JOSEPH: A TRUE SUCCESS

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

JOSEPH:  A TRUE SUCCESS              

Genesis 39:6; 22-23 NKJV

⁶ Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate.

²² And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison; whatever they did there, it was his doing.

²³ The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority, because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper.

Genesis 41:41-44

⁴¹ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.”
⁴² Then Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand; and he clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.

⁴³ And he had him ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried out before him, “Bow the knee!” So he set him over all the land of Egypt.

⁴⁴ Pharaoh also said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no man may lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”

Success went wherever Joseph was.  Joseph’s holiness, state of mind, and usefulness was never determined by his circumstances.  It seems as if all the faith of his fathers – Enoch, Noah and Abraham – spoken of in Hebrews 11 were realized in him.  He walked with God, built with a view to the saving of his household, and saw that city with foundations.  Joseph faces no criticism in the Scriptures.  But neither is Joseph the inheritor of the covenant leadership.  He is placed below Judah.  His family fails to continue in faithfulness.  But whatever failures in his family that follows, these failures are no reflection of Joseph.  He lived with a single purpose which he stated to Potiphar’s wife, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” 

As much as Jacob loved Joseph, Joseph loved his father.  The emotion of Joseph can be felt as he inquired of his brothers concerning his father, “Is you father well, the old man of whom you spoke?  Is he still alive?”  Again, in Genesis 46:26-29,  the joy of the occasion is a pleasure to read.   

There is another feature about Joseph that can be helpful.  Joseph dreamed twice as a youngster about his family.  His father, mother, and brothers are respectively the sun, moon, and stars.  Whenever these sun, moon, and stars, are mentioned metaphorically as in Mark 13:24, if understood by Joseph’s dream, then what is pictured is the fall or destruction of Israel.  It seems as if this same approach serves well in Acts 2:20 as it  is quoted from Joel 2.  There are too many instances to mention them all.  But there seems to be no place where this understanding will not serve better than a literal falling of sun, moon, and stars. 

Alexander Whyte, the master of bible characters biographies, fails us in most of what he has to say about Joseph.  His sanctified imagination runs its limit in blaming Joseph and falls to imposing his desire for a present application on to the life of Joseph.  But he redeems himself with this closing paragraph, “And through it all, Joseph became a better and an ever better man all his days.  A nobler and an ever nobler man.  A more and more trustworthy, and a more and more trusted and consulted man.  More and more loyal to truth and to duty.  More and more chaste, temperate, patient, enduring, forgiving; full of mind and full of heart; and full, no man ever fuller, of a simple and a sincere piety and praise of God, till he became a very proverb both in the splendor of his services, and in the splendor of his rewards.”  Bible Characters, Adam to Achan, vol. 1, pg 204. 

Application:

1. Complaining of inequities and injustices is never fruitful.  Fruit is borne in doing the work of the day.
2. All sin is against God.  It is the true fear of the Lord to know this and turn from the temptation.