Ankerberg Show

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome. You know, every one of us will face difficult seasons in life. Some of you have lost someone you loved. Maybe you've received a diagnosis you never expected. Perhaps your marriage is struggling. Finances have been turned upside down, or you've been treated unfairly by friends. Some of you have been praying to God, waiting for an answer, and you're still waiting. When life hasn't gone the way we planned, we all ask the same questions. God, where are you? Do you see what I'm going through? Will you help me? Those are real questions. And the wonderful news is that God gives real answers in his word.

My guests today are Anne Graham Lotz and her daughter Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright. They will assert that God will lead you through life's deepest struggles, and they will prove this by taking us through the remarkable story of Joseph, a man betrayed by his family, sexually tempted, a man who experienced injustice, disappointment, and use in prison waiting to be free, relying on God's faithfulness every step of the way. Further, Joseph couldn't see what God was doing, but God knew exactly where Joseph was at, and he had a plan for his life. And God knows exactly where you are today and has a plan for your life.

To hear more, join us as we begin this edition of the John Ankerberg Show.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. I'm John Ankerberg, and we have two wonderful guests with us. We've got Anne Graham Lotz, and we've got her daughter Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright. And today, I want to ask you a question. You feeling guilty? Did you do something wrong? You know you should set your sorry, you haven't done it. You had a little daughter. Her name is Reagan. And the fact is I want you to illustrate what guilt is like.

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: Well, she's not little anymore, but when she was, she came walking into my room one day, and I noticed that her arms were wet up to her elbows. And she was like, Mommy, she said, uh, the fish is laying on top of the water. And I was like, So, and I knew what that meant. I mean, the fish was dead, but I just said, Reagan, so tell me what happened. And she said, Well, I just wanted to pet him. And so I knew that I needed to talk her through it and say, Reagan, you know that I've told you you can't pet the fish.

And she just had all this guilt on her. She just felt so sick. And so I just pulled her up in my lap. I gave her a hug. I told her it was okay. And I explained to her why she shouldn't have pet the fish, but that, you know, I forgave her for doing that. And it just showed such a picture. It was a picture of just the guilt that can just eat you alive. You know, we're guilty up to our elbows in sin. But the Lord is so sweet. He doesn't smack us around and kick us to the curb.

Instead, he just pulls us up in his lap and loves us and woos us back to him and forgives us. And we've got to come to him. We can't just ignore him and be, you know, riddled in our guilt and just hide from him. We need to come to Jesus and tell him we're sorry and name it for what it is. And he's so faithful to forgive. And it's so much of what happens in Joseph's story.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yep. Let's talk right there. The fact is, uh, the road to repentance is not necessarily quick. There's some people that are listening to us. They've been, uh, living with guilt for 10, 15, 20 years, something that they did to somebody in the family, or there's a secret, or they stole some money, or a lot of different things. You name it. And the fact is whatever you're feeling guilty about, I want you to listen to this story today. We're going back to Joseph that we've been talking about, who's in the Old Testament. You go back to Genesis 37, 38, right in that area, 39.

The fact is you will find Joseph's story. And, uh, he had a rough beginning, ended up, uh, in Egypt, where he didn't know the language. He was put up as a slave. He was brought into Potiphar's house, who was the commander of the Pharaoh's, uh, army. The fact is he was the captain that took care of the soldiers. And Joseph, he was a terrific guy and got He was with God. He trusted God. His brothers had actually betrayed him and sold him as a slave. Can you believe that? So, uh, he was there, and God was bringing him up in Potiphar's house.

And the servants loved him. But the wife wanted him for sex. And he was tempted. He turned her down, but she framed him. She took his coat, cloak, whatever you want to say. And the fact is he ran out of the room. She held this up to her husband, and she did theatrical little production on him and said, You know, he tried to rape me. And look, you let him do all of this. So, Potiphar threw him into a prison, a jail. And the fact is he was there for what, 12 years? 12 years. He didn't do anything.

He didn't do anything wrong. And he was there. And God sent in some people, and God gave them the information about their dreams. And he said, You know, please tell Pharaoh when you see him. They'd worked for Pharaoh, guy that was in charge of all of Egypt. And one guy was killed. The other guy was raised up. And the guy that was raised up, he said, Yeah, I'll remember you. Forgot all about him. Until Pharaoh himself had a dream. And the dream bothered him so much, he called all the wise men into the court. And they couldn't answer what the world that dream was all about.

And that was when the cupbearer said, You know what? I remember there's this guy that's in the dungeon down here, and he has a God that actually told me what was going to happen to me, and it happened. Pharaoh says, Get him up here. Got him up there real quick, and actually told the story to Joseph. And the fact is Joseph asked God, God, give me the answer. And God gave him the interpretation of the dreams. And because of that, he was put second in the whole land under Pharaoh. And he said there's going to be 7 years of plenty, lots of grain, lots of food.

And there's going to be 7 years of famine. Now, he's in that position, and he's still got brothers and a family back in Canaan that had sold him. You know? And he knew about it. And he was just letting it roll. And the fact is but God had other plans. And when the 7 years of plenty went by, the fact is when the famine came along, it not only went through Egypt, but up to Canaan and all across the country, across the world. And the fact is is that Jacob says to his 10 other sons, Listen, we're all going to starve to death.

Go on down to Egypt. I think there's some grain down there. Go down there, or we're going all going to die. Buy it and bring it back. So, they went down. They come and Joseph Pharaoh had raised him up to control all of the growth of the grain in Egypt. And he said, Listen, because God's going to do this, we got to store it away. And so he was storing it all over the place. He had so much these they quit counting about it, but he kept on. Every little bit he kept cuz he knew the famine was coming.

So, here are 10 brothers standing. And Joseph is the guy managing all of this. And what happened?

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: It actually is amazing because Joseph, I believe, made the decision before they even got there. All those years of suffering, he could have been building up resentment, anger, you know, plotting his revenge to his brothers that had so wrongfully caused not just a month of suffering, but 14 years of horrific suffering. And I believe that Joseph let it go. He had forgiven them to his core so that the point when he's sitting there in charge of all of Egypt and his brothers walk in and he sees them, it is a miracle. It's supernatural that he did not immediately have them seized and either thrown into prison or executed on the spot.

And people would have been like, Oh, yeah, after they found out his story and be like, Well, good riddens. But instead, Joseph not only forgave them, but restrained himself. And it is such a lesson to us because they're standing in front of him and needing grain. And God puts Joseph give gives him such wisdom in how to deal with his brothers. But I think the biggest point is the fact that he forgave them. He did not seek vengeance right then. He gave it to the Lord, and he genuinely from his heart forgave. And that's what we have to do.

When we have been wrongly here, all of us have. We've been hurt, abused, suffered greatly. And we have to choose to forgive to our core. And that means we're not going to seek vengeance. We're going to actually let it go and let God take care of it. And that's what Joseph did. It is the most beautiful picture of forgiveness and one that we need to copy.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah, but Anne, the fact is there's the other side of this. And that's the 10 brothers that sold him into slavery. So, Joseph in his heart he had forgiven him, but he didn't tell him yet. Fact, they didn't even know who he was. They were just scared of him because he was the top dog here in Egypt underneath the Pharaoh. All right? And he 's looking at his brothers that sold him into slavery. Now, Anne, if you're looking at somebody that sold you into slavery for, say, you know, 12 years and then two more on top of that, 14 years, these guys that are standing in front of you.

Now, he could have forgiven them in their heart, but he wanted to know if they would repent, if they had anything in them that God would do that would change their heart and they would be softened enough to say, I was wrong. I'm sorry. So, he tested him. How did he test him?

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: And it was an amazing story because when he's, you know, Lord of all of Egypt and he's handling the grain and all that and imagine he's standing in the administration hall, and he would look like an Egyptian, face shaved, head gear on, eye makeup, short skirt, you know, just powerfully built, and everybody bowing to him. And here come these 10 shepherds from Canaan, and he knows who they are, but they don't know he who he is. He speaks to an interpreter. He's speaking the Egyptian language. They think he's an Egyptian lord. They have no idea, but they bow down before him.

So, he sees his dream that God gave him when he was 17 fulfilled. And I just want to go back and pin point he he was sold into slavery at 17. So, then you add 14 years to that of imprisonment and enslavement. So, that's 30 years. He was 30 years old when he entered Pharaoh's service. And then you've got 7 years of plenty. That's 37. Then two more years when his brothers came down, he was 39 years old when these brothers came in. And so that happened a long time ago. And I think sometimes we've done something wrong.

And I'm not thinking of just somebody who's wronged me, but have I done something wrong that was a long time ago that I've sort of brushed under the rug. I don't think so much about it anymore. I think God's let me get by with it. But God, you know, sometimes he works very slowly. And so he had let those brothers get by with all of this for a long time. Not really get by with it because Judah was a mess. And they caused Jacob They didn't realize that their father would grieve the entire time. He never got over Joseph.

Um, he thought being killed. And so, you know, they had suffered some, but I think they had just felt like they could get by with it. And then Joseph, when he saw them, instead of throwing them into prison, he put them to the test. They He sold them the grain they wanted. But then he had his steward put the silver that they paid the for the grain in their sacks. And so they didn't know that until they got to the first night. And they went to, you know, camp out for the night on their way back to Canaan.

And the guy opened his sack and saw the silver, and they were terrified because, um, they didn't know where it had come from. They knew they had paid for it, but now they knew if they went back to Egypt, they'd be accused of stealing. So, instead of going back to Egypt, they went back to Jacob. They went back to Canaan, told them what had happened, thinking they could get by with it, but the famine outlasted the grain that they had bought. So, what Joseph was doing was just awakening within them a remembrance because they begin to say, God is dealing with us this way because of what we did to Joseph.

They're beginning to remember and know that this is the fruit of their guilt. This is the fruit of their sin.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah. I'd like to ask some of you at home, could you be like Joseph? If somebody had wronged you like his brothers had wronged him for all of those years, and they're standing in front of you, and you got power to either put them in prison, sue them, do whatever you want, would you forgive them? Maybe God's working on you because they've already said they're sorry, and you haven't forgiven them. You need to forgive them. But some of you, you're working with some people that are stubborn, and you're praying that they will have a heart change.

And you have been willing to forgive them, but they have not repented. They have not said they're sorry. And so, here are these brothers, and he, uh, has them standing before him. And he wants to find out. So, he gives them a little test. He says, Go on back. And he says, First of all, you know, tell me about your family. Is your father still living? Is your anybody else? And they go through this whole thing, you know. We have a wealthy father, and the fact is he had 12 sons. The first one, you know, he's dead.

And the fact is we got the 10 here, but he has got a special one at home. And you know, they didn't really say anything about the fact of what they had done to Joseph. And he's standing there listening. And he says, All right, if you're really telling the truth. He accused them. God gave them the wisdom. He says, You're really spies. And he says, To prove that you're not spies, you go home and you get that other brother and you bring them to me. That's Benjamin. And why was that special, Anne?

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: Well, Benjamin was his uh, full-fledged brother. So, Jacob had four wives. He had sons by all four, but his favorite wife, it's horrible to say it, had a favorite wife was Rachel. Uh, and she had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. So, Joseph of Jacob thought was dead. And Benjamin was the only son left from his favorite wife. And so, he loved Benjamin and wanted to protect him. And so, for Jacob to think of entrusting Benjamin to the 10 older boys and taking him down to Egypt was beyond what Jacob could do. I I do want to make this point because Joseph had chosen to forgive.

And forgiveness John is a choice. You don't have to feel like forgiving. You just choose to forgive. And the Bible says we choose to forgive because God in Christ has forgiven us. So, I don't forgive that other person who's wronged me because he deserves it, because he doesn't, but I forgive because God has forgiven me and I didn't deserve it either. And so, forgiveness is a choice, but reconciliation takes two people. And so, Joseph desperately wanted to reconcile with his family, but he couldn't do that by brushing this under the rug. They had to come to the point that they would acknowledge what they'd done, bring it out, set it right before he knew that their hearts had changed.

Otherwise, he could be going from the frying pan into the fire. You know, he could just be going right back into a situation where they were still the mean, cut throat, jealous, um, you know, violently cruel brothers. Um, and he had to know he he was trying to find out if their hearts had changed or if God in this process could change their hearts.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah, and being a God fearer, I liked what you put in the book. When somebody comes and, uh, they, uh, want to have compassion and they want to have mercy and, uh, they ask for forgiveness. But the fact is it doesn't mean you automatically give it because you want to see if there's a real heart change there. Uh, we've got people that in fake news have accused all of us of certain things. Not true. And, uh, they call themselves Christians, but the fact is they just print lies. So, you need to test them. And Joseph was testing them.

Did their heart really change? Or were they trying to get out of it? And Rachel Ruth, tell me about the fact of this thing of believers ought to test some of these people that have accused others or stolen things. And they just want to come and say, Hey, I'm sorry.

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: Well, I think it's important that we are talking to the Lord. We're coming to his word. We're praying. We're seeking wisdom because this plan that Joseph came up with only could have come from the Lord. And in fact, when he immediately when he accuses them of being spies, he puts them all in prison for 3 days. And it was after those 3 days, he said, Because I fear God, I will only keep one of you and the rest go back. And I want you to bring back Benjamin. And so, he had to check his heart.

He had to go before the Lord. He had to calm down from just seeing his brothers. And I think sometimes we need to take a step back, pray for wisdom, pray for God to give us the wisdom to know how to go forward because we can't come up with I can't even tell you how to reconcile with the person, but God can give you the wisdom. And I think the big thing is is we can't just brush it on the rug and all of a sudden he's buddy buddy with his brothers. You have to see that there's a genuine heart change because we have to also be protective, you know.

And I think the point is stay close to the Lord, be moldable by the Lord, allow God to lead you. He will give you wisdom on the spot like he did when Joseph was before Pharaoh, like he did when he was before his brothers, when all you want to see is red hot anger in your eyes, but instead he did the wise thing and he Yeah, and there's a tip off here that God gave him. The fact is there was two languages they were speaking. He was speaking Egyptian. They were speaking Hebrew. And the fact is is that they didn't know that he knew Hebrew.

And the Bible says when they were talking to one another in front of him after he told them, You got to go back and you got to bring that brother Benjamin. You got to bring him to me, okay? I want to prove that you're not spies. And the Bible says, I think either Reuben or one of the brothers were saying, Surely we are being punished because of our brother. They're talking about what they did to Joseph. We saw how distressed he was when he pled with us for his life. Now, Joseph is listening to this and he's understanding what they're saying, and they don't know he knows what they're saying.

And one of the brothers goes on and says, But we would not listen when he was pleading with us for his life. That's why this distress has come upon us. And then Reuben says, Well, listen, we've got to go back. And you know, I'll give my own two sons. Okay? So, you have a disjointed family, too. He was willing to give up killed two of his own boys. And so, he could prove that, you know, they were really changed. So, you had a really a broken family here. But anyway, Reuben made that offer. And so, Joseph sent him back.

And they had to tell their father Jacob. So, we're getting down to a really a hard spot because they haven't told him the truth yet either. They don't know that Joseph's alive. That's still coming up. We'll do that in the next program. But the fact is God was working on these brothers and bringing them around to repentance. The sin that they might have forgotten, they'd sold their brother. They'd put him into a pit. And they didn't know if he was dead or alive. They lied to their father. Their father was depressed for a long time.

God was bringing them around to repentance. And maybe God's bringing you around to repentance of something that you did a long time ago. It's taken a while, but God's brought some circumstances into your life. And all of a sudden, boom, you're going to have to deal with it. Anne, talk about that. Well, I think it's a journey. You know, that why we called the road to repentance because sometimes it doesn't happen quickly. And unless that other person is willing to meet you in reconciliation, uh, to be honest, John, I I have people that I've not been able to reconcile with I've forgiven them.

I've reached out. I think when we forgive somebody, it helps set us free. If we do something to bless them, if we give them a gift, we make a phone call, we write a letter, we, um, do something that would bless them, but when they don't respond and they don't admit anything they've done that's wrong, then that relationship is not restored. And so, I I would say for people like your fake news people that you some people you can't trust anymore. You know, you you just agree to sort of disagree, but in this case Joseph and I I think Rachel Ruth was very wise to point out that when he put those brothers in prison for 3 days, that was to give him Maybe it's like a time of prayer and fasting where he was really seeking God, What do I do?

And then God gave him this idea of bringing his brothers to this point because not only he wanted to reconcile, but God needed them reconcile because these are the 12 brothers all together are going to be the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel. I mean, their names are written on the gates of heaven, you know. I mean, this is the embryo nation of Israel. And so, God needed them to come together as a family.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Okay, here's the thing. Is that we're talking about the road to repentance. And the fact is, uh, the brothers were on that road. And yet some of our viewers they know they're guilty. They've done something to somebody. Could be family, could be relatives, could be friends that they work with, could be anybody. And they haven't repented. I want you to say a prayer and ask God to help them have the courage to say, I was wrong. Ask God to forgive them and then take whatever steps it is to say they're sorry to the other person.

Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright: And And I think you just hit on it today. It takes courage. It takes courage to say that you did something wrong and that you've covered it up and you haven't repented. So, let me pray for you for a moment. So, Father God, we come before you now and I bring these, um, precious people to you perhaps who have buried a sin down deep. And they don't even know that it's that sin down deep and the guilt that's resulted that has kept them from experiencing the fullness of your blessing. They don't have that peace in their hearts.

They don't have that fullness of a a relationship with you. There's something blocking it. There's something that's standing in the way, Lord. And that's what it is. And so, I just ask right now, would you bring to their conscious mind very clearly what it is that they need to confess to you, something they need to turn away from, something perhaps they need to go to somebody else and confess it to and to say, I'm sorry, Lord. It just takes humility and courage to be the first one to say, I'm sorry. So, we just ask that you would, um, work in their hearts even at this moment that you would use this program to soften their hearts like Joseph was softening his brothers' hearts and that you would bring them, uh, to to repentance and that it would be the beginning of reconciliation with with the other people they're estranged from.

So, we we ask, please. We We know that repentance is the key to revival, just an awakening in our own hearts and lives and coming into the fullness of your blessing. So, so I know that's what you want for them. That's what we want for them. We want it for ourselves. So, Lord, um, we thank you that when we come to you like little Reagan came to her mom Rachel Ruth, your arms are open. You're willing to forgive. You're willing to cleanse. You're willing to restore, but you're waiting for us to confess and bring it to you.

So, we we ask that each one listening would make a point to to examine their hearts and come to you and confess the sin that you reveal. And we pray this please, Lord Jesus. Um, it's for that sin you died, actually. It's for that sin that that you shed your own blood that we could be cleansed. And so, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dr. John Ankerberg: All right. Next week, you will not want to miss the program next week because we're going to talk about the road to reconciliation. Okay. Joseph wanted to reconcile with his family. Hadn't seen him for years. Now, his brothers are standing there, and he doesn't know what's in their heart. He gives them a test. But you got a whole bunch of things that are going to happen. You got the father that still doesn't even know that Joseph's alive. The brothers haven't told him that they sold them into slavery. The brothers themselves are under pressure. But God is starting to work on the the the brothers.

And next week, we're going to talk about what it's like to have reconciliation in a family. And folks, some of you you got families. You're not reconciled to your own brothers and sisters or other relatives in the family. And you need to get reconciled. What does it take? We're going to talk about that. It's tough, but the fact is God can help you do it. So, I hope that you'll join us then. Stay tuned. I got a personal word for you in just a minute. Now, thank you for listening to the John Ankerberg Show. We're a listener-supported ministry.

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