Study the Word

Guest (Male): Why does God sometimes say no to our prayers? With some encouragement, here's Pastor Tom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: Trust him that if he isn't answering your prayers the way you're asking, it's because he has something even better. That is God's heart. I don't care what you're in. I don't care what you're going through. That is God's heart for you.

Does that mean you stop praying the way you've been praying? Maybe. Maybe you pray exactly the way you do. Just add that caveat on the end. But God, if you don't answer this in the way that I believe to be best, I so believe that your love is so powerful and strong and committed to bless me that if you don't, it's going to be because you have something even greater in mind. That is God's heart.

Guest (Male): The Bible assures us that God works all things together for the good of His children, in accordance with His good purposes. It's a comforting truth, especially when in great difficulty.

And yet in those times, when we need it most, it's a challenge to really believe it. It's why we need constant reminders. Today's study the Word will help us do just that. Hello and welcome.

Our teacher Tom Keller is back in the book of Genesis. We're at the point in our study of the life of Joseph, where all the suffering will be greatly offset by the deep restoration of his family. From Genesis chapter 44, picking up in verse 18. Here's Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: Then Judah stepped forward and said, "My lord, let me say this one word to you. Be patient with me for a moment. For I know that you could have me killed in an instant, as though you were Pharaoh himself.

You asked us, my lord, if we had a father or a brother. We said, 'Yes, we have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, his youngest son. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children. And his father loves him very much.'

Again, all his brothers are standing there. And you said to us, 'Bring him here so that I can see him.' But we said to you, my lord, 'The boy cannot leave his father, or his father would die.' But you told us, 'You may not see me again unless your youngest brother is with you.'

So we returned to our father and told him what you said. And when he said, 'Go back again and buy us a little food,' we replied, 'We can't.' Talking to their father, 'We can't, unless our youngest brother goes with us. We won't be allowed to see the man in charge of the grain, unless our youngest brother is with us.'

Then my father said to us, 'You know that my wife had two sons, and that one of them went away and never returned, doubtless torn to pieces by some wild animal.'

Pastor Thom Keller: Interesting, he uses the word 'doubtless' there. Isn't that interesting? He could have said, 'He went away and never returned, torn to pieces by some wild animal.' But he adds a little word in there that would almost imply, I'm not sure, he was torn to pieces by wild animals. I don't know.

Pastor Thom Keller: I have never seen him since. If you take away his brother from me too, and any harm comes to him, you would bring my gray head down to the grave in deep sorrow. And now, my lord, I cannot go back to my father without the boy. Our father's life is bound up in this boy's life.

When he sees that the boy is not with us, our father will die. We will be responsible for bringing his gray head down to the grave in sorrow. My lord, I made a pledge to my father that I would care for this boy. I told him if I don't bring him back to you, I will bear the blame forever. Please, my lord.

Pastor Thom Keller: See what a photograph of Jesus that is. You know, that's exactly the line, the position that Jesus has in everyone. Jesus' statement is, "How can I return to my father if you are not with me? I cannot bear to see what this would do to him."

Pastor Thom Keller: You know, God's desire is that every one of us would be with Him one day in heaven. That's His desire. And Jesus, when He gave His life on the cross, it was exactly for that point. I cannot bear to see what He would do to my father, one of these. One of these, His children, not being with Him.

Pastor Thom Keller: F. B. Meyer, a commentator, said this, "In all of literature, there is nothing more pathetic than this appeal." Pathetic meaning an impassioned plea. Loophole, the commentator, said, "This is one of the manliest, most straightforward speeches ever delivered by a man." Barnhouse called it "the most moving address in the Word of God," this address made by Judah.

Pastor Thom Keller: Judah offers his life in exchange for vengeance. You know, it's interesting, Abraham and Isaac, if you remember Isaac was sacrificed. Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, but it was Abraham's idea. Isaac went along with it, but it was Abraham's idea. This was Judah's idea. This was Judah's commitment, Judah's willingness to take that penalty for him.

Pastor Thom Keller: Let's go on to chapter 45. It says, "Joseph could stand it no longer." Judah makes his passionate appeal. They passed the test. And I personally think right here, I personally believe that, and again, this is just my opinion, but I think that Joseph at this point had a plan to go one way or the other.

Pastor Thom Keller: And I don't think that he could really let his heart vulnerable and open because he still knew that if they failed this test, he had to take a hard line against them. He was going to do something. But they passed the test. And I think when that, when they passed this test, and that hard line position was eradicated from his plan. I think the dam of emotion just broke.

Pastor Thom Keller: And it says, "Joseph could stand it no longer. 'Out, all of you!'" he cried to his attendants. He wanted to be alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. Then he broke down and wept aloud. His sobs could be heard throughout the palace and the news was quickly carried to Pharaoh's palace.

Pastor Thom Keller: Now picture this. They're brought in before this, this, all these men around with the big swords, you know, him up on this throne, I picture him, "What, didn't you know that I'd be able to tell who took the cup?"

Pastor Thom Keller: You know, and they think they're going to die. All of a sudden, Judah makes his passionate appeal. There's silence. And he says, "Everybody out!" They all get out fast. He's crying, sobbing uncontrollably. What do you think these guys thought?

Pastor Thom Keller: I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine what they thought. He's up there crying, coming down, crying. It would have been an amazing thing. He says, in Hebrew, "I am Joseph!" he said to his brothers.

Pastor Thom Keller: What do you picture there? Like a fire hydrant hitting him full force, knocking him over backwards, "I am Joseph!" You know, what? "Hebrew. Is my father still alive?" But his brothers were speechless. They were stunned to realize that Joseph was standing there in front of them. "Come over here," he said, so they came closer. And again he said, "I am Joseph, your brother whom you sold into Egypt."

Pastor Thom Keller: You know, in dysfunctional families, you don't talk about stuff that went wrong. You don't talk about stuff that should be talked about. You let the stuff go that really should be brought to the surface and discussed. He didn't. He brought it up. He didn't minimize what they did. He said, "Your brother whom you sold into Egypt."

Pastor Thom Keller: "But don't be angry with yourselves that you did this to me, for God did it." He sent ahead of you to preserve your lives. These two years of famine will grow to seven, during which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God has sent me here to keep you and your families alive, so that you will become a great nation.

Pastor Thom Keller: Yes, it was God who sent me here, not you. And he has made me a counselor to Pharaoh, manager of his entire household, and ruler all of all of Egypt.

Pastor Thom Keller: How is it that Joseph made himself known to them? Where it says, he said, "Come a little closer," so they came closer. Jewish tradition has it that Joseph probably showed his brothers that he had been circumcised. Because to an Israelite, an Egyptian being circumcised wasn't even a possibility.

Pastor Thom Keller: It would have been one of one of the best indicators, proof that he was in fact who he said he was. That was clearly in Jewish tradition. Well, now imagine the brothers right now. They come back panicked. Their father's greatest fears are realized. Benjamin is going to be taken as a slave.

Pastor Thom Keller: Judah had told his father before they left, "If I don't bring him back, let me bear the blame forever." Reuben had said, "If I don't bring him back, may you kill my two sons if he doesn't come back." Jacob had said, "If anything happens to Benjamin, you will be responsible for bringing me down to my grave."

Pastor Thom Keller: They are standing there in front of him panicked, their worst nightmares realized. And in that fast, it's turned. He says, "Don't be angry at yourselves, you didn't do this to me. God did."

Pastor Thom Keller: You know, there's a tremendous lesson here. His brothers had free will to do evil, and they exercised that free will. But God, in His providence, was able to use that evil that the brothers exercised in their free will to bring about good.

Pastor Thom Keller: That is incredibly significant in all of our lives today. To make a point, why was Joseph in Egypt? Was it because of the sins of his brothers? Or was it because of the good plan of God?

Pastor Thom Keller: Was it because the sins of his brothers that he was in Egypt, or because the providence of God? The answer is yes. Right? Both. The Bible says that all things work together for good according to His purpose.

Pastor Thom Keller: Here's the point. You know, I was thinking about this this morning when we were meeting for prayer out there. Let's say when Joseph was working in Potiphar's household. He was chief administrator of Potiphar's household, remember? Second in command, only to Potiphar, everything went well.

Pastor Thom Keller: Let's say that he made a lot of friends in that household. He probably did. And when when some of those friends that worked with him in that household saw that he was put into prison unjustly, it would make sense that some of them would have started praying. In our current day, they would have started praying for Joseph.

Pastor Thom Keller: Right? He's in prison, they start praying. What do you think they would have been praying for? Yeah, his release. Get him out of prison. Can you imagine prayer meetings all over Egypt? The word gets out. This wicked woman, Potiphar's wife, had this very nice, godly man unjustly put in prison.

Pastor Thom Keller: Circulate the world, get on the internet, get on everybody's prayer list, you know, get it up, put it on the evening news. Pray for Joseph, pray for Joseph, pray for Joseph that he's let out of prison. Pray for Joseph that he's let out of prison. Pray for Joseph that he gets out of prison.

Pastor Thom Keller: What would have happened if Joseph would have got out of prison? The whole plan would have stopped. God had a plan. God had a plan.

Pastor Thom Keller: And you know, that's why it is so important in our prayer life that when we pray to God, we understand that we're praying to a God who wants to do more than we could ever imagine, dream, hope, beyond our highest prayers. His desire in answering our prayers is to do infinitely beyond what we could hope.

Pastor Thom Keller: And you know, there are sometimes that we're going to be praying for something that we are so sure to be the best. Now, if it's in God's Word, you can pray for that, and that is His best. But apart from that, if you're in a situation and you're praying for something, and you're sure it's best for this man to get out of prison, it may not be. It may not be.

Pastor Thom Keller: And that's where the confidence in God's love comes into place. Because what it comes down to is praying this way: God, I can't imagine a greater blessing than Joseph getting out of prison. I just can't imagine a greater blessing. What could be better than that? To my understanding. But God, You are God.

Pastor Thom Keller: If You have a plan that is beyond this, a better plan, a plan that would bring greater blessings, then that's my prayer for Joseph. And God, I so trust in Your love. I so trust in Your ability to to bring about good in every situation to someone who trusts You in it. I so believe it that if You do not get Joseph out of prison, I believe with all my heart it will only be because You're going to do something even greater than what I can imagine.

Pastor Thom Keller: See, that expresses confidence in God, that He can take a situation that seems dire and desperate, and take it and and just blow right past what you're asking, and take you through it and beyond it into a part of your life that you never would have imagined. You never would have been able to even to pray that you could end up in the place where God sees you ending up.

Pastor Thom Keller: If you just trust Him through that, and trust Him that if He isn't answering your prayers the way you're asking, it's because He has something even better. That is the heart of God. That is God's heart. I don't care what you're in. I don't care what you're going through. That is God's heart for you.

Pastor Thom Keller: Does that mean you stop praying the way you've been praying? Maybe. Maybe you pray exactly the way you do. Just add that caveat on the end. But God, if you don't answer this in the way that I believe to be best, I so believe that your love is so powerful and strong and committed to bless me that if you don't, it's going to be because you have something even greater in mind. That is God's heart.

Pastor Thom Keller: Verse 9. "Hurry, return to my father and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master over all the land of Egypt. Come down to me right away. You will live in the land of Goshen, so you can be near me with all your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all that you have. I will take care of you there, for there are still five years of famine ahead of us.'"

Pastor Thom Keller: Otherwise, you and your household will come to utter poverty. They're only two years into the famine. Then Joseph said, "You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that I really am Joseph."

Pastor Thom Keller: Why did he say that? Why did he put Benjamin in a different category? Because Benjamin had never really seen Joseph. He was born just as Joseph was sold into slavery.

Pastor Thom Keller: "Tell how I am honored here in Egypt. Tell him about everything you have seen, and bring him to me quickly." Weeping for joy, he embraced Benjamin, and Benjamin began to weep. Then Joseph kissed each of his brothers and wept over them. Kissed each of his brothers, each, and wept over them, and then began talking freely with them.

Pastor Thom Keller: You know, there were ten brothers that were were shocked at who this was. There were ten brothers that were not shocked by what he said. There was one brother that would have been absolutely blown away by what he said. Do you think Benjamin knew that his ten brothers that he had been living with for the last twenty some years had sold his only blood brother off into slavery?

Pastor Thom Keller: Uh-uh. I don't think there's a chance. Not the favored son. So as Benjamin is standing there with the other ten and he says, "You sold me off into slavery," Benjamin is, "Whoa! Who've I been living with?" "You didn't- no, you- they didn'- oh!"

Pastor Thom Keller: Can you imagine that? What a revelation that would have been to him. Wow. What do you think they talked about? Were there some confessions took place in that? We don't hear of confessions anyplace else. It doesn't come up. It probably happened there. Joseph, we're so sorry.

Pastor Thom Keller: Can you forgive us? We lived with this thing all these years. Talked about the children maybe, memories, Dad's health, how things are going. They talked freely.

Pastor Thom Keller: Verse 16, "The news soon reached Pharaoh. Joseph's brothers have come." Pharaoh was very happy to hear this and so were his officials. Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers to load their pack animals and return quickly to their homes in Canaan. Tell them to bring your father and all their family, and to come here to Egypt to live. Tell them, 'Pharaoh will assign to you the very best territory in the land of Egypt. You will live off the fat of the land.'"

Pastor Thom Keller: "And tell your brothers to take wagons from Egypt to carry their wives and little ones and to bring your father here. Don't worry about your belongings, for all the best of the land of Egypt is yours." So the sons of Jacob did as they were told. Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had commanded, and he supplied them with provisions for the journey. And he gave each of them new clothes.

Pastor Thom Keller: Jordache, I think it was. But to Benjamin he gave five changes of clothes and three hundred pieces of silver. He sent his father ten donkeys loaded with good things of Egypt and ten donkeys loaded with grain of all kinds and other food to be eaten on his journey.

Pastor Thom Keller: So he sent his brothers off. And as he left, he called after them, "Don't quarrel along the way." And they left Egypt and returned to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. Why do you think he said, "Don't quarrel along the way?" What do you think he figures they're going to be quarreling about?

Pastor Thom Keller: "Yeah, I told you shouldn't have done it." "It wasn't my idea, it was your idea." "I'm the one that said to sell him." "What do you mean, it was my idea? No, you wanted to kill him, remember?" "You're the one that killed the animal and got the blood to make it look, you know, so fake." "You're the one that's been saying to Dad all this time, who you, you know, bragging about, 'We'd never do that. We'd never do that. We'd never do that.'"

Pastor Thom Keller: And the whole time Benjamin going, "What? What? You guys, you're sick. You guys are sick." So he knows they're going to be quarreling along the way. Do you think they are thinking about how they're going to explain this to their dad?

Pastor Thom Keller: Oh man. Oh man. And if Jacob had a little suspicion to begin with. Can you imagine this unloading this on him? You know we never really know exactly how they handled that. They go back in verse 26, it says, "Joseph is still alive," they told him, "and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt."

Pastor Thom Keller: Jacob was stunned at the news. This is probably an understatement. Jacob was stunned at the news. He couldn't believe it. But when they had given him Joseph's message, and when he saw the wagons loaded with food sent by Joseph, his spirit revived.

Pastor Thom Keller: Now there isn't a little bit of a skeptic that can't help but believe that there was still a little bit of that grabber in Jacob. And when he saw all that stuff in those wagons, and when they said, "The best of the land of Egypt," you know, you know, "Let everything here, you're not going to miss a thing because we're going to give you so much more." He said, "You're going to live off the fat of the land." "Look at this wagon, all this food, all these priceless stuff."

Pastor Thom Keller: Oh. Still a little flesh in there. Isn't that true? We never lose all of our flesh. We'd like to, but it, you know, he, don't get me wrong, he absolutely was revived by the news that his son was alive. But I I think that went somewhere too, I think. His spirit was revived. "I will go back and see him before I die."

Pastor Thom Keller: Father still has the same heart. He has this almost, and Dan has said it before. You get this picture that again, that that Jacob's heart was almost dead. This revived it, but even after it revived, he said, "I will see my son before I die."

Pastor Thom Keller: It's interesting, he actually lived seventeen more years. So, makes you think. I had a longer story to tell, but I don't have time to tell a longer story, so I'm going to tell a shorter story. I understand this is a true story.

Pastor Thom Keller: A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him it was all he wanted for graduation. That's all he wanted, huh?

Pastor Thom Keller: Well, as graduation day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was of having such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. And he handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. The son, of course, expecting the title to the car.

Pastor Thom Keller: Curious and somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely leather-bound Bible and stormed out of the house. He never saw his father again. Many years passed, and the young man was successful in business. He had a beautiful home and a wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since his graduation day.

Pastor Thom Keller: But before he could make arrangements to go, he received a telegram telling him that his father had passed away and had willed all of his possessions to his only son. He needed to come home immediately to take care of things. When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.

Pastor Thom Keller: He began to search through his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. His father had carefully underlined a verse, Matthew 7:11.

Pastor Thom Keller: "And if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, which is in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask." As he read those words out of that Bible, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation and these words, "Paid in full."

Pastor Thom Keller: Now, here's the question. How many times in life have we missed God's blessing because the blessing didn't come packaged as we thought it should have come? You know, it's not for us to judge the package. It's up to us to trust in the providence of the One who has allowed us to be where we are. And to believe that all things do work together for good.

Guest (Male): A touching story Pastor Tom Keller wraps up our time together with. You're on Study the Word. Our God does indeed know how to give good gifts, and work all things together for good, and you can trust Him to do so in your life as well.

Pastor Tom Keller is leading us through Genesis at the present time. You can hear this message again, as well as what you may have missed in the series online at CCLEB.com. You can also call and request a CD copy at 717-507-7862. That's 717-507-7862.

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And we'd love to have you visit us at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. See when and where we meet as you visit CCLEB.com. And download our free church app. Search Calvary Chapel Lebanon in the Google Play Store. Calvary Chapel Lebanon is pleased to present Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller on this station and many others like it. Come back next time when we'll resume our series in Genesis.