By Mary Lee Thornton

Many Times We Find Ourselves In Certain Predicaments Over Which We Have No Control And We Wonder Why God Would Allow That To Happen To Us. In This Study Of An Incident In The Life Of Joseph We May Just Find Some Answers To Our Own Problems.

Genesis 45:3. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.
4. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
5. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
6.For These Two Years Hath The Famine Been In The Land: And Yet There Are Five Years, In The Which There Shall Neither Be Earing Nor Harvest.
7. And God Sent Me Before You To Preserve You A Posterity In The Earth, And To Save Your Lives By A Great Deliverance.
8.So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. (KJV)

God Has A Purpose For Everyone's Life, And In Everything That Happens In Our Lives God Is Moving Us Towards That Purpose.

In Our Reading Joseph Has Just Revealed Himself To His Brothers And They Are Terrified Because They Had Committed A Terrible Deed To Him When They Sold Him To The Ishmeelites

And Now He Stood Before Them With The Power Of Life Or Death Over Them.

But He Wants To Alleviate Their Fears By Assuring Them That What They Had Done Was The Hand Of God At Work To Fulfill His Purpose.

It Is Probable They Had Instinctively Shrunk Back From His Presence On Learning The Astounding Fact That He Was Joseph.

Then We Hear Those Tender Words In Verse Four.

Genesis 45:4. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. (KJV)

His Brethren Were Grieved And Angry With Themselves, Not That Joseph Was Alive, But That He Had Ever Been Sold.

Many A Time During The Past Years They Had Mourned Over Their Sin Against The Child Of Rachel.

And Now, As They Stood Before The One They Had Wronged, The Anguish Of Their Self-Reproach Was Almost More Than They Could Bear.

Then Joseph Shows Brotherly Affection By Calming Their Fears And Telling Them That What They Did Was God's Way Of Bringing About His Purpose For Joseph's Life.

Genesis 45:4a. "Come Near To Me, I Pray You…
5. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. (KJV)

The Next Few Verses Tell Of The Reunion With, Tears Of Joy And Kisses By Joseph, And Remorse By His Brethren.

But What We Want To Study In This Incident Is The Process God Used To Bring Joseph To The Realization That What He Had Gone Through Was God's Way Of Fulfilling His Purpose In His Life.

1. Joseph Was Cast Into Darkness.

We Are All Familiar With The Jealousy And Resentment Which Joseph's Brothers Had Towards Him Because He Was His Father Jacob's Favorite Son.

The Resentment Grew

But Judah Conspired With Some Of Them To Sell Him To A Band Of Ishmeelites Which Were Passing Through For Twenty Pieces Of Silver.

They In Turn Took Him To Egypt And Sold Him As A Slave In The House Of Potiphar, And Officer Of Pharaoh's, Where Everything Went Well For A Time.

Joseph's Test With The Egyptian Woman.

Potiphar Trusted Joseph And Made Him Overseer Of All His House.

Before Long Potiphar's Wife Cast Her Eyes Upon Joseph And Began To Make Unwelcomed Advances Towards Him.

But When Joseph Resisted Her Advances Towards Him, She Told Lies Against Him To Her Husband Potiphar, Who In Turn Cast Him Into Pharaoh's Prison.

From Favorite Son, To Slave, To Prisoner.

The Question Arises, Why Did God Allow Such Horrible Things To Happen To Joseph?

Why Could Not God Use Joseph Like He Was In His Father's House?

In Other Words Why Was Joseph Cast Into Darkness In Order That God's Purpose For His Life To Be Fulfilled?

We Will Endeavor To Answer These Questions, And In These Answers We May Find The Answer To Why God Allows Us To Walk Through So Many Dark Places.

We Learn More In The Darkness.

It Is A Fact That The Most Of What We Have Learned, We Learned During The Periods Of Darkness.

When Things Are Going Well With Us We Sometimes Forget To Be Thankful.

We May Not Take Time To Read The Bible, And Pray, As We Should.

When Everything Is Rosy, And The Sun Is Brightly Shinning On Our Life, We Don't Meditate, And Communicate With God Like We Do During Periods Of Darkness.

No Problems, Little Prayer. It Is During The Darkness We Seek His Face. In Times Of Trials We Pray Most Earnestly.

God Uses Those Times Of Darkness To Mold Us, To Change Us, To Bring Us Into A Place Where His Purpose For Our Lives Can Be Manifest.

So We Will Look At The Life Of Joseph, Of Moses, Of Paul, And Of Peter, To See What God Did For Them When They Walked Through The Darkness.

1. We Learn Discipline In The Darkness.

During The First Seventeen Years Of His Life, Joseph Was A Spoilt Child.

Genesis 37:3. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. (KJV)

He Was A Tattletale, Always Telling On His Brothers, To His Father. (Gen. 37:2)

He Garnered The Resentment Of His Brothers By Telling All His Dreams Of Their Sheaves Doing Obeisance To His Sheaves. (Gen. 37:7-8)

Because Of The Favoritism His Father Showed To Him His Brothers Hated Him.

Genesis 37:4. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. (KJV)

God Could Not Use A Seventeen Year Old Spoilt Child,

So He Allowed Joseph To Be Cast Into The Darkness Of Pharaoh's Prison To Learn Discipline.

There Were Very Harsh Conditions In The Egyptian Dungeon. Ideal To Learn Discipline.

Many Times God Would Like To Use Us But We May Be Too Head Strong, Too Over Bearing, Unkind, And Thinking Only Of Ourselves.

So He Brings Us Through The Dark Defile Where We Cannot Have Our Own Way To Teach Us Discipline.

We Learn God's Way In Time Of Darkness.

We Learn To Give Up Our Strong Feelings In The Face Of Trial.

Moses Learned More In The Desert Of Midian Than He Did In The University Of Egypt.

Acts 7:22. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. (KJV)

At Forty Years Of Age Moses Was One Of The Most Learned Men In The World.

God Was Preparing, In The Palace Of Pharaoh, A Man To Lead His People From Egyptian Bondage, And To Mold Them Into A Nation, And To Bring His Laws To The World.

But At This Time Moses Was Too Brash, Too Impetuous, Too Hasty In Taking Things Into His Own Hands.

So God Allowed Him To Spend Forty Years In The Midian Desert To Learn Discipline, After Which Time God Called Him The Meekest Man On Earth.

2. In The Darkness We Learn To Depend On God.

In The Egyptian Prison Everything That Joseph Had Depended Upon Was Taken Away From Him.

At Home Joseph Had Only To Ask And His Father Took Care Of His Wants.

He Was So Special His Father Made Him A Coat Of Many Colors.

But In The Prison He Had No One To Turn To, No One To See To His Needs, So Joseph Learned To Depend On God.

Even Though God Blessed Joseph While He Was In Prison, He Let Him Languish In There For Thirteen Long Years.

Sometimes We Tell God That We Have Been Under A Certain Burden, Or Load, For A Long Time.

We May Even Think That God Has Forgotten About Us As The Chief Butler Forgot Joseph After He Returned To Pharaoh's Court.

But It May Take Some Time In The Darkness, More Time Than We Want To Spend, For God To Bring Us To The Place Where We Learn To Depend On Him.

It Took Forty Years In The Wilderness Of Midian For Moses To Become Totally Dependent Upon God.

At Eighty Years Of Age God Felt Moses Was Ready To Go Back To Egypt To Lead His People Out Of Bondage.

Much Too Old For Any Man To Undertake Such A Stupendous Task Alone.

But Moses Had Learned To Depend On God And To Do What He Had Tried To Do Alone Forty Years Before. And God Brought Them Out With A Mighty Hand.

It Took Several Years In The Desert Of Arabia For Paul To Give Up Old Customs, And Habits, And Feelings, Of His Early Life.

For Saul It Was A Long Road From Birth, To Apostle, And Writer Who Interpreted The Life Of Jesus Better Than Any Man Ever Has. All His Life He Felt He Had A Destiny To Do Something For God.

Galatians 1:15. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,"

Born In A Pharisee Home, Raised And Trained As A Pharisee. Paul Was Very Zealous In Religion.

Paul Was Highly Educated In The Schools And University Of Tarsus, Later In Rabbinical School At Jerusalem. (Acts 22:3)

All Of This God Could Use In Advancing The Kingdom Of God, But God Had To Bring Him Into The Secluded Desert To Mold Him To Fulfill The Destiny He Was Called To.

So God Sent Him Into The Desert For At Least Three Years To Prepare Him. The University Of Arabia.

Some May Think That Time Of Preparation Is A Waste Of Time.

We All Can Think Of Some Young Man Who Started Out On His Own Too Early And Did Not Succeed.

Young Men Who Feel Their Call To Preach Need To Spend Time In Bible Study, Prayer, Above All Sit Under Your Pastor Listening, Learning, And Seeking His Guidance.

Don't Rush This Time Of Preparation, It's The Most Important Time In Your Life.

Joseph Had Thirteen Years, Moses Forty, Paul Seven In Almost Total Obscurity

3. God Is Always Moving Us Towards The Light.

While Joseph Was In The Darkness Of The Egyptian Prison God Began To Give Him The Power To Interpret Dreams.

Joseph Used This God Given Power As A Stepping Stone Up Out Of The Darkness Of The Prison.

Two Years After Joseph Told Pharaoh's Butler The Answer To His Dream, And He Was Restored To His Position As Chief Butler, Pharaoh Himself Had A Very Disturbing Dream.

When None Of His Magicians Could Interpret The Dream, Then The Butler Remembered Joseph, And Told Pharaoh About Him.

Genesis 41:14. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. (KJV)

From Darkness Into Light. From Prisoner To Prime Minister.

Moses And The Burning Bush.

Exodus 3:1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
2. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
10. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt. (KJV)

After Forty Years On The Backside Of The Desert God Said Moses Was Ready To Fulfill The Purpose For Which he Was Born.

The First Forty Years Moses Was Trained In The Courts Of Pharaoh, The Next Forty Years Were Spent In The Silence Of The Desert With God.

Fourteen Thousand Six Hundred Days And Nights With God. One-Third Of His Life In The Desert Of Midian.

During This Time Moses Got Really Close To God.

God Gave Him The Revelation Of Creation, Which Moses Wrote Down, And We Call The Book Of Genesis.

The First Eighty Years Of Moses' Life Are Told In Twenty Seven Verses Of Exodus, The Next Forty Years Are Told In One-Hundred-Thirty-Five Chapters.

If We Could Ask These Three Men, Joseph, Moses, And Paul, Was It Worth The Years You Spent In Darkness? Do You Feel Like That Part Of Your Life Was Wasted?

Let Us Look At The Next Eighty Years Of Joseph's Life After He Got Out Of Prison.

Genesis 41:41. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.
42. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;
43. And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. (KJV)

After Thirteen Years In The Darkness Of The Dungeon, God Raised Him To A Life Of Splendor He Could Never Have Imagined.

God Put Him In A Position Of Power And Authority In The Land Of Egypt Where He Could Be The Saving Of Jacob's Family From The Famine Which Threatened Them With Starvation.

God Brought Moses From Herding Sheep In The Desert Of Midian Back To Pharaoh's Court With Power To Lead His People.

4. Those Things We Learn In The Darkness We Must Share In The Light.

Matthew 10:27. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. (KJV)

That Is God's Purpose For Our Lives. God Wants Us To Share With Others What He Has Done For Us In Our Lives.

Joseph Shared The Blessings Which God Had Bestowed Upon Him With His Family, Bringing Them Into His Care In The Land Of Egypt.

Moses Gave The World Law And Order With The Commandments, And Great Law of Moses.

Moses Wrote More Of The Bible Than Any Other Person, Giving Us The First Five Books.

Moses' Name Is Mentioned In More Verses In The Bible Than Any Other Person, But Abraham And Jesus.

Christianity Owes Much Of It's Greatness To The Apostle Paul For Sharing The Revelations Which He Received During The Times Of Darkness He Went Through.

Galatians 1:11. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (KJV)

Much Of This Was Given To Him In The Desert Of Arabia, Some While He Was In The Many Prisons He Was Cast Into, And Some During The Persecutions By His Own Countrymen, And The Pain Suffered By The Deception Of False Brethren.

Philippians 1:12. But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;
13. So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places;
14. And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
15. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:
16. The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds:
17. But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.
18. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. (KJV)

We See In These Verses The Same Mind, Or Feeling, About The Things Which They Went Through, Operating In Both Joseph And Paul.

Both Felt That It Was God Which Was Controlling The Events Of Their Lives, Whether Times Of Darkness, Or Periods Of Joy.

So Let Each Of Us Take Heart In Our Study Of The Great Men Of God Who Had Such Great Trials Of Afflictions, And Came Through Them To Become Such An Inspiration To The World.

Genesis 45:8. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. (KJV)

This May Help Us To Understand How God Is Working In Our Lives.

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