By Gbile Akanni
(Living Seed Vol 10 No. 3 Dec 2003)
As a practical illustration of the cup and the baptism that fits a man for spiritual leadership, and for placement in the divine scheme of things in God’s programme, we shall examine the path that brought Joseph from being a mere dreamer unto becoming a prime minister in Egypt.
Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob, through Rachel, his favorite wife. He was a long awaited child of Jacob’s old age. He became the apple of his eyes, moreso as Joseph lost his mother when he was barely two years of age, at the birth of Benjamin, his only brother. He was reared up by his stepmother (possibly Bilhah). Jacob made for him a coat of diverse colours and protected him much from the wickedness and cruelty of his half brothers who were several years older than him. He was pampered with care and affection. He was shielded from any hard work, though he was feeding the flock with his brothers. Jacob was concerned about his safety, lest any untimely death should claim this little gem of his, that was the comfort of his heart after the death of his darling Rachel, for whom he spent twenty one years of his precious life to secure in marriage.
On the family side, Jacob’s exceptional love for his son, Joseph, was not hidden. It created envy and violent hatred for Joseph in the hearts of his older brothers. Their father, Jacob, preferred him to them all and treated him like the only true son, while others were like bastards and mistakes. This situation carved a hard path for Joseph so he could not freely play with his brothers. His only friends were his father and his little brother, Benjamin.
Jacob, his father, was Joseph’s only close confidant. He reported to him, the evil that several of his brothers did on the field. It was either havoc to other people’s farms, which they ravaged with their cattle, or the women they molested while out there and such likes. (Read Gen. 37: 1-4).
Growing up in a polygamous house, without his mother, was a big challenge for Joseph. He had no bosom to cry unto. He only could cry to a father, who was actually the father of all. Joseph could have developed a resistant heart against his brothers and refused to stretch a helping hand to them… but it seemed Joseph had an encounter with God that changed his life and values. The Bible says:
“Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers: and they hated him even more.” Gen. 37:5.
At age seventeen, Joseph began to have dreams, not about girls and worldly things but about God. Though he grew in an environment of constant rift and conflict. His dreams revealed a heart pursuing after God and His purpose. Reuben was a loose man, who could sleep with his father’s wife; Simeon and Levi were so cruel and wicked that they could lead a revolt and cause man-slaughter; Dinah was such a loose girl that went out as a harlot. But Joseph feared the LORD and rather prayed daily to know God’s will for his life.
For Joseph to keep having such meaningful dreams; progressive dreams and unforgettable dreams, he must have set his heart at knowing the LORD more and more personally and intimately. It is true that God only reveals His secret to the meek and lowly in heart. “If you seek me diligently, you shall find me” (Jer. 29:13) is a clear principle of how God deals with men in all generations. Joseph’s dreams proved that he had a personal altar, where he communed with God regularly.
Joseph, being very close to Jacob at this time may have heard Jacob recount the testimonies of his encounters with God and how he wasted several of his own years. Jacob may have told him of his first encounter at Bethel (where he dreamed and saw a ladder set up from earth to heaven). He must have told him of the “man that wrestled with him all ‘through the night till the break of day”, which resulted in his permanent dislocation. Jacob must have told him how the Peniel encounter changed his name and his character. He must have told Joseph how he cheated his brother, Esau, and how God delivered him from Esau’s hands, not as a strong, energetic man this time, but as a broken man, leaning upon a staff. Joseph must have learnt his first lesson of walking with God from Jacob, who by then had become such a tender man, worshipping God leaning upon a staff. He leaned on God for all his support now. Joseph learnt the act of praying from Jacob. He began to cherish God and every word that was dropped in his heart. In this present age, we would call these, ‘series of dreams’. He was innocent about it. He shared these dreams with his brothers who were much older than him and who could guide him into its meaning. He did not expect them to react as violently as they did.
“Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. So he said to them, Please hear this dream which I have dreamed; “They were binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.” Gen. 37:5-7.
The way Joseph told his brothers revealed a humble heart. He did not draw any inference, or any implication. He sought for counsel and interpretation from men who by their experience ought to know what God was saying to him. They seemingly interpreted the dreams but with much hatred in their hearts for him. His brothers saw in those dreams a destiny for Joseph, which they were not comfortable with. They saw what God was saying about their brother and only decided to destroy him with the divine purpose.
“Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” was their response. They did not seek the face of God for the purpose of God over their brother’s life; neither did they ask God “why will our sheaves bow down to our brother’s sheaf?” They simply saw the negative effect of their brother’s dream and were incensed to scuttle it and destroy the divine purpose and
provision for their future deliverance. Even Jacob, his father was baffled at the consistent and progressive emphasis of Joseph’s dreams.
The hostility of his brothers did not stop Joseph from dreaming yet another dream. He sought God’s face more and more. And God continued to expand the scope of the vision. It was not to be in the matter of the sheaves on the field. It was not just his brothers bowing to the ground for him, “the sun, the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”
Joseph was growing in communion. The vision was becoming clearer to him by the day. God was enlarging his heart to see the divine possibilities ahead of him in God’s programme for the nations. The sun, the moon and even the eleven stars would pay obeisance to him in the future. At seventeen, Joseph was being drawn by God into the continuation of the vision He had given to Abraham, his great grand father. Though Joseph would not provide the sensation lineage, he had a role to play in preserving the royal seed. His ministry in Egypt would preserve the young nation, till the iniquity of Moab was full; and it would prepare a friendly Egypt as the place to hide the young Messiah-king, “Till all who seek his life have been taken out of the land”. (Please read Matt.2: 13-15).
To Joseph, the sun, the moon and the eleven stars did not just refer to his immediate family. Subduing his immediate family was not of any interest in Joseph’s heart. He was not ambitious to rule over his brethren. “Ruling”, “Reigning” “Dominion” however, were all his brothers could see in his dreams. Joseph only saw the preserving of life. It was a divine covering for shepherding and for provision. Sun, moon and the stars from different nations under heaven would bow to Joseph’s wisdom and administration. His words would make men of many years of experience to submit and take cue from his wisdom, if they must survive the days of famine. All of these were in God’s plan for Joseph. And they were all meant to fulfill the greater purpose of God for the nations in Christ Jesus. He did not find fellowship with his brothers. He only received a rebuke from his beloved father, but he did not abandon the heavenly vision.
Having laid bare the background of Joseph and his dreams, what we must now focus upon is how he translated from being a mere dreamer to the leader he saw afar off in his dreams. He dreamed as if it was a stonethrow away. He dreamed as if it would immediately happen the next day, when he would be on the field with his brethren. The “eleven stars” could only mean his eleven brothers, who were in no way stars at the time, was what his immediate mind could comprehend.
This is how it is with every man, to whom God has given a vision to fulfill in life. It usually begins in their father’s parlor (so to say). And it would appear as if it is a “victory over the little house hold”. Men may even quarrel with you, because all they see is the immediate environment. Some quickly give name to their vision before its meaning and dimensions become clear to them. Others build quick structures to contain it and so limit its fulfillment.
Do you know it never occurred to Joseph that there was “an Egypt component” in it all? He did not see the valleys in between the mountaintops he saw in his vision. Yet, every mountain top vision includes the valley, which is generally invisible. In your dreams, you are always brought to a mount like “Pisgah” to behold the land from afar off. It is easier to see from a mount only the top of another mountain. You can only see a range of hilltops, not knowing there could be gullies and valleys of several kilometers of depth and width in between. You may probably not see the process of climbing the steep hills. Even the thorny bush on the path to the mountaintop appears like “carpet grasses’ when viewed from afar off. It looks like beautiful scenery, good only for photograph from a distance. The closer you come to the vision, the more the reality of its inaccessibility by ordinary means dawns on your life. You will see beautiful water falls whitish and sparkling like silver afar off, not knowing they are the gullies without bridges you must need cross, if you will arrive at the fulfillment of the vision God has shown you.
Joseph, not knowing what his dreams entailed must have said “O Lord, let Thy will be done; I am willing to be a vessel in your hand, at all cost. Do not mind my brothers; go ahead with your purpose for my life.” He gave God the unconditional right to mould him for the leadership role he must play in his generation. He had to keep the fantasy of the dreams away but stored safely in his heart; to face the process (rather the processing of his own character) of becoming a vessel in God’s hands for the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.
“Here l am’
“Then his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them. So he said to him Here l am. Then he said to him, please go and see if it is well with the flocks, and bring back word to me. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem.” Gen. 37: 12-14.
Here in this short narrative, we find the beginning of God’s training and preparation of Joseph. It does not appear divine. It seems an ordinary thing, but this is how God works severally. He uses ordinary situations of life to weave out the divine purposes in our lives. To Jacob, Joseph was just to go and “bring me word” again. It was not a journey that would keep Joseph over the night. Shechem was the place where he first settled before he moved his tent to the outskirts, to give room for his growing family. He actually bought the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money. He later moved to where Isaac, his father, was at Mamre or Kirjath Arba (that is Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt. To Joseph, it was just a short journey from Hebron (the family base) to
Shechem their farmland. He did not know it was the beginning of his journey to the mountain he had seen in his dreams. If he knew it was a long journey, he would have packed boxes and traveling kits. There would have been elaborate preparations: donkeys and camels to bear his goods and a retinue of servants to serve him and keep him comfortable. There would have been a special send-forth party at home and he would have “launched” his “Dreams ministry” in the company of men in Hebron. Egypt would not have been the place of choice, knowing how his great grand father almost lost his life and his wife there. Even if it was, it would have been to quickly go down there, make some money and get on the way unto establishing “the ministry” as many of our men today think of just dashing to America to quickly get some dollars to come and start their ministries in Africa in a grand way, and so got hooked and derailed with temporary pleasures. The most crucial thing that Joseph did, which placed him at God’s disposal to be taken to the ‘Quarry of Egypt’ was to say “Here I am”. Though it appeared he said it to Jacob, but in essence it was to the Big Hand, behind Jacob’s hand; it was to the Big Voice in Jacob’s voice. “Come let me send you to seek the welfare of thy brothers”, was the word. It was as ordinary (as it sounds) but that was the prophetic commissioning of Joseph’s life. It was the last command from Hebron. As he went and wandered in the fields it became the watchword on his lips. To every question; “What are you seeking out there? Where are you going? Why are you here?” that came his way either from outside or inside of him, the ready answer on his lips was “To seek and search out the welfare of my people”.
To become great in God’s hands, it is not greatness you must seek. It is service, and the service of the brethren, even if they be presently hostile and unco-operative. The commission Joseph responded to was not a search for the “Rule, the reign and the Dominion” which his dreams portrayed. It was a search for the welfare, the upkeep, the preservation of his brothers. He carried some toasted bread, fresh drink, some soup from him for them to be refreshed on the open field. It is important to note here, what would look like a coincidence… but it is a divine recurrent principle for all who became great in God’s hands.
The journey that brought Saul, the son of Kish, to the anointing as the first king of Israel was not a search for greatness. It was not a desire to see Samuel for special prayers to be made a king. It was a search for his father’s donkeys that were lost. It was not even the search for his own personal asses. He was going from one field to another, with dry, parched bread and no fresh water in their jar and no money in his own purse, searching for his father’s donkeys. This was the way God led Saul to come into a divine purpose for which heaven was preparing him. David did not seek greatness, or a show of the fresh anointing on his head, when he went to the battle field, where Goliath had been harassing the people of God. He was sent by his father (out of Bethlehem) to seek the welfare of his brothers and to take some victuals to them on the battlefield. It was that journey that brought him to the limelight. It was that journey that started him off on the path and process of becoming the king of Israel after Saul. It was that journey that took him to the quarry of his own training. It took him to caves, fields, Philistia, Jebus and all that constituted his preparation, before he came back to Hebron, where he was crowned king after many years. David carried the anointing of a king on his head, but he would not become one till he had slept in caves, acted insane, escaped javelins, was tested in the matter of forgiveness, in the matter of spoils of wars, and in the matter of obedience.
Each one only responded to their earthly fathers “Here I am, send me”. This is the second matter I must point out here. If it was God, who stood and said, “come let Me send you”, it might have been easier; but it was men they first obeyed. The step unto becoming great in God’s hands may begin for most of us by yielding only to the instruction of fathers (physical parents) or fathers in the faith: leaders and disciplers that God has placed over our lives. Several young men of our day desire to be great. Yet, they quickly pull themselves away from the “sending of men”. They would serve no man. They have never been under any hand. They sprang up just like banana tree and began to go in pursuit of what they perceive is God’s call on their lives. They die with their first fruits. They are bundles of succulent stem, that got rotten unto the earth, once the first fruits was harvested by men. They can never become pillars in God’s house. Their fruits cannot be preserved for a long season. They are the immediate consumables, otherwise they are wasted.
Beloved, it takes time to prepare “durables”, but “disposables” only need a crash programme of preparation. “Vegetable” and “bananas” grow so quickly off the ground with no deep roots under. They spread so fast around, but they have no capacity to grow tall without bending to the winds. They are not used for landmarks. I wonder what you hope to become. Many rose so quickly and so soon have become forgotten. They built works and ministries that appeared imposing at the time, but today are packed aside. Rottenness within their own lives actually destroyed them.
As we study this journey of Joseph, it is imperative for you to listen to God! It is important for you to check if you have said “Here I am” to God, through your disciplers and the hands God has appointed to mould you into the shape and size He has ordained for your life. The first pre-requisite is to say, “Here Iam’’. It is to present your life as an available material for the Potter to work upon. It is to become free and freed from all other entanglements, so God can freely deal with you as He sees it meet. Can you once again say with the Hymn writer…?
“Behold me, Saviourat Thy feet
Deal with me as Thou seest meet;
Thy work begin, Thy work complete,
And take me as lam”
When you say, “Here I am’, you are willingly yielding your neck to the yoke. He says “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me”’ it means you are giving Him a free hand to cut and join whatever He sees fit in your life. He is free to choose the mode of training. He is free to choose the venue and the processing plant. He has the choice of the Black smith and the hammers to use. He chose Midian as the quarry for Moses and Jethro as the Blacksmith. The cave of Adullam with the Philistine country was the training ground for David’s further making. Paul must come under the hand of Barnabas along with the “Desert of Arabia College of suffering” that his natural energy might be broken.
To me, this “here I am” is the basic thing I need to contribute to the making of my life. After that, I am no more bothered by what I become. I know whom I believe. He is able to keep and make good whatsoever I have placed in His hands. It was the most difficult thing for me to do at that time. I was prone to say “Here I am” by mouth but in actual practice to act “I am coming, sir. Wait till I have finished all I am doing first’. This was the delay in my growth with God. It is the interruption to what God would have made of me beyond where I am today.
When you say “Here I am”’, it is like the ‘consent form’ every patient fills for the surgeon before he/she is wheeled to the Theatre for a surgical operation. To confirm that ‘consent form’, he signs again and yields to the ‘Anaesthesia’ — which puts him to a deep stupor. He becomes so released to the doctor, that he could be turned anyhow, anywhere, while the doctor cuts, sutures and examines all he wants. Men give this unconditional surrender to human surgeons, but to God we would struggle. We seem to suspect Him. We feel He is not capable of handling our lives well enough. We are afraid that He may damage our lives.
Friend, have you said, “Yes, Here I am“to God? Are you willing to bow your knees now and just hand over to Him, so He can begin His good work in you? The beginning is what matters. Leave the ‘ending’ with Him. All those He had processed before, are the enduring vessels we read and speak about today.
I must say to you, saying “Here I am’’, for me, is the point of entry into my rest. It is so sweet to rest in His Almighty hands. Leave the result with Him. I am a living proof. He has not wasted my life. He will not waste yours either. Joseph said, “here I am” and so the processing started from that moment. It took over thirteen years before the aroma of what God was making of him began to ooze out.
“…Out of Hebron”
“So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron. And he went to Shechem…and there he was, wandering in the field…” Gen. 37:14b-15a.
Simple, but very significant! Hebron meant a lot of things to Joseph. Hebron was where he had grown and lived for the first fifteen years of his life. It was the familiar country home for him. The graves of his patriarchs were standing here. The ancient altars stood there. The altars of Abraham, of Isaac and even of Jacob, which were foundation to his own spirituality and communion with the invisible God, were all what made Hebron significant to Joseph.
In Hebron, Joseph had his own personal room. He actually lived in the special apartment built in honour of Rachel. As Isaac dwelt in his mother’s tent (after the death of Sarah), so was it the custom for Joseph to dwell in Rachel’s tent. Hebron was where his wardrobe of tunics of diverse colours stood. Hebron was a valley, surrounded by hills, a beautiful location both for comfort and for security. (Note that Hebron later became part of Jerusalem). “As mountains surround Jerusalem…” (Psalm 125:1-2). It was a place of constant water supply. It was also secluded from the inter mixture of the Canaanites then. It was an exclusive resort for Jacob and his children.
For Joseph, Hebron was not just a place. It was a relationship. Hebron meant ‘a bosom’ of love for him. It was the bosom of Jacob. Whatever his brothers did to him on the field, Joseph rushed home to this Hebron bosom of his father. It was the bosom of care and acceptance. Hebron was also a place of divine communion for Joseph. There, he dreamed his great dream. He had a spot in Hebron where he met with God regularly. It was the sanctuary he first knew in life. Hebron was also the bosom of affection for his only full brother Ben, whom he fondly called “Ben-Ben”. He cudled that boy as the only object of his love. He could not pour his love on the senior brothers who could not speak peaceably to him because of envy and jealousy. Every man needs some one to love and some one who loves him. To be a balanced man, you must receive love and give love.
To be sent out of the valley of Hebron and to wander about in the open fields, under the scorching heat of the sun, was a harsh beginning for Joseph. It did not dawn on him at first that Hebron was out and gone for him at least for many years to come. He must have thought, he would be gone for only few hours. He did not pack up his Hebron property. He took nothing out of Hebron except the God whom he had now learnt not to localize in Hebron. He kept company with God even on this journey and turned often to Him in his heart at every junction, for direction. Hebron was pleasant, but it was not the quarry of the next training for Joseph. Hebron had served its own usefulness in the upbringing of Joseph. Hebron initiated his walk with God. It initiated his dreams and vision. It initiated his home training, which Jacob could provide. But Hebron was limited in the expanse of God’s preparation for this man, Joseph. The wilderness test could not be administered in this cherished Hebron. The test of servanthood would never be made possible in Hebron, where Joseph was a pampered child. He would not pass the test of faithfulness in the things that belonged to another man while he was only maintaining his mother’s tent, which actually was his heritage. Hebron couldn’t engage his spiritual growth of the gift of God in his life. He could not grow in interpretation of dreams while in Hebron where there was no opportunity to meet with other dreamers. As at this point, Hebron was no more the right place to be. God needed to move him to the next place of divine formation. He could not perfect his leadership quality at Hebron, where his brothers misunderstood every assignment he was given by their father, as a deliberate attempt to make him rule and reign and have dominion over them. He needed a place where he could grow in service (which is the only means of spiritual leadership) as a slave, not as a son and heir in the house. As son and heir, there were servants and slaves in the house to run the errands and carry out the dirty jobs.
Now, what do we glean from this? Each man begins with a Hebron! It is very significant to have a place to leave behind. It is a place of initiation, and it is good only for such a purpose. To tarry too long at your Hebron is to become a dwarf. It is to die at your initials! Your ‘initials’: no one is known at the gates with his initials. Your ‘initials’ are for your boyhood friends. Those who call you by your first initials are mostly your family members. If you do not seek to be known outside your family, then you may cling tenaciously to your Hebron. To leave Hebron is the initial sacrifice for each one of us. Hebron is our self life built and decorated. It is our tunics of diverse colors made for us by our fathers. It is the filial relationship that must give way for a deeper relationship with God and with men, based on higher values of spiritual growth. For Abraham, he had to get out of his Haran
“Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you”. Gen. 12:1.
And for every disciple, Jesus speaks of this Hebron in this manner:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple”. Luke 14:26.
For Joseph, Hebron was where this first condition of discipleship was located. He was helped by God to meet the first condition. He left home with nothing else. He left all his clothes; all his brothers and sisters; all his animals and pets; all his worldly goods. He left for the first time his father, Jacob, who mourned him as though dead to him, with no hope of seeing him again. No communication by any mail or phone. He was dead as far as Jacob was concerned.
Joseph had no means of contacting any of his people. If any letter were to come, it had to pass through Reuben, Simeon and co. You know what they would do? They would tear the letter and burn it, lest their father would hear that Joseph was alive and their lie be discovered. He had no one to seek his bail or visit him all the thirteen years he was imprisoned. The only thing he took out of Hebron was the cloth he wore and the sandals on his feet. He went with no change of raiment and even the one he wore was removed from his neck and smeared with blood to show his father as the possible reason for his death. “A lion devoured him”, they told Jacob.
Again, this Hebron is the first place to leave in the pursuit of God’s call and plan for your life. “Let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”, is the condition of Christ to all men He would make apostles and ministers of the New Testament. Have you left self behind with all its opportunities? Have you stepped out of the familiar ground of self-esteem? Do you see yourself responding to God’s hand removing from you all of your cherished Hebron, unto a base field, where the only treasure you have left is Christ and Christ alone? Have you been disrobed of the tunics of diverse colors made for you from Hebron, so that you can be clothed with the garment of service of a slave and of a prisoner? He who has not been disrobed of self cover, and put upon the cloth of a slave (bond-servant), cannot be clothed upon with the clothes of glory and honour. Jesus, our Master Himself, left His own Hebron; He emptied Himself of all glory and took upon Himself the nature of a servant.
“He has no form nor comliness. And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were our face from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him”.
“… So His visage was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men”. Isa. 53:2-3, Isa.52: 14, Phil. 2: 6-7.
Saul of Tarsus, who later became Paul, also had to leave his own Hebron, in order to enter into God’s moulding process. All that were gain to him, he counted loss for Christ.
“Yet, indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Phil. 3:7-8.
Peter said, “Lord, we have left all and have followed thee”… Mark 10:28.
The issue of leaving our Hebron is universal and common to all. It is the beginning of any serious step towards becoming what God wants you to become. Please, do note here and in all the cases we have alluded to: Hebron is not necessarily sinful. Actually, it is not the issue of sin. Though the sinful self must be discarded even just to become a Christian; the Hebron here is more of your positive self-life. It may even be the endowment of God to you or the heritage from your fathers. It may be that which was acquired even through concrete prayer. What they left behind was not just their sins. They left their Hebron, their security, self esteem; accumulated properties; honour and dignity.
God takes a man out of his Hebron in order to expand and enlarge him. Hebron dies for each man God desires to use, so that a life of fruitfulness may break forth. Hebron is limited in providing a basis for what God intends to make of your life. If you have responded to the first matter “Here I am”, then get ready to be sent out of your Hebron, in pursuit of the divine purpose of God. Joseph left Hebron for good; temporarily a pain, but forever a gain. Presently, it looked like a step out of what seemed real to the realm of uncertainty, but in the long run it was a step into rest and eternal reality.
Joseph had stepped out of mere dreaming unto the reality of God’s call. Let me say frankly here that until you leave your Hebron in obedience, all your visions of becoming a vessel in God’s hand will remain a mere dream. Many are just telling their dreams around, they print bogus posters, call themselves appellations in keeping with the dream they had; speak great confession of faith, but remain in their Hebron. They are still dreamers!
Though his brothers were ignorant of this divine processing that began as soon as Joseph said “‘Here I am’’, they were the first instruments employed by God to push forward His purpose in Joseph’s life. They said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming”. … They were mistaken. He was no more a dreamer. He had started his journey to the throne. Sun, moon and stars of several nations would soon come to this seemingly spineless man, to pay homage and receive their sustenance. God had already begun a good work in Joseph.
“ … into The Place Of Death”
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” John 12:24.
“…And let him take up his cross” (Luke 9:23).
“Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘some wild beast has devoured him’. We shall see what will become of his dreams”. Gen. 37:20.
The next crucial place God brings every man He plans to use for great things is the place of Baptism unto death. The first place Jesus reported to, having emptied Himself of all and made Himself of no reputation is the Jordan, to be buried in Baptism unto death, under the hand of John the Baptist. Jethro had to baptize Moses unto his own death from the old life in Egypt. For Joseph, the appointed hands were his brothers. They only saw his death as the death of his dreams, they did not see the possibility of resurrection. They saw death as the dead-end for Joseph; they did not understand the wisdom of God. The High Priests and the Sanhedrin council in Jerusalem saw the death of Christ on the cross as the end of His life and ministry; they did not understand God’s great wisdom of sowing unto death that life may break forth in many other lives. Jesus embraced the death and endured the cross, saying
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me….
… Signifying by what death He would die.” John 12:32-33.
Jesus showed Peter the manner of death by which Peter would glorify God, if he must become all that God called him from the lakeside of Genesaret to accomplish in his own generation.The men who always construct the cross for the dying of God’s servant do not always see the glory beyond the cross. Their mobilization is actually in this ignorance of the mystery of death in bringing forth fruit unto God. If the Princes had known, they would not have crucified the King of glory (1 Cor. 2:8) and if Joseph’s brothers had known that they were only sending him ahead of them and that their action would actually help him to become the “Ruler, the king and the Dominion holder” they feared, they would not have contemplated his death at all.
Note here that those God employ to send a man to the place of death are usually his next of kin. The devil may seem to be interested and be pressing the remote control; but the physical hands that are used to execute the “death” and the “dying” of a man in God’s purpose are generally those of his brethren. Moses was chased to the place of his dying, not by the soldiers of Pharaoh, but by a fellow Hebrew, who shouted “who made you a leader over us?” It was the men from the synagogue that placed Jesus at the disposal of Pilate and it was Joseph’s brothers that put him in the pit of death and then in the hand of the Midianites for continual ‘dying’. Joseph was faced with this crucial death – the gradual death of the cross, So to say, by the same brothers he had come out to seek their welfare. It was a rude shock to him. It was a serious contradiction. How could he place this in the light of all his dreams of being used of God? Where was God in all of this? Why was God silent as they stripped him naked of his only cloth and dropped him into a dry pit waiting to slay him and cover him with the dry sand of Dothan…? Question upon question raced all through his mind. He did not understand why this was happening to him. He may have recalled the Peniel encounter his father told him… as the gateway unto becoming a prince in God’s hands, but this was rather different. Death is worse than dislocation of limbs, he thought. Joseph at this moment only pleaded with God to let him see His face if that was the end of all his dreams.
He probably bowed his head in prayer to the LORD saying “O Lord! You are still my God, even in this situation. I do not understand any more. I surrender my will, my ambition and my dream unto You even in this pit of death. If this is the way it will all end, LORD I thank You. I prefer to be in your presence than anywhere else. I have been stripped of all my earthly goods, including my last cloth. But I am comforted, no one can strip me of my relationship with You; into Your able hands do I commit my soul and my future.” With this, Joseph bowed unto death. He died literally in his heart to everything. He saw no glory in this world again; he rested in the hope of resurrection. This was the first death. Joseph died even to his dreams. He died to Jacob. He died to ‘Ben-Ben’. He died to himself. If God ever brings him out of that dry pit, it would no longer be his own life. It would no longer be to serve his own purpose. No man on earth would claim anything again… Even his brothers sat down to a meal having concluded that Joseph was as good as dead. They no longer feared his dreams. They thought they had finished with the dreams and with the dreamer. They had agreed on how to break the news of his death to their aged father. They had already got the scape goat, whose blood, splashed on Joseph’s coat would serve as the token of his death to their father. The mourning arrangement was already concluded. They celebrated the job accomplished over a meal. Even in their hearts, the number is now eleven. “We will see what will become of his dreams”, they all might have chorused as they cracked the bones of the roasted meat.
Listen, my dear brother or sister; every death must be accompanied with a resurrection. If God submits you to the “Death”, it is certain that you will surely rise again, out of that pit.
… A Figure of Resurrection
“And they sat down to eat a meal. Then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead with their Camels, bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry them down to Egypt. So Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brothers listened. Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.” Gen 37: 25-28.
This was divine. It was God at work! The death actually had occurred. What Judah saw was not resurrection. He only saw the profit they would further make, by selling the corpse; Joseph was now looked upon as a dead but living and walking corpse. “What does it profit us if we kill him physically and bury his body under the pit; we have already killed him, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. We have devalued and dehumanized him already. He has become a mere “good” now! He is just a mere “cadaver” but with a little difference, in that he is still breathing. He is a living-dead man now. His hopes and his dreams are dead as far as we know. Rather than bury him under the soil and just fertilize the soil of Dothan, let us give him away as mere junk to these Midianites for a token fee.” He was so valueless to them that they took a rediculous amount of twenty shekels of silver to be shared among the ten of them.
“So the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit…”
What a figure! The power that pushed him down into the pit of death was nothing compared with the energy they exerted to pull him up and to lift him out of the pit. This was the first experience of the power of resurrection by Joseph. His silent prayer had been answered now. He was now being carried up and lifted up by the same brothers who thought they had downtrodden him to the sand in the pit. He has been lifted out of that pit and placed on a camel. He would no longer trek back to Hebron. He would ride a camel now to wherever God has determined to place His slave. Joseph was as good as dead. This was the same sense that came over Isaac after he was miraculously loosed from the altar of burnt offering where he was tied. For Isaac, the ransom was the ram caught in a thicket by its horns; but for Joseph, twenty shekels of silver, with the ram they slaughtered, was his own ransom. His brothers least understood the miracle of resurrection that had taken place. Joseph for once had been lifted up out of the dungeon by their hands. They also by their hands set him up on the caravan of the Midianite traders.
Though physically naked, Joseph had gained a higher treasure. He became free from the tyranny of mundane things of this world. He was valued for twenty shekels of silver, but now he had become an invaluable treasure in God’s hands. He became free from the claim of his brothers as well. They have shared the price of his ransom; they have eaten the meat so to say. He was free now to be anything and go anywhere for God. They concluded they had no Joseph again. They organized the mourning. They watched their father weep out his eyes. They rose up to comfort him and to persuade him to forget Joseph.
Above all of these, Joseph had gained God. He felt lifted out of the pit of sin into the very arm of his God. He felt lifted out of rivalry and jealousy into a wider place. Though he would remain a slave of God (and of whosoever he was sold unto), he cherished the opportunity to start life on this other side and to see what God was going to do.
It was a resurrection of a kind. The Ishmaelite sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard (Gen 37:36). He had been positioned by God in the right place of training. He would eat the officers’ meat if that was his desire. He would handle businesses of a different class. Even as a slave, he ate more dainties that fell from the king’s table than the brothers who envied him. Every death brings a better hope. Every time a seed is cast into the ground, and it dies, it does not come out the same way it was sown. It must come forth with a more glorious body and much more than the quantity planted. Let me emphasize here again that each death you experience attracts a measure of resurrection life. It attracts a measure of uplifting. Joseph was better clothed even physically than all the clothes his brothers took away from him. Rachel’s tent was just a mere tent; he now managed a whole mansion for Potiphar.
This new lift was meant to be the next platform of training in the purpose of God for Joseph. There was yet another death coming but not until some lessons had been drilled into the fabrics of his soul. It is not a one-time death that God’s servant must experience in their preparation for spiritual leadership. The deaths come in stages with some measure of resurrection bonuses in between. Some have experienced a measure of resurrection and have settled on that flat plain. They have refused the further death; they seem to relish their present plateaus of grace. They have stopped and stagnated in the purpose of God, as they have refused the next death that would have lifted them higher and taken them into the higher plateau in God’s calling upon their lives. They seem great in the eyes of those who have not left their Hebron at all; yet they are still dwarfs in the eyes of God, who laments daily over their lives saying, “Why did you stop at that?” They are like king Joash, who struck the arrow three times and stopped. Elisha was wroth with him, for stopping the victory God was bringing into Israel half -way. Would you not ask the Lord to keep bringing the deaths until He has taken you to the zenith of His call for your life?
To be continued….
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