, Calvin. I even have the bobblehead.

We—the elders and I at least—believe and teach Calvinism at TEC. The next part in the Reformed and Still Reforming series will work through the Five Points of Calvinism. We are reading Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper with the men. Our apologetic methodology, our homiletic philosophy, our worship liturgy, and our hopeful evangelism are all informed by Calvinism.

Someone usually will ask, Why focus on a man? I’ve had enough conversations over the last two decades to know that at least three things are possible. One, it’s possible to hate talking about other men and be ignorant. Two, it’s possible to idolize other men and be ignorant. And three, it’s possible to “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). Obeying the Bible means listening to and learning from those who teach the Bible.

Another person might ask, Why use names? It’s okay to go without names, but sometimes we can be more biblical by using extra biblical names. If a man doesn’t believe in the Trinity he is going to hell. A man doesn’t have to believe in the word “Trinity,” but he most certainly has to believe in the eternal divinity and equality of each the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit while understanding that the three Persons are one God. “Trinity” summarizes that, and quite nicely. The same is true with “Calvinism.” Calvinism is a summary of cosmological and soteriological truths, that “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6) and “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36). Calvinism asserts: God saves sinners. That is the gospel, and Calvinism is a nickname (per Spurgeon) that summarizes a God-centered gospel.

Calvin built libraries’ worth of mental categories for theology proper, for biblical exegesis, and for cosmological/worldview. Calvin himself could not have imagined the generational and tectonic shifts in the church and in governments and Western Civilization—perhaps no where else more than in the United States—that his theology would create. His views are anything but truncated, and his attack on dualism is surprisingly spiritual.

I have never thought that being a Calvinist meant believing every particular thing that Calvin taught. Nor did I realize how exhaustively universal were his teachings, or at least the implications of his understanding of God’s revelation.

Abraham Kuyper summarized Calvinism this way:

[T]he persuasion that the whole of a man’s life is to be lived in the Divine Presence has become the fundamental thought of Calvinism. By this decisive idea, or rather by this might fact, it has allowed itself to be controlled in every department of its entire domain. It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang. (Lectures on Calvinism, 26)

Tectonic relates to large-scale processes, in the context of geology regarding what happens on the earth’s crust and by analogy with any considerable development. Calvin’s life and theology brought and are still causing tectonic shifts.

John Calvin was a pastor, theologian, and writer committed to soli Deo gloria.

Calvin did not belong to the first generation of Reformers. He was born on July 10, 1509 in France. That means when Luther posted his theses in Wittenburg Calvin was eight years old. By the time Calvin entered his work as a reformer, the first wave of Protestant battles had already been fought. But things were far from settled and there was a lot of work to do.

We know very little about his early home life. Calvin's father, an attorney, sent him to the University of Paris to study humanities and law when he was fourteen. At the College de Montaigu he “he was instructed in the traditional curriculum of the trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy)” (Gordon, Calvin, Kindle loc. 215-216).

His first book was a commentary on Seneca’s book De clement).

Calvin also made considerable use of Livy, Tacitus and Plutarch, his primary source was the second-century Roman historian Suetonius (69-122?) with his pithy and dramatic accounts of the first eleven emperors in his Lives of the Caesars… (Gordon, loc. 447-448).

But somewhere in 1533 he was converted and joined the protest against the Roman Catholic Church. Calvin immediately knew what he wanted. He wanted the enjoyment of literary ease so he could promote the Reformed faith as a literary scholar. He wanted to be left in isolation. Calvin wanted to serve the people, but not necessarily by being among them. He wrote of himself:

Being of a disposition somewhat unpolished and bashful, which led me always to love the shade and retirement, I then began to seek some secluded corner where I might be withdrawn from the public view. (Commentary on the Book of Psalms)

Shortly after his conversion he was forced to escape Paris due to rising persecution against the Protestants. He eventually left France entirely, exiled to Switzerland. To redeem the time he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew! It was during this time in 1536 that he published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion—what is now a two volume tome--a detailed systematic theology. Calvin was only 27 years old. Years later he explained what motivated him:

While I lay hidden at Basel, and known only to a few people, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France....It appeared to me, that unless I opposed to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institutes of the Christian Religion....It was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith of those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed.

Calvin could not sit idly by without some effort to vindicate the faithful. These were truths worth dying for.

Later in 1536 there was a temporary period when protestant offenders could return to France without punishment. Calvin returned, put things in order and headed out for Strasbourg near the German border. But a war broke out between Charles V and Francis I resulting in troop movement that blocked the road to Strasbourg, and Calvin had to detour through Geneva.

Calvin planned on staying in Geneva one night. But Calvin's arrival was brought to the attention of the towns' leading Reformer, a man named William Farel. Calvin tells us what happened that night in the introduction to his commentary on the Psalms:

Farel, who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquility of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance, while the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken.

So imagine you're moving, spending the night in a hotel, then someone from the town comes and asks you to live in that town for the rest of your life and be their pastor. And you say, "No. I'm on my way somewhere." "Okay, well God curse you." "Thanks for that, Will." John Piper says,

In retrospect, one has to marvel at the providence of God that He should so arrange armies to position his pastors where he wanted them. (The Legacy of Sovereign Joy)

His life was irrevocably changed. Not just geographically, but vocationally. Never again would Calvin work in what he called "tranquility." Being a shepherd is not tranquil work. Within four months he was appointed Pastor of St. Peter's church. Within two years the city council banished he and Farel--they appreciated Calvin's work that much. But they begged them to return in 1541, where he was to stay until his death in 1564.

One of Calvin's acquaintances, Colladon, who lived in Geneva during these years described his life:

Calvin for his part did not spare himself at all, working far beyond what his power and regard for health could stand. He preached commonly every day for one week in two. Every week he lectured three times in theology....He never failed in visiting the sick, in private warning and counsel, and the rest of the numberless matters arising out of the ordinary exercise of his ministry. But besides these ordinary tasks, he had great care for believers in France, both in teaching them and exhorting them and counseling them and consoling them by letters when they were being persecuted, and also in interceding for them....Yet all that did not prevent him from going on working at his special study and composing many splendid and very useful books.

He just didn't have enough to do, so he decided to write some books. During these years he lost his wife, Idelette de Bure—an Anabaptist. He wrote to his doctor and described his coughing blood and gout and kidney stones, along with blood loss in his bowels leaving him exhausted and anaemic. There were threats to his life.

And in all of this he was the ultimate exegete--pulling out the meaning of Scripture--of the Reformation age. He has commentaries on almost every book of the Bible that take up four or five feet of shelf space. He was the Reformation's ultimate theologian--explaining how all the pieces fit together into a whole in his Institutes, which went through five editions until the final version in 1559. I appreciated how John MacArthur described it at a Shepherds’ Conference: Calvin dragged his theology through the entire Bible to see what needed adding and editing or omitting.

Calvin was committed to teaching in print and preaching. He began his series on the book of Acts in 1549 and finished in 1554. After Acts he want on to the epistles to the Thessalonians (46 sermons), Corinthians (186 sermons), the pastoral epistles (86 sermons), Galatians (43 sermons), Ephesians (48 sermons). On the weekdays during that season he preached 159 sermons on Job, 200 on Deuteronomy, 353 on Isaiah and so on.

One of the clearest illustrations that this verse-by-verse, line by line style was a self-conscious choice on Calvin's part was the fact that on Ester Day, 1538, after preaching, he left the pulpit of St. Peters, banished by the city council. He returned in September 1541—over three years later—and picked up the exposition in the next verse. That is what we call stick-to-it-iveness, or maybe stick-it-to-them-iveness.

But what he gave more than anything else was a clear view of the great God. Calvin hated the ignorance about God and the false worship dominating so much of the church.

It is said that the driving passion of Calvin's theology and work in the church was to free the church from all forms of idolatry." (Sproul, Whatever Happened to the Doctrines of Grace, xiii)

Calvin was against abstract idols like fame and power and money and ourselves just as he was the concrete just as much as worship of images and relics and even the bread of the Mass. He called the human heart an idol factory and stressed that the tendency toward idolatry is rooted in the human heart. We pump out the idols. There is an internal production line spilling over with idols to worship. We exchange the truth about God for lies. We worship idols. We worship ourselves.

[A]lthough the Lord represents Himself and His everlasting Kingdom in the mirror of His works with great clarity, such is our stupidity that we grow increasingly dull toward so manifest testimonies, and they flow away without profiting us....[Y]et we are much alike in that, one and all, we forsake the one true God for prodigious trifles....Surely, as waters boil up from a vast, full spring, so does an immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one, in wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God Himself."(Calvin, Institutes, 1:63-65)

Any view of God that is not the revealed God of the Bible is just as much an idol as an additional god. Any time a person says something like, "My God isn't like that" or “If that’s what your God is like, I want nothing to do with Him” it is likely they have created an image of the true God that they like better. Why? Because the god they've invented serves them better. Who is acting like the god at that point?

This was Calvin's passion. He aimed with all his life to set before man, as the prime motive of existence, to illustrate the glory of God. Piper calls this the banner over all of Calvin's life—zeal to illustrate the glory of God. The essential meaning of John Calvin's life and preaching is that he recovered and embodied a passion for the absolute reality and majesty of God.

Therefore the unifying root of all of Calvin's labors is his passion to display the glory of God in Christ. When he was thirty years old, he described an imaginary scene of himself at the end of his life, giving an account to God, and said,

The thing [O God] at which I chiefly aimed, and for which I most diligently labored, was, that the glory of thy goodness and justice...might shine forth obvious, that the virtue and blessings of thy Christ...might be fully displayed.

Twenty four years later, and one month before he died at age 54, he said in his last will and testament, "I have written nothing out of hatred to anyone, but I have always faithfully propounded what I esteemed to be for the glory of God."

It is easy to love Calvin too uncritically. There are things for which he deserves criticism. His biggest problem, though, is not the handling of the heretic Servetus. He had little to do with the execution and, if anything, he tried to have the method of execution changed to a less tortuous method. Here is a very helpful article about the Servetus Affair.

The longer I spend time with him, getting to know God and myself as Calvin described, I think Calvin’s primary problem is that he considered himself to be too precious.

Bruce Gordon wrote a long biography and selected some of the worst excerpts of Calvin’s letters. Gordon seems to have had little sympathy for Calvin, but there is no reason to ignore Calvin’s issues.

Calvin was ruthless with heretics, and with some of his closest friends. He was very agreeable to everyone who agreed with him. He longed for unity of the Reformed churches in Europe and yet did just as much to divide as to collaborate. He loved and he gave grief to Martin Bucer, Huldrych Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Philip Melanchthon, Theodore Beza, and his closest friends, William Farel and Pierre Viret. He severely criticized those who accommodated to Catholic worship in France to avoid persecution, while he himself had escaped in exile. He preached a liberating gospel of forgiveness and also held grudges and settled old scores when given the opportunity. He criticized untrained pastors and kings, and was at times overly sensitive to criticism of himself. He got angry. A lot. He had a large personality, and took things personally. “He was always at his most vicious when cornered” (Gordon). For a man known by his teaching on the doctrine of predestination, for a teacher who explained the sovereignty of God in sweeping terms, Calvin often responded like an Arminian.

agitation about events, about the thoughts and actions of others and about his own perceived inadequacies was a constant and unwelcome companion. (Gordon, loc. 2126)

Men hated him. Numerous biographies were published soon after his death, more than a few of them as an attack, painting him as the heretic and tyrant. Here’s one taste:

“we have given this account of Calvin's life as neither his friend nor his foe. I will not be lying if I say that he was the ruin and destruction of France. If only he had died in childhood or had never been born! For he brought so many ills to his country that it is only just to hate and detest his origins."' (Gordon, loc. 4880-4883).

Ironically, how many people hated Calvin is a good reason for considering what he had to say.

He never felt that he was doing enough. And yet,

Such was the man who rarely, if ever, changed his mind on a topic, yet continuously and restlessly reformulated and rewrote his thoughts in pursuit of greater clarity and insight. (Gordon, loc. 145)

B.B. Warfield said, ”No man ever had a profounder sense of God than he.” Warfield was a theologian who lived 300 years after Calvin. He never knew Calvin through face to face interaction, but he knew this from reading Calvin. That's a good thing when someone picks that up from your writings. It was this relentless orientation on the glory of God that pushed Calvin in life and the Reformed tradition that followed.

When possible, I will read Calvin’s commentary on whatever passage I’m preparing to preach. He is almost always helpful 500 years later.

The dominating principle [of Calvinism] was not, soteriologically speaking, justification by faith, but, in the widest sense cosmologically, the Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. (Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” 488)

I love being a Calvinist as regards the sovereignty of God in salvation and over every thumb’s width in creation. It is worth remembering Calvin’s teaching of the word of God, considering the outcome of his way of life, and imitating his faith. I look forward to meeting my brother and teacher in heaven some day.

When a thing is fixed by God, the thing is fixed indeed. He not only makes bad things better, He has predestined to do so. Genesis 41 has fixes on at least three levels. The first level is the fix of the future abundance and scarcity. Pharaoh dreamed about fat cows and fat grain being eaten up by skinny cows and thin ears. None of his dream-priests could interpret the meaning, but Joseph explained that the dreams were one and that “the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God” (verse 32). Seven years of prosperity would be swallowed up by seven years of famine such that “all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt” (verse 30). The next fourteen years in Egypt were fixed.

The second level of fixed future regards another set of dreams, concerns both a wider geographical context and a more narrow set of characters. Joseph dreamed of himself as an upright sheaf and his brothers and sheaves gathered around and bowing down (Genesis 37:7). He also dreamed of a galaxy wherein his brothers as stars and his mother and father as moon and sun bowed down to him (Genesis 37:9). Such dreams were obnoxious to his brothers and sounded presumptuous to his father. When his brothers sold him for dead that galaxy seemed far, far away. But the ignorance of the magicians was the plan of God for sake of Joseph’s opportunity to shine. The previous 13 years in Egypt had been fixed.

The third level of fixed future regards a vision given by God to Abram. “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions” (Genesis 15:13-14). God predestined to keep His covenant people alive in a foreign land (Genesis 50:20) until the time that He would deliver them by His mighty hand for an everlasting testimony. Centuries previous and coming were fixed by God.

While God always works all things according to the counsel of His will, we don’t always see the convergence of so many levels in such a precise point. The fulcrum of the fix pivoted in about an hour.

As I said, Pharaoh dreamed and was disturbed by the dream but none could tell him the meaning. The chief cupbearer remembered how Joseph had interpreted his dream, and that of the chief baker, and referred Joseph to Pharaoh. All manner of manic effort was made to hurry Joseph before Pharaoh and, when Pharaoh told his dream, Joseph told him the interpretation. Joseph went even further than asked and offered Pharaoh unsolicited counsel on how to prepare for the coming famine. Appoint an overseer of overseers, federal over local, and start banking a national reserve of grain against the years of hardship.

Would Pharaoh accept the interpretation? How would he take being advised by this young, foreign, slave-prisoner?

The first part of the chapter (verses 1-36) which took place all on one day are fulfilled in the second part of the chapter (verses 37-57) which take place on that day and over the next eight-plus years.

Pharaoh did not erupt in anger toward Joseph, nor did he turn to his counselors and immediately begin brainstorming solutions. This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. Somehow there was immediate, unanimous agreement and approval. This consensus may be one of the most miraculous elements in the chapter. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” The answer was so obvious; the answer was standing in the room. Joseph and Pharaoh may not have been talking about the same God, but Pharaoh recognized divine presence and guidance in Joseph.

We might think an award would be in order, maybe an extra ration of wine that night back in his prison cell. Perhaps Pharaoh would thank him for his service and free him from prison to go home, but that would be a surprising and excessive prize. What happened next could not have been predicted.

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 41:39–41)

Joseph rises from prisoner to prime minister, to second-in-charge, over…all the people and all the land. Moses doesn’t say whether or not this appointment also pleased the servants of Pharaoh, but from here through the end of Joseph’s life there are no stories at all concerning envy toward or conspiracy against Joseph in Pharaoh’s house. Joseph urged Pharaoh to “select a discerning and wise man” (verse 33) and Pharaoh realizes that there is none so discerning and wise as you are.

The events in verses 42-45 happened some that day and some over the coming days. The activity is Pharaoh’s; he is the subject of the verbs. Pharaoh installs Joseph into office with power, Joseph does not grab at it.

In verse 42 the signet ring sealed documents and letters with royal authority. Joseph spoke as Pharaoh. The garments of fine linen were royal apparel, distinguishing Joseph with regard and rank, along with the gold chain about his neck.

In verse 43, when they went out through the city, the cavalcade was changed: Joseph rode with Pharaoh. He made him ride in his second chariot. More than that, They called out before him, “Bow the knee!” The translation of the word abrek is uncertain, but “Kneel!” fits the context. It could be something with the effect of “Make way!” (NIV) or “Attention!” (HCSB note). Pharaoh has installed Joseph with distinction and dominion.

In verse 44 the extent of Joseph’s rule is clarified. Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” The monarch empowers his minister. No one may do anything of which Joseph does not approve. They can’t lift a finger or take a step without his authorization.

And in verse 45 Joseph is naturalized into the culture by name and by marriage. Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath-paneah, which undoubtedly had significance but we don’t know exactly what it is. And he gave him in marriage to Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. The city of On, called by the Greeks “Heliopolis” or “City of the Sun,” was a significant place and Potiphera was a man of political, not just spiritual, prominence. Joseph is now one of them, but also above all of them.

The remainder of chapter 41 summarizes the seven years of abundance and the beginning of the famine. Three things describe Joseph’s administration.

The seven plentiful years occurred just as Joseph prophesied, and he worked with great wisdom and diligence.

Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. He was seventeen years old at the beginning of chapter 37, and probably still seventeen when sold to the Midanite traders. For thirteen years he got up every morning and served someone else, away from his family, earning esteem only to have it do him no apparent good, until now. Now he commanded the entire country.

And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. We might call this style of business MBWA: management by walking around. Joseph (and his entourage) made a circuit through all the land in order to promote and put his policies into practice. He apparently received little if any pushback.

During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured. (Genesis 41:47–49)

Joseph worked, though he himself couldn’t make a single grain grow. The earth produced abundantly by God’s grace and power. Then Joseph and his collection teams stored up grain in great abundance, and Moses likens it to the sand of the sea, a metaphor important to promises of God given to Joseph’s father (see 32:12). As Solomon would later make silver as prevalent as stones in Israel due to its abundance, the Egyptian government stopped even trying to quantify the grain stores.

Assiduous means showing great care and perseverance. Joseph did not think to himself, “I’ve slaved for thirteen years, I deserve a break. Make others do the work.” As prime minister he exercises assiduous oversight with wisdom, energy, diligence, and ability to lead.

Moses records a second kind of fruitfulness Joseph experienced before finishing the seven years of plenty. Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” It has now been nineteen years since being sold away from his family, and with the birth of his first son Joseph is so overwhelmed with joy that the pain is (almost) forgotten. The name Manasseh sounds like “making to forget” in Hebrew. The use of Hebrew rather than Egyptian names means hasn’t forgotten everything he came from.

It might seem dishonorable to forget his father, Israel, and the promises given by God to and through Israel. But Joseph clearly hasn’t forgotten all about them; he’s referring to them at the moment. He’s emphasizing that the hardship was forgotten, as if he said, “God’s grace has painted over all the suffering caused by my father’s sons.”

The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” This second son’s name sounds like “making fruitful” in Hebrew. Joseph recognizes God’s blessing on him even in the soil of suffering. He got grief from his father’s house, and grief in Egypt, but God was good to him.

What else could God have given to Joseph? God gave him the whole world and yet Joseph did not lose his soul. His plans had worked. The economy was strong and years of extra grain was stored against the future. He had his own family. Things were good. And instead of swelling pride and a head trip, Joseph humbly gives credit to God.

The final paragraphs of chapter 41 begin to fulfill the dreams of two people, Pharaoh and Joseph himself. The famine arrives as scheduled and the shortage of food will draw Joseph’s brothers from Canaan in the next chapter.

The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.” (Genesis 41:53–55)

The seven years of plenty…occurred…as Joseph had said. Joseph’s words were corroborated and his trustworthiness increased; he was a man to be listened to. That the seven years of famine began to come indicates that the famine didn’t arrive overnight. There may not have been a clear break in seasons. But however quickly the people realized it, two things were true: in all the land of Egypt there was bread and also all the land of Egypt was famished. This isn’t a contradiction because being hungry is not the same as not knowing where the store is. The shelves in the store may be full even if your stomach isn’t. When the people cried to Pharaoh for bread he sent them to Joseph. Pharaoh wasn’t distancing himself from the needs of his people, he had already appointed Joseph to take care of his people. Joseph was ready to open the storehouses rather than hoard the grain.

So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth. (Genesis 41:56–57)

Not only did the Egyptians come to buy bread, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth. This was a severe famine indeed.

The fix is in. Joseph’s brothers will soon need to come get food from the only person in the world who has it: Joseph. God fixed the years of abundance as surely as He fixed the years of famine. God fixed the day of Pharaoh’s dream as surely as He fixed the magicians’ ignorance. God fixed the who, the what, the when, the where, for sake of His why.

The lengths God went to raise Joseph took no little coordination. The lengths included brotherly bitterness, false accusations by Potiphar’s wife, and disregarded ability the chief cupbearer. The lengths included political figures all the way up to the King, economic and industrial programs, and domestic and international crisis. All this was used by God to make Joseph glorious; He predestined Joseph’s glorification. When we encounter God, we encounter the glorifying God, the God who glorifies. God has fixed glory for His people.

The fixed purpose of God to glorify does not make us idle or ungrateful or unprepared. God’s word reveals our responsibilities as well as God’s control over all things.

This is Paul’s message in Romans 8. God predestined His people for glorification, though the path is suffering. He purposes the end and He purposes the preparation process which often involves pain. But this pain conforms us to Christ’s image, and this future is fixed by God.