Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: Welcome to Truth for Life. Before we begin today's program, we want to invite you to keep listening after Alistair's message to hear an update about his book, *The Man on the Middle Cross*. Today, we're continuing our study of God's providence in the life of Joseph. We'll explore the topic of responding to hardship. Do you endure it without becoming bitter? When you've been mistreated, do you seek revenge rather than offering forgiveness? Alistair Begg reminds us of the nature of true biblical forgiveness. He's beginning in the book of Hebrews.

Alistair Begg: Now, I can't expound this whole chapter and hope to get back to Genesis 50, but I want to give you an outline through it for your own personal study and encouragement. I want you to notice a number of things, and I will simply say them without expansion. Notice here that all that God wants has been accomplished in the giving of His Son, and all that we need in terms of salvation has been accomplished.

We are in Christ, verse 10 tells us, those who have been made holy through the perfect work of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is in need of no contingency plan. It was a once-and-for-all sacrifice. God the Father planned this salvation, and God the Son procured this salvation, and God the Spirit applies this salvation.

You see, what was the great need of the sacrifice of Jesus? What was the problem? Not our predicament, but God's wrath. So that in the dying of the Son, the Father's wrath is propitiated. Christ takes the burden of our sin and our rebellion and our guilt on Him, and we, as a byproduct, discover the wonderful provision of forgiveness and freedom and hope. Because in the death of Christ, He has done all in relationship to sin, He has done all in relationship to God, and He has done all in relationship to Satan.

Verse 13 says, "Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool." Satan was checkmated at Calvary. And the Father and the Son and the Spirit are content, for the time being, to wait for the inevitable submission of the defeated foe. All has been done in relationship to sin. Now, why do we believe these things? Well, we believe these things on the highest of authorities. That's what verse 15 says: "The Holy Spirit testifies to us about this."

How does the Holy Spirit testify to us about this? The Holy Spirit testifies to us about this, first He says, and what happens? He comes to confirm the reality of the finished work of Christ. He bears witness to what is true concerning us, what is true concerning the believer. Look at what it says: "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."

When you become a Christian, God gives to you a new heart. He changes the shape of our heart, and shapes it perfectly for the law of God. So that when the law of God is read, when the law of God is proclaimed, it's not irksome to the believer. His heart has been changed and shaped in such a way that it is the perfect fit for God's law.

Your commands are not irksome to me. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. And that's one of the ways in which we know ourselves to be truly redeemed. There's no conflict between the believer's heart and the requirement of holy living. And progress in Christian living is progress in a life of obedience to God's law.

Now, this is not moralism. Moralism simply says, "Try and be what you are not." Christian ethics, which is here expressed, says, "Come and be what you are." So He bears witness to what is true concerning God, what is true concerning us, and also what is true concerning the relationship of the Father to our sins and our lawless acts. Verse 17 says, "Then he adds, 'Their sins and their lawless acts I will remember no more.'"

So when we come again with our old regrets and with our past confessions, God looks upon us in wonder and He says, "You know, you really do surprise me. I can't remember anything about that at all." Loved ones, this is the message of the gospel. Anything other than this is not the gospel.

If you or I this morning are living tyrannized by the "what if" syndrome—what if the word didn't really mean that, what if Jesus didn't really say that—we have to come back down to base and say, "Let's allow the questions of our hearts to be overturned by our faith so that we may live in humble certainty." All has been blotted out. And if Joseph was able to do it, as a mere man in relationship to his brothers, cannot Christ do it?

There's no need this morning for any of us to find a further sacrifice, no need for us to go and secure another mediator, no need to go and get somebody else to speak in the court of law before the bar of God's judgment on our behalf. When we stand before God sooner or later, we will say, "I need no other sacrifice, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me."

And only when we know ourselves to have been forgiven freely, will we ever freely forgive others. The kind of forgiveness which is unmitigated will only ever emerge from a heart that knows itself to have been radically and undeservedly forgiven. How could I, knowing who I am, withhold forgiveness from another? Only to the degree that I'm living in the realm of what if.

Now, back to Genesis 50. That was a major detour, I recognize it, but purposeful, at least in my mind, and hopefully helpful in yours. Because of their assumption, they come up with a concoction. They concoct a letter and they say, "Your dad left these instructions before he died." They don't take it to him themselves. They sent word to Joseph. They sent a messenger to their brother. These guys were something else, weren't they?

After such a response in Genesis 45, seventeen years in which they're living in the blessings and benefits of the fact that Joseph actually is their brother, as soon as their dad's gone, they're back to their same old tricks again: conniving, lying, cheating, fiddling the books, and filled with paranoia. Old habits die hard. All of our lies and all of our intrigue need to be brought to the cross.

Their assumption leads to the concoction, and the concoction then leads to the action in verse 18. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said. We will always regard ourselves as slaves rather than sons until we understand the immensity of God's forgiveness. This was an expression of contrition, it was an expression of a number of things, but the fact was that they were his brothers.

While it is true that we are bond-slaves, and while it is true that we are servants of one another, and all of those slave passages are true, they must not be made to say what they don't say. Because the returning prodigal had that speech prepared. "I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. I'll just be a servant in your house." And what's the response of forgiveness? "No, no, you won't. You're my boy. Get a nice robe, get a nice meal, new shoes, nice ring. We're going to have a party."

The unforgiving soul can't stand that story, because it is important to the unforgiving person always to hold an element, an angle, or a something. "Hey, you're back. Glad to see you. Take the shed out in the far corner of the field. You'll never be out of there. We're glad you're back, but just get out there, and your brother will shove food under the door to you regularly a couple of times a week. Wasting all that money, being that kind of kid. Now we'll show you."

No. But you see, the brothers had the spirit of the elder brother about them. They couldn't understand this. Why would he get a party? Why would we ever get a party? The only reason is because of the unmitigated favor and grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is good news. Good, good news.

In the reaction of Joseph, notice the tears that he cried. Verse 17 says, "And Joseph wept." To what do his tears bear testimony? We'll need to wait to heaven to find out, but they probably bear testimony to more than we can actually deduce. Certainly, Joseph was only human. The fact that it was clear from this message that his brothers had never truly accepted his expressions of forgiveness broke his heart. It's interesting that it didn't make him indignant, and it didn't stir him to resentment.

It's an amazing picture of Joseph. Instead of what might have been my reaction or yours, to say, "Goodness gracious, I not only forgave them in chapter 45, I've provided for them for seventeen years, and now they send me a message to say don't kill us? I think I probably just should kill them. I'm sick of these guys. I am so mad, I'm fit to be tied. I'm going to go get a few of them myself."

But he doesn't do it. It makes him cry. There's a lot more conveyed of righteous indignation by our tears than by our protestations. He must have said to himself, "For all the forgiveness that I offered them, all the kindness that I showed them, are they simply to respond with suspicions of my sincerity?" I don't think there's any question that somehow or another it was the total misunderstanding of his motivation that caused Joseph to weep.

But notice not only the tears that he cried, but notice the truths that he conveyed. What was it over the years that enabled Joseph to resist temptation, to endure hardship, to keep his spirits up even when people let him down, to keep on when his circumstances were beyond the point of bearability? What was it? The answer is his theology. In other words, what he believed about God.

It is this that allows him to take his tears and silence them and then to speak to his brothers with the great clarity in which he does. He provides for us in conclusion this morning a wonderful picture of genuine faith, a tremendous example in the whole of the Old Testament. Notice that he had learned to leave all the writings of one's wrongs to God.

Grace and tenderness ooze from him in verse 19. How does he deal with the wrong that has been done to him? By what means does he conquer his natural resentment? Resentment must have been part of his life; he wasn't anything other than human. He had to say to himself, "These guys tick me off. This makes me mad." How did he conquer that?

Notice that he didn't ignore or minimize or trivialize the offense. He spoke straightforwardly: "You intended to harm me." In dealing with sin and unrighteousness, this is always the right way to go. It is far to be preferred to superficial smiles, nursed grievances, and repressed aggression. So people think that they've dealt with sin because they avoid it.

There was disruption, there was chaos, there was animosity, there was strife, there was aggravation, there were bitter words, there was venom and poison. So now they simply walk around and they say, "Oh, no, no, not a problem for me. I don't deal with that." Bogus. Dreadfully bogus. It will come out someday, and it'll be real bad when it comes out.

To suppress lustful thoughts is biblical. To repress expressions of forgiveness is unbiblical and tragic, and it will reveal itself in all kinds of ways. He didn't smile superficially and say, "That pit was really quite nice, you know. I love pits." He didn't say, "When they stripped me naked and put me in the public square in Egypt, I loved it. It was okay." He didn't do that. It was hell to him. And they had hell to pay for it.

So how, when someone deserves hell, could we ever give them heaven? Well, we can't without this theology, which leaves all of the writings of one's wrongs in the custody of God. No matter how strongly we may feel towards acting in vengeance, the way that our corrupt hearts will be checked and our cruel hands will be stopped is by a fresh consideration of God's mercy and His love towards us. Romans 12, Paul addresses this thing, verse 19.

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Also, he had learned to see God's providence even in the face of man's malice. Through all the injustice and all the years of imprisonment, Joseph had a keen awareness of theology that would be ultimately expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Joseph was able to look into the eyes of his brothers and say, "I know flat out that you planned to harm me. I know that those people bought me so that they could make a profit from me. I know that Potiphar's wife sold me into that jail because she was jealous and spiteful and hated." But above and beyond all of that, I know this. Through it all, I've learned to trust in God and depend upon His word. Finally, he had learned to repay evil, not just with forgiveness, but with practical affection. He reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

It doesn't say he reassured them *by* speaking kindly to them. It says he reassured them *and* spoke kindly to them. In other words, by both his deeds and his words, by both his promises and his performances, he gave evidence to his loved ones of the goodness of his heart. Such is the expression of the Father for us. That again is Luke 15, is it not?

The boy could have come back, made his speech on the road. The Father could have been very stiff and starchy, looked him in the eye and said, "Nice speech. Glad that you finally faced it, shaped up, and we'll be very glad to have you as a servant." He could have simply said, "Well, I do forgive you. Now get on with your life."

But when that young lad got out of that bathtub and put on that stuff, he said, "I know my Father loves me. He not only told me, he showed me." And here in the advent of Christmas, I know my Father loves me. He not only in many and various ways of old spoke in the past by the prophets, but He showed me in the person of His Son.

If it is His expression of love towards us, then it is His expectation of action from us that we like Joseph would learn to forgive from our hearts, to really forgive offenses. Not simply with our mouths, but with our eyes, our hands, our hearts, our attitudes, and our affections.

When Jesus spoke to the people gathered around Him, He said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that."

"But I say to you, love your enemies. Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." So I say to you, Joseph is a classic expression of genuine faith because he bore the family likeness, being kind to his ungrateful and his wicked brothers.

Bob Lepine: You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. Alistair returns shortly to close today's program. Last year, Alistair released a new evangelism booklet titled *The Man on the Middle Cross*, and the book flew off the shelves. The demand for multiple copies was so significant that we just couldn't keep up. Thank you for your enthusiasm to tell other people about Jesus and the hope of the gospel. You may be one of those who has been waiting for the book to be back in stock at Truth for Life, and they're here. We have copies now available.

In fact, when you donate to support the ministry of Truth for Life today, you can request a bundle of three copies so you can give them away as you look ahead to Easter. Those who read the book will learn about the saving power of Jesus, and they'll be invited to come to Him in repentance and faith. There's a prayer at the end of the book that helps readers take their first step. You can request your bundle of three copies of *The Man on the Middle Cross* when you donate to Truth for Life today using our mobile app, or online at truthforlife.org/donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. And now, here is Alistair to close with prayer.

Alistair Begg: Father, we often pray in Your prayer given to Your disciples, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Forgive us for telling lies in the phrase. For so often in doubting the reality of Your forgiveness to us, we fail to forgive others from our hearts. Pour out upon us, we pray in these days, a genuine discovery of Your grace and mercy towards us in Christ, and then in turn, genuine and unabashed generous expressions of forgiveness to others. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one today and forevermore. Amen.

Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. Will our faith stand the test of time? Tomorrow, we'll find out how that's possible. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.