Why did Joseph's brothers hate him?

In Genesis 37, Joseph's brothers hate him enough to sell him into slavery. Dr. Toby Holt asks where God is when calamity strikes — even though God's name never appears in the chapter. Jacob plays favorites with a special coat, and the brothers' jealousy turns to hatred when Joseph shares his dreams of ruling over them. They plot to kill him, then sell him to traders bound for Egypt, and deceive their father with a blood-stained coat. Though God seems absent, His fingerprints are over every event.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why did the brothers hate Joseph? Out of jealousy — over their father's favoritism and Joseph's dreams of leadership. Their envy hardened into hatred.

2. Where was God in this betrayal? Present and sovereign, even though unseen. His hand was guiding events toward a greater purpose.

3. Where is God when our circumstances grow dark? Right there, working behind the scenes. As with Joseph, God can be at work even when He seems silent. "Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit… We shall see what will become of his dreams." — Genesis 37:20 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

In Genesis 37, Jacob gave Joseph a stunning multicolored coat.

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A coat that was unique in all the land.

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However, this gift ignited the fury and jealousy of Joseph's brothers.

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In today's study, we'll see how the coat, combined with Joseph's recent dreams,

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caused his brothers to do the unthinkable.

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To throw their sibling into a pit and then sell him off to Egypt.

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Some of life's events are so cataclysmic that when you encounter one of these cataclysmic events,

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the reaction many have is to say, I can't go on. I was doing all right. I was moving uphill at

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least, or at least going in the right direction. Then something happened. Then this loss. Then

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this hurt. Then this hardship. Fill in the blank. Whatever the cataclysm is, if you have a little

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bit of gray up top here, you've probably seen a couple of instances, maybe some instances in your

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life, where something has happened that seems so cataclysmic, where it not only knocks you

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backward, but seems to have knocked you flat out, and you wonder how you can get up from there.

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Well, in today's text, we see that happen in manifold ways to multiple people. It cannot get

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much more cataclysmic in your world than to have people come and report to you that your son,

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your child, your daughter, that your child is dead, and that's exactly what's going to happen

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in today's text. You're going to have this elderly man, and he's looking to his sunset years, and

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he's going to have word reported to him later in today's text that his son, his beloved son,

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evidently his favorite son, is dead. And not just dead from keeling over or dying in his sleep,

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but mauled to death by animals. As far as cataclysmic life events are, this has got to be

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right near the top. With that said, think about Joseph. Talk about cataclysmic events. One day

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you're going along and you're having these great dreams. All the dreams seem to suggest that you're

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wonderful and that you have a great and glorious future. And before you know it, before you know

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you find yourself tossed into a pit, not by your enemies down the road, but rather by your own kin,

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by your own siblings, thrown into the pit. And if that's not bad enough, not only are you just

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thrown into a pit, but then you're sold off. And not just sold off to the family down the street,

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but sold off into Egypt. As far as cataclysmic events, there are several here. So the question

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is, where's God in the midst of this? Where is God in the midst of this? This is the family line.

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these are the patriarchs. You have Abraham, you have Isaac, and you have Jacob. And then you have

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Jacob's sons. This theoretically is the most important family on planet earth at its time.

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And if that's true, then you think God would be being more attentive. And if you were Joseph in

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the pit, you would certainly think God would be being more attentive. And yet there you are in

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the pit, falling backward. Where is God? Well, today's text, even though God's name is not going

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to be mentioned one time in Genesis 37, you're going to see his fingerprints over every event

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as they aspire all right let's look at verses one through four once again then we'll work our way

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through these selections verse one now jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger in the

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land of canaan this is the history of jacob now joseph being 17 years old was feeding the flock

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with his brothers and the lad was with the sons of bilhah and the sons of zilpah his father's wives

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remember his father had multiple wives and some were concubines and then joseph brought a bad

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report of them to his father. It's possible he just told on them. Maybe he was a rat. Maybe he

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reported what they did. Whatever the case, in verse 3, now Israel, meaning Jacob, loved Joseph. He

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loved this one more than all his children because he was the son of his old age. Also he made for

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him a tunic of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his

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brothers, they hated him and they could not speak peaceably to him. All right, if you've been with

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since we started in the book of Genesis

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yea many weeks ago,

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you will have noted something.

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Every time siblings are introduced,

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every time you get brothers in particular

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that are introduced in the book of Genesis so far,

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what sort of relationship have they had?

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Bad.

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It started with the first two brothers on planet Earth.

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What were their names?

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Cain and Abel.

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How did it work out between them?

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Bad.

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It worked out bad because one was incredibly jealous

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of the other to the point of killing them.

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Later on, you have Isaac and Ishmael,

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even beyond that, you have Jacob and Esau, and we saw in the past couple weeks the degree of

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their animosity. And here, here in this text right now, we have these ten siblings of Joseph who all

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hate their brother. The word hate will come up three different times across the course of today's

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passage. They really hated their brother. With that said, what was the nature of their hatred?

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What was the nature of the hatred that Cain showed to Abel? What was the nature of the hatred that

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Jacob and Esau experienced for one another? Well, the nature and origins for that hatred repeatedly

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is jealousy. There might have been other issues, maybe they quarreled about any number of other

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things, but the main reason why a rock was picked up to crush the skull of a brother, the main

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reason that a brother here is sold off into slavery, the main reason all this stuff happens

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is because of jealousy. Joseph's brothers were jealous of him. That's what we just saw in verses

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one through four. They were jealous of him. In verse two, Joseph had ratted on them. In verse

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three, the father had given Joseph a coat that he didn't give to them. And that was probably just

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one thing. There was probably other riches and other gifts, too. It's not like he just came up

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with one gift on one day. He'd probably been doing this for a while. But he gave him a particular

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quote there in verse 3, and in verse 4, it flat out says he loved Joseph more than the others.

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Now, if you're the others, what do you think about all that? Well, we don't want to excuse

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their hatred. We certainly don't want to excuse what they did, because what they did is awful.

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And yet, and yet, you at least can understand the hurt that they had, because their father,

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Jacob evidently loved Joseph more than the rest of them,

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maybe than the rest of them combined.

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So you can at least understand the hurt in their hearts.

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And what's kind of sad about that,

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if we just think back to the past couple weeks

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of our study in Genesis,

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is you would think that Jacob would have learned his lesson.

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Why?

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Well, you remember the relationship he had with Esau?

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It was really bad.

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But what was the cause of that relationship being so bad?

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What was the main causes?

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Well, one of the main causes

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is that Jacob's father Isaac

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did not love Jacob as much as he loved Esau.

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There was clear favoritism

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demonstrated in the previous generation.

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Clear favoritism.

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Isaac preferred Esau.

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Isaac loved Esau more.

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Isaac wanted to give Esau the blessing.

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Isaac had this relationship with Esau

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that was different than his relationship with Jacob.

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So you would have thought that Jacob would have said,

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you know, I didn't love that growing up.

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I didn't love it when my dad, you know,

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wasn't there for me,

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but he was always there for my brother.

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I didn't love the way he treated me

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and the way he always looked kind on my brother.

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I'm not going to repeat that mistake.

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You would have thought that's how he'd do, right?

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He'd work that out.

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Nope, nope.

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What does he do?

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He has clear favoritism.

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And not just clear favoritism.

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You can kind of read between the lines.

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I think he loves this guy more than the rest of us.

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He seems to be inferring that at times.

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Not just like that.

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His favoritism is so clear

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that he desires to make it evident,

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not just to his brothers,

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but to the whole world,

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this is my favorite, the bestest son I've got. I'm going to give him a coat of many colors. It's

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going to be bright and rich and greatly arrayed, and he's going to take it around, and then

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everybody will see my love for my son Joseph based on this coat. It's like, what's the picture? It's

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like if he had given him not only a shirt that said, number one son, all right, and wears the

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number one son, you know, shirt, parades it around, but the shirt in effect said, number one son,

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the rest are losers. That's how his brothers interpreted this thing. Every time I saw that

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coat appear on the horizon as they will in today's text. And that's why verse 4 says they hated

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Joseph. It was partly because of Joseph himself. He may have had his own issues. In fact, I think

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he did have his issues here because we're going to see a lot of pride on Joseph's behalf as he

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tells the story of his dreams. And yet the father didn't help this. We who are parents have an

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obligation to our children to raise them and treat them equitably and to share the love we have with

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them in such a way that none feel singularly deprived. The God who formed and fashioned you

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and I this morning, if you're a son and daughter of the Most High King, he loves you as much as you.

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And that's infinitely. There's no way to measure it. With that said, let's take a look now. Let's

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look at verses 5 through 8, and we're going to see that Joseph is going to have this dream. Not only

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is he wearing this coat around town, but now he's going to have a dream that he's going to tell to

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his brothers. Verse 5. Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and then they hated

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even more and so he said to them please please hear this dream that i have dreamed there we were

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he's talking about his brothers there we all were binding sheaves in the field like they often did

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then behold my my sheaf arose and it stood upright and yours indeed stood all around and they bowed

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down to my chief. His brothers said to him, shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have

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dominion over us? You, the young one. And so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his

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words. They hated him before. They really are starting to hate him now. All right. So in verses

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five through eight, Jacob has the first of two dreams. First of two dreams. And he has options.

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you know, if God comes to you in a dream, I suppose you have an option. What are you going

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to do about it? Well, he sits and goes, you know what? I think I'm going to go share this dream

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with my brothers. I'm going to go spread this. And there's some thought in the text, and many

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commentators think that this is an act of great pride and great hubris, because the interpretation

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is not that hard to figure out. You know, sometimes you come across dreams and visions in scripture,

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and you go, wow, what does that mean? Just open the book of Daniel sometime. You know, look at

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some of those visions and try to figure out any given dream what Daniel had, what it means. It's

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not always that easy this dream very easy so easy in fact the minute it's out of his mouth all the

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brothers uniformly unanimously know exactly what he's talking about because they immediately

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challenge him on the components of the dream his dream his first dream is about sheaves of wheat

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whatever that looks like falling down before his brother's sheaves of wheat then he has a second

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dream which will tell him in the dream about you know the stars in the sky bowing down or the stars

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in the sky celebrating him above and beyond his brothers and really anyone else. And this dream,

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this second dream on top of the first dream, not only rankles his brothers, but as we read a few

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moments ago, rankles even his father. He says, what are you doing? He rebukes him for this dream.

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Do you think your mother and I are going to also bow down to you too? There's a picture here of

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pride and hubris in young Joseph. He's only 17. If you were 17 once, you had pride and hubris too.

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so i don't know if he was more so or less than us but with that said at 17 that's a good time to

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be feeling your oats and that's exactly what he did he was feeling his oats he tells his brothers

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that i'm i'm going to be the el capitan here and even his dad goes what are you doing why are you

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saying this and yet the father jacob will ponder these dreams after the fact because he knows god

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has promised to do something special through his family he just doesn't know exactly what it's

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going to be with that said at this point the brothers you know the father has just rebuked

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him and went on his way. The brothers at this point, they have had enough. It's as if it's the

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final straw. One more thing. If I see that guy one more time, say one more dream. If I see him wearing

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that coat around town one more time, we're going to have words at best. So that's the boiling point

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has been officially reached by the time we get to verse 8. All right, let's skip ahead now. Let's

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skip ahead to verses 18 through 21, and we're going to see what's going to transpire. We're

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going to see the conspiracy that will unfold as a means to redress the pride of young Joseph here.

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So verses 18 through 21. Now when his brothers saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them,

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they conspired against him to kill him. Then they said to one another, look, the dreamer is coming.

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Come therefore, let us now kill him. Let us cast him into some pit and we shall say some wild beast

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has devoured him. And then we shall see what will become of his dreams. You hear that? Then we'll

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see what will become of his dreams. But Reuben heard this, Reuben's the oldest, and he delivered

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him out of his hands and said, let's not kill him. Let's not do that, guys. And Reuben said to them,

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let's shed no blood, but rather cast him into this pit, which is in the wilderness. Do not lay a hand

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on him so that he might deliver him out of their hands and bring him back to his father. So at

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least one of them says, let's, guys, guys, guys, let's not, let's not do that. All right. With that

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said, even though one brother is kind of slow to the party on this, the others, in verses 18 through

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21, they're all in. You know, the sin of Cain, by which Cain slew his brother Abel, the sin of Cain

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has returned here and occupying not just the hearts of one, but the hearts of many of these

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brothers. This is a picture of fratricide, the killing of a brother. Fortunately, the eldest

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brother, Reuben, he talks them down to a mere abandonment, as if that's better. At least,

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let's not do that, guys, but we'll throw them into the pit and maybe some creature will get

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them or something, but let's do that rather than we take this guilt upon himself. Now,

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set the brothers aside for a moment. Let's talk about Joseph. Let's think about Joseph here,

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and let's try to put ourselves in Joseph's shoes. In this pit, for Joseph, this was the worst day

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his life, at least so far. For Joseph, he's thrown into the pit. You know, he's been purting around

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town in his coat. He's got visions of grandeur. God seems to be telling him something about his

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future, and he thinks that the future is so bright, you know, he has to wear shades, or at least a

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bright coat, you know. He thinks this is great. Things are so promising, and he's out and about.

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His brothers are working hard, and his father sends him to go check on the brothers, and initially he

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tries to go to a place called Shechem, but then he runs into a stranger. This is Providence. He runs

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into a stranger and says, no, he's not really there. I think they went up to Dothan. You're

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going to find him there. So he goes up to Dothan. It's interesting how this whole story turns on

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one stranger, one unnamed stranger in the middle of nowhere, telling him, don't look here. Look

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over there for your brothers. God's fingerprints are all over this tale. With that said, he goes

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to see his brother. The minute they see him, he doesn't even have to open his mouth at this part

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of verse 18. It says before he even speaks here, the minute that they see that coat, the minute

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they see this guy. The minute they see their brother, they say, all right, it's on. We're done

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with the brother. And so they conspire, verse 18, to kill him. The dreamer is coming. Let's cast him

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down, kill him, throw him into the pit, and we'll say that a beast has devoured him. So Joseph walks

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up. Hey, guys, how's it going? Boom. Immediately, they seize him. They do all this stuff. They throw

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him in the pit. This has got to be the worst day of his life. And as he's sitting there in the pit,

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as this is all unfolding, this is a cataclysmic event, and it probably didn't make much sense

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to him at that time. He probably was sitting there going, it can't get worse than this.

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My brothers hate me. They want to kill me. They threw me in the pit. And what's going on here?

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Well, news flashed to Joseph. It was going to get a lot worse very soon. It was going to be a lot

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worse very soon. Just in the immediate term, in the very near term, he was going to be literally

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sold, literally sold to slave traders by his own brothers. And then again, he wasn't going to just

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work on the Jones farm down the street or something like that. They were going to take

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him out of the promised land, out of Canaan, out of God's country, so to speak, down to where the

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pagans were, and take him down to Egypt. So he's sitting in the pit. He doesn't even know what's

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about to happen to the slave traders and going down to Egypt. And once he gets to Egypt, what's

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going to happen then? Well, very shortly thereafter, at least in reasonable time thereafter, he's going

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to be accused of sexual assault on Potiphar's wife. He's going to be falsely accused. But even as bad

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is that is that's not the worst of it after being falsely accused of sexual assault by potter's wife

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he's going to be thrown into jail and not just any jail but the jail where they put political

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prisoners where most died as a result of being thrown into jail and we're going to see that

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next week well that said as bad as it must have felt as cataclysmic as life had turned out as

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awful as it must have been in the pit and then chains and sold and then a caravan down to egypt

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it kept getting worse each day was the worst day of his life for some period of time and at some

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point, you'd have to say, God, I remember the dreams. You remember the dreams, don't you? You

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gave me these dreams and all this was going to happen and my brothers were going to bow down to

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me and everything was going to be great. Right, God? You remember that. I remember that. But this

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is not it. This prison in Egypt is not it. It's not what you said. God, did I mishear you? Or worse

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yet, did you change your mind? Are you not with me? I mean, there's all sorts of things. We have

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to speculate. There's all sorts of things that might have gone into his mind. Whatever the case

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is, his reality was running 180 degrees different than his expectation. Now let me stop there for a

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moment. As believers, has that experience occurred to you? Have you looked at a part of your life,

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maybe a season in your life, maybe the years yet to come in your life, and you had an expectation

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that it would unfold in a certain way? An expectation that God would do certain things

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based on just what you thought he should do

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and what it looked like he was going to do

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and what you'd prayed that he would do.

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But then, out of the blue, something happens,

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something you might not have even seen coming,

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and it completely alters, fractures, maybe permanently,

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the trajectory you were previously on.

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And at that moment, it's natural, it's not necessarily right,

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but it's natural to go, God, what's going on?

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And your trust in God can be tested in those moments.

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Not necessarily your belief in God.

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Those are two different things.

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Some people go through the greatest of hardships.

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They never lose sight that God's there.

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Where they're hurting is their trust in him.

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God, I trusted you for some outcome or something that I placed in your hands,

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and now it's not there.

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What's going on?

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Well, we don't know exactly what's going on in Joseph's heart and mind,

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but we know he entered into this hardship needing some sort of hardship

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in order to disabuse him of his pride and his hubris and all these other things.

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We know he needed to have some encounter that would modify his character,

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and his character does seem to be modified,

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and that may be just one of many reasons why God does what he does in this case.

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With that said, let's talk a little bit more about providence as we look at our last verses.

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I'm going to skip ahead to verses 29 through 34,

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and at this point we see in our text in chapter 37,

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the slave traders have now purchased Joseph from his brothers,

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And the story is going to turn away from Joseph for a moment, back to the brothers,

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and specifically back to their report to the father, who is also about to have the worst day of his life.

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Okay, verses 29 through 34.

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Now, when Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes.

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And he returned to his brothers and said, the lad is no more.

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And I, where shall I go?

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He's the oldest. He had some responsibility here.

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Look after your brothers.

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Well, he didn't here.

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So he says, the lad's gone.

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Where shall I go?

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What's going to happen?

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And so they took, verse 31, they took Joseph's tunic and they killed a kid of the goats and they dipped the tunic in the blood.

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Then they sent the tunic of many colors and they brought it to their father and they said, we have found this.

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Do you know whether it's your son's tunic or not?

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How cruel, just as an aside, how cruel is that?

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Dad, we found this bloodied, multicolored coat.

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I don't know, maybe you could help us out, Dad.

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is this Joseph's? It is. They go in, they probably rehearsed. Who's going to say what? Who's going

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to say what? Well, then we see there in verse 31 that he recognizes it. He recognizes it and he

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says, it is. It is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. That was the natural conclusion

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because wild beasts devoured a lot of people back in this day. It was one of life's hardships living

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back in Genesis 37. So he says, a wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt, Joseph is torn to

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pieces. That's interesting. Despite his prayer, despite his faith, despite his, you know, even

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Joseph's dreams that have been ported to him that he'd been pondering about, he says, without a

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doubt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, no doubts whatsoever, he's been torn to pieces. That's

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interesting. He's given one piece of evidence, falsified evidence here, and he immediately

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concludes the absolute worst. This is the end. It's all over. He's torn to pieces. And verse 34,

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it ends with this statement, then Jacob tore his clothes, he put sackcloth on his waist,

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And he mourned his son for many days.

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I think it could be argued that the cruelty of what the brothers did to Joseph

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is exceeded by the cruelty of what they just did to their dad.

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With that said, at this moment in time, both Joseph and Jacob,

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if you had a freeze frame of the lives of these individuals in the patriarchal age,

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if you had a freeze frame of the life and the faith of these two individuals at this time,

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both Joseph and Jacob must have felt, understandably would have felt,

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hurt by circumstances that they knew were in God's control.

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They knew enough about God to know this, that he's sovereign.

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Now, what's sovereign mean?

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Well, sovereign means that he's in control.

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When we say that God is in charge of all things,

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we're not saying some things,

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and then there's a few other things that, you know,

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he kind of has to watch to see how it unfolds,

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and maybe occasionally he rolls up his hands and deals with them.

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No.

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When we say God is sovereign,

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we say that there's not a molecule in existence

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that moves or finds its being apart from his will.

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God is sovereign.

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Now, you and I, we oftentimes get that

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when things go well, right?

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Or when we talk about providence.

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You know, God's providential.

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He arranges all these wonderful things to happen.

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You know, something good happens in your life.

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As Christians, we've been trained to say,

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oh, that's providence, right?

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That's God's providence.

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But you know what I never hear?

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I never hear when something terrible happens,

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and someone goes, oh, that's providence.

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God decrees the beginning from the end.

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God decrees the end from the beginning.

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God is in charge of all things, not just some things. The problem we have is that it is hard

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to understand when some of the things that occur in his providence are especially egregious or hard

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or difficult for us to undergo. And there we can have this bifurcation where we say God's in charge

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and then we look at something that happens and we go, but he's in charge and yet he's good and yet

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this happened. He's in charge and yet he's good, but this happened. He's in charge, he's good,

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and yet this happened, and we have trouble reconciling them.

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If ever there was two guys at a moment in time, freeze frame,

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who must have been going, what's the deal with that?

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You're good and you're in charge, and yet this happened.

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It had to be Joseph and Jacob.

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But as we're going to see in the chapters yet to come,

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and it's all I can do to not jump to the end of the story here

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and explain all the neat things that are going to happen in the life of Joseph.

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But with that said, we can simplify it by saying this.

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Things are not always what they seem.

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Again, God's name doesn't even appear in this chapter.

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But you can argue that there are a few chapters in all the Bible that show more of his handiwork and his fingerprints in dictating outcomes using all manner of different people and circumstances to appoint a good and a wonderful end.

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A few chapters from now, we're going to see that everything that's taking place here, every last thing, every iota of these occurrences is directly ordered by God to accomplish something wonderful.

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The salvation of Israel, the salvation of the patriarchs,

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the salvation of God's people, the salvation of the children of Israel,

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but also the salvation of their souls

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and the sanctification of hard-hearted brothers.

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The sanctification of one brother who showed pride over the others.

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The sanctification of an old man who lost his trust for a moment

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and said, surely it's over.

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Not only is God going to save his people through all these circumstances,

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but he's going to use these circumstances to do something

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in the character of these men that the end of their story

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would be better than the start.

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That's really the story of the patriarchs in general, as we've seen.

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We went through Abraham, we went through Isaac, we've gone through Jacob, we're going through sons.

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And what you're going to see is that their starts in many cases are not that great.

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And there's all sorts of twists and turns.

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But God loved them.

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God chose them.

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He said, you are mine.

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And because of that, he worked them through all these hardships.

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He navigated them through all these difficulties to a good and a wonderful end.

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So that if they could stand outside themselves from 10,000 feet and see what he did, they wouldn't have it any other way.

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In fact, that's exactly what Joseph is going to say five chapters from now.

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You can say, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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What you meant, my brothers, for evil, God meant for good.

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This morning, whatever you're going through, as difficult as it may be,

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there's probably no chance you can comprehend what God's doing in it right now.

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We simply do not have the perspective that we will one day have.

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But that's where faith kicks in.

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Faith kicks in and says, no, I don't get it, and no, I don't like it,

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but I know that a good and a sovereign God is in charge.

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And because of that, I have hope that my hardship or my loss is not for nothing,

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that God will indeed use it and is using it even now in ways that I don't totally understand or like.

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Faith looks at providence, sees the fingerprints of God and says,

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God, even though I don't like it and don't understand it, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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Let's pray.