COME AS A CHILD LESSON 109 A WORD BEFORE THE EXODUS BEGINS

  

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

On a Thursday back on January 4^th of 2014 I started writing this series of bible studies we have called “COME AS A CHILD.”  

Together, we have now studied the whole first chapter of the bible called Genesis.  It only took about two years!  If you are like me, you were amazed at what all the first book of the bible contained, and really, we didn't touch on everything because it would have been impossible to ever finish.

  

It has been fun!  

I hope you have learned as much as I have about God’s Kingdom and how to walk through it with the eyes of a child.  I want to extend my heart-felt thanks to each of you who have been brave enough to join in with me every Thursday!  I am humbled in the fact that I know some of you are much better teachers than I will ever be.  God just has a way of helping us all out.  I am so happy that you have taken this journey with me.  Everything is always better with a good friend at your side!

What you must realize now is that we have only just begun!  The journey through Exodus is about to start with our very next lesson. 

I thought it would be good to go back and review our goals and the purpose for all of this study.  Many of us have already read through the bible, some of us many times over.  The goal here is not just to read through, and not just to study, but to approach scriptures with new eyes.

 

I’ll be repeating some words for those of you who got in on the very beginning of our journey together, but I think they bear repeating.  The whole point of this particular study is to get you to look at the Holy Scriptures with the wide-opened, wonder-filled eyes of a child.  Hear the words all fresh and new and imagine a loving Father inviting you into His story.  Come as a child. 

Why?  

There are many reasons.  Some of them follow below. 

Let’s start with some scriptures:

Psalms 131:3:  But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast.  My soul is opened within me.

Matthew 18:3: And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

That was Jesus speaking!  

He says we must come to Him as a little child.  Just what exactly does this mean?

Stop and think for a moment about what is involved in being a child. 

Everything is new to you.

You are learning every day.

You put your complete trust in your parents and all of those around you.  (For the purpose of this study that would be God, The Father.)

There are no preconceived ideas; you accept things as they are.  (Maybe you have been taught “this” and “that” about the scriptures.  That was probably someone else’s interpretation.  I simply ask that you erase all other interpretations from your thoughts for this study and listen to no one but God.  (Not even me!)  Let God speak to you and reason with you about these lessons.  Sit with him each time and LISTEN to Him guide you.)

As a child, you haven’t learned hate or caution or bitterness or manipulation yet.

You are not competing with anyone else.  Life is simply all about being yourself and relating to the world just the way God made you to be.

Everything is out in the open.  Nothing is hidden or fake.

 

The most important part of your world consists solely of you, your parents and the home you are making together.  You are completely dependent on this environment, for your food, for your comfort, for everything you have. 

You never worry.  You don’t even know what that is yet, because your Father takes care of all the details of your life.

You are not afraid.  Fear is a learned behavior, you do not know it yet.

You are innocent.  Sinful thoughts are not a part of your day.  You are pure.  You do not know the things that make up a sinful nature.  Your thoughts are uninhibited by these things.

You have not learned to be prejudiced.  You simply love everyone and everything. 

Joy is a delightful part of each day as you explore the universe that your Father has created.  

Every day is full of wonder and delight!

Are you getting the idea?  Welcome to true worship!  This is just the way that Adam and Eve lived in the garden with God before sin entered in.  

This is the way that God originally intended for us to worship Him.  

In true worship you simply come to God the way a child would, trusting, expecting, letting God do the leading and planning, simply being the person that God created you to be and worshiping God with love.

What could be better?  

What could be more simple?

Yet, in our humanity, we humans make this a complicated, complex mess by trying to do everything OUR way instead of leaving it all up to God.  If worship isn’t straight from God, can we truly call it worship? 

So the idea is to simply relax and find that child-likeness that takes you directly to God.  

Give yourself to be in awe of God.  

Let yourself be completely dependent on God.  

Worship!

We could all do this when we were children.  

Have you ever prayed with a child or watched a child in worship?  

What came to us naturally as children is often hard to achieve in pure form as an adult.  

We have to lay down what the well-meaning people of the world have taught us and look to God to be taught.  

When we truly take the time to listen to Him with a child’s heart we find ourselves learning and living what the scriptures say.  The wonder of it all overflows from our hearts into our lives. 

So as we approach each new passage of scripture we come realizing there are no wrong answers.  You might hear something in your time with God that I did not hear, and I might see something in a passage that you do not see.  The key is to listen to your Father.  He knows each of our own individual needs and like any good father, He shows us what he knows we will relate to.  We both might learn something completely different from each lesson, that is okay!  Neither of us are wrong, there are no wrong answers when you are listening to God.  There are only the answers that He is giving to you.  He shows us in the perspective that we need to know.

 

For example, three people might be looking at a chair.  One person sees the front, one the side and one the back.  It is still the same chair.  We all have seen it from our own perspective.  Trust God to help you have the perspective you need to live in your circumstances.  He will show you.  Have the trust of an innocent child.  Do exactly what God tells you because you believe Him.  He may ask something of you that He doesn’t ask of your neighbor, and vice versa.  This is OKAY – there are no wrong answers, just people who do not listen.  Children listen to their father’s voice.  They know it and they follow it.  That is what these lessons are all about, to help you listen for your Father’s voice and follow it with complete trust. 

As we come as a child with an open heart we want to give our lives away to God’s Holy Spirit and let The Holy Spirit be completely in charge of our learning and our sharing and our doing. 

We must die to ourselves and let God show us everything.  This all starts by approaching God with the heart of a child. 

So now that we have entered through the beginning, let’s go and take the Exodus together, God will go with us.  There will be a new lesson every Thursday – just bring your childish heart!

PEN ART - A BEAUTIFUL POEM AND A LOVELY SONG

(Commentary by Sheila Gail Landgraf, poetry and song lyrics by Allen Levi)

Today's Pen Art is not my own, I must give all credit to Allen Levi, who has blessed us with the following words of a very poetic song:

  

Golden Choir of Aubiere,

( by Allen Levi)

Rows and rows of bowing heads,

Sunflowers say their evening prayer,

A congregation of the field,

The golden choir of Aubiere.

Dawn to dusk, they only turn

Up to heaven where God lives,

Every face a separate light

Reflections of the love He gives.

 Lord of colors, Lord of light,

 Won't you teach me how to pray

 Like the flowers of Aubiere?

 Won't you guide me through the day?

Rose and lily grow so fair,

But, Lord, make me like the sunflower,

Looking always to your face,

Seeking you from hour to hour.

 Lord of colors, Lord of light,

 Won't you teach me how to pray

 Like the flowers of Aubiere?

 Won't you guide me though the day?

Rows and rows of bowing heads,

the golden choir of Aubiere,

the golden choir of Aubiere.

 As winter sweps across the landscape turning everything brown and gray, I long for the bright vivid colors of spring.  A song is forming in the caverns of my mind, and I catch myself humming....hopefully.  

I seem to need a large dose of it today as I look out the office windows and think of other places I would rather be.  The first place that comes to mind is the place in the song I hum, a place called Aubiere.  I know it is in the south of  France where the sunflowers and the lavendar are said to grow side by side for miles and miles.  

No, I’ve never been there, except in my imagination while listening to Allen Levi’s song.  If I could go though, I would head straight for the sunflower fields and check out the rows and rows of praying heads. 

If the sunflowers stand next to a contrasting purple lavendar field, all for the better!  The lovely contrasting flowers are like the two countries they hail from; each beautifiul in their own unique way.  Those beautiful yellow rows of color were such a sweet gift from America to France by the Spainards back in the 1600's.  Funny how people think of France when you mention sunflowers because it was the American Indian that first cultivated the flower.  What a gift to the land they have been, for both countries.

Everyone has a favorite song, poem, story, piece of art, right?  Golden Choir of Aubiere has always been one of my old favorites, as much for the words as for the melody.   Thank you Allen Levi for blessing us with the melody.  

There seems to be some mystery behind the lyrics that I cannot get to the core of, something that has not yet been revealed, but it doesn't stop the lovely haunting music from capturing my heart.   The simple beauty of the song has resided a tresure inside my mind from the first time I heard the poetic lyrics so many years ago.    

I first experienced the rich, poetic words and the simple tune inside my welcoming ears during a time when I was missing the joy of being constantly surrounded by anything of  beauty or grace.  In my state of struggling through much day-to-day dullness, these words lent the essence of what I found missing from my surroundings.  The slow soft lyrics and the bright vivid word pictures helped me to hold on until better days arrived.  They made me lift my head and become grateful in the midst of all circumstances.  They made me long for the simple life of the sunflower, one of joy, one of worship and faith.  That is what sunflowers do, they pray and worship and look up to God.  They are always patiently beautiful and cheerful no matter their surroundings.  They pop up in the most unexpected places and make your day just a little bit more special.  I learned back in those bleak times how to be a sunflower.  That lesson has made such a difference in the outcome of my life.  

I can now look back on those days and smile and know that God was forming and shaping my character into the person He wanted me to be.  He was teaching me to leave my own visions behind and look at the better vision He had chosen to give to me, one of simple beauty, joyous praise and thanksgiving.  We never realize how important these qualities are until we have lived in the place where they do not exist.   I pray that your days are all filled with sunflowers!

 

There is a field somewhere  in Aubiere where constant praise is being offered.  

Oh that we could all live like that lovely golden choir all the time!  

Oh that we could teach out hearts to sing the song that Allen Levi sang while (I suppose) he was there observing the beauty of his surroundings.  

There is a place like Aubiere out there for all of us.  We must not get lost in the hurry of our days and forget to pause in the place of peace and beauty and give thanks for the simplicity of God's plan.  

It all becomes very simple when you observe the Golden Choir of Aubiere.

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 108 FINISHING GENESIS AND LOOKING TOWARD EXODUS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

So we know that Joseph dwelt in Egypt throughout the remainder of his lifetime.  He lived happily in the land with all of his relatives surrounding him.  He lived to be 110 years old, and he saw his grandchildren and his great grandchildren grow up.   

Four generations had now come and gone since the great famine and the people of God were still living in Egypt.  They multiplied and filled the land but they lived in different ways from the natives of the land.  They were godly people, keeping the covenant of God with Abraham. 

For the most part, under the leadership of Joseph, the Sons of Israel and their ancestors remained true to the teachings of Abraham that had been passed down to them from their father.  They were prosperous shepherds.  There were many of them and they were blessed. 

The time came when Joseph knew he was going to die.  He turned to his brothers and his children and grandchildren and said “I am dying; but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”  

So, through Joseph, the promises of God to Abraham were passed on.  Nothing was forgotten or forsaken.  The children of Jacob knew their heritage and did not forget it.  They knew and understood all the promises that God had made to Abraham.  Each generation was taught by their own father.

Joseph was well known among them for his great gift of prophecy.  His people had all lived to see his dreams from God fulfilled with their very own eyes.  They now respected all that Joseph told them about the future.  They understood his words were from God.

 

Because of this “knowing” of Joseph, the Sons of Jacob were never completely at home in Egypt.  They were always thinking that the day would come when God would find a way to lead them back to the land where Abraham and Sarah had lived and worshipped.  They did not forget or forsake the ways of Abraham. This loyal line of thinking began with them in Egypt during the days when times were good for the people, way before any thought of slavery happened to the ancestors of Abraham in the land of Egypt.  Things went well for them for a very long time and they prospered under Joseph’s leadership.  

Joseph clearly had this vision of return to the homeland and he never let them forget it.  He made his people take an oath before him that when the day came, and they returned, that they would carry his bones with them. 

So after a long, full, blessed life Joseph died.  They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.  His bones were not buried, but kept in a box that could be moved whenever the people moved.

With Joseph’s death the book of Genesis ends. 

What an amazing journey we have had walking together through this book with the eyes of a child!  Together we have explored the very old, old roots of Christianity.  

Let’s stop here for a moment and think of all the things that this awesome first book of the bible called   Genesis has taught us:

We have learned that God exists and he existed first, before anything else ever existed.  We know that he created the world and all that is in it and he formed man from the dust of the earth and drew woman from his ribs.  We have seen that God is the original source of all life.  We know that originally God walked and talked with man in paradise and intended that we always be in such communion with him forever.

We discovered that Satan also exists, and through Him sin entered the garden.  He was in the garden and he tempted the man and the woman to disobey God.  We discovered how sin came into the world and how mankind fell to a state that kept them from communion with God.  We learned that the wages of sin is death.   

 We learned  that the only way God could exist with sinful men after the fall was through a “covering” or a holy sacrifice that would blot out sins from God's eyes and provide a covering for men making them acceptable to stand before a Holy God.  This was first accomplished in the Garden of Eden with the sacrifice of an innocent animal and the blood and covering of animals has been used by men since that time as a way of sacrifice to draw closer to God.  At that time offering a sacrifice was symbolic of repentence. This symbolic, yet unperfect act, would prevail until the perfect, once for all, sacrifice of a Messiah happened.  Adam and Eve and every generation after them looked for such a Messiah.  God had given them that hope even as they left the garden in shame. 

We learned of the generations of Adam and all the stories of both good and evil sons who lived up until a time when evil prevailed on the earth in the days of Noah.  That was when God sent a flood to destroy so much evil and give those few left who were good and righteous a new life on a renewed earth.  A covenant from God was given to Noah after the flood in the promise of the rainbow.  

 After Noah, we watched generations of mankind progress up through the days of Abraham.  Abraham offered God sacrifices and worshipped God and turned from the evil idols worshiped by his family.   Abraham was willing to leave all he knew and step out into the unknown in pure obedience to follow God.  God loved Abraham and gave Abraham a covenant promise that his ancestors would fill the earth as many as the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky.   God promised to give Abraham and his children the land where God had led him through faith.  

We saw the generations after Abraham come forth.  We saw how each patriarch contributed to the formation of the Great Family of God.  We watched as God led them out of Canaan and into Egypt through an odd occurrence of events.  We saw how the life of Joseph was a foretaste and a perfect shadow of The Messiah to come.  

We have left the Children of God in the land of Egypt now, after Joseph’s death with the promise that they will one day return to the land that was long ago promised to Abraham by God. 

After Genesis we come to Exodus, both as the title of a book and as a way of surviving life as a child of God. 

This is a perfect time to go back and review any of the lessons you missed.  They are all available anytime you need to read them in the archives found within the indexes of this blog.  I am also condensing them together into a book format and I will have more details about that later in my freelance writing blogsite called Wordcastle Publications.  If you are interested in obtaining the condensed book called A CHILD'S WIDE-EYED WALK THROUGH GENESIS, please send your contact information to wordcastlepublications@gmail.com.  If I receive an e-mail note from you, I will let you know when the publication is available and provide ordering information at that time.  

I'm excited to be opening my own freelance content writing company where I will be sharing more and more of these stories as well as other Christian writing samples to the public.  I will keep you posted; but in the meantime I'm also excited to be starting the next part of this COME AS A CHILD blog study on Exodus within this blog beginning on next Thursday!  The Exodus posts will come out on Thursdays, in a similar fashion to how the Genesis posts were revealed, once a week.  

Let us continue this journey together and take the Exodus through the wide open eyes of a child.  

Let's step out bravely to see what God will teach us along the way.  I'm sure if we studied for a million years, He would always have something else to teach us.  That is what happens when your God is eternal and forever!   

Dear readers, be kind and have courage; for all things are possible when we put our trust in God.    

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE - THE MYSTERIOUS STORY OF THE RED HEIFER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Have you ever felt compelled to study the details of the sacrifice of The Red Heifer?  The study is fascinating and I keep coming back to it year after year.  If you’ve never heard of it, this was a sacrifice of a perfect Red Heifer that God commanded of Moses to make for the people in order to cleanse them before entering the Tabernacle in the wilderness.  Apparently, the ritual was put into place immediately as the Tabernacle came into use as God had instructed Moses. 

The requirements were that the heifer must be three years old and perfectly red; it must be physically free from any blemish or defect; it must never have been used to perform any physical labor; it was to be taken to a specific place outside the camp where it was slaughtered and burned; its ashes were mixed together with pure spring water to make a mixture to be sprinkled on the people for purification.

This practice started with Moses and was carried on all throughout history until the last temple was destroyed.  There have been nine red heifers and the nation of Israel is waiting on the 10^th to appear. 

Originally the people were contaminated and became impure because of the making of the golden calf.  You can read the story in Deuteronomy, Chapter nine of your bible.  To make it very short here it was a time when Moses had ascended to the mountain of God to receive the commandments of God.  The people were tired of waiting on their leader to return.  They were bored and restless, and they appealed to Aaron, whom Moses had left in charge to create a golden calf.  Miriam’s son Hur tried to persuade the people that this was wrong and they killed him for standing up to them.  Now bulls were a pagan symbol of worship in the land of Cannan and also in some areas of Egypt from where the people had just been released from slavery.  Aaron, probably afraid of the same fate as Hur, complied with their wishes and made the calf that they wished for him to make. Many scholars have pointed out too that there were Egyptians that had tagged along with the crowd as they left Egypt and that they had been secretly conspiring, persuading the people to make the calf.  Aaron was said to have stalled for time, thinking that Moses would soon return.  When that didn’t work he was said to have commanded that the people bring all their gold for it, thinking they might be stingy and not want to give it.  They complied.  It is unlikely that Aaron actually intended this calf be an idol, as he proclaimed a Feast for Yahwah after he finished making it.  (Exodus 32:5). 

At first it appeared that the people worshipping the calf seemed to associate it with the God who brought them out of Egypt.  It was said by some that the Egyptian conspirators knew magic tricks that made the calf appear to jump out of the fire.  Many believe that this was when the people’s hearts turned from worshipping God to worshipping the golden calf.  They allowed themselves to be tricked into believing a lie by sensational magic.  What ever the circumstances leading up to this, there are many theories, as time went on the truth came out.  Most of the people had wanted Aaron to make them a God to lead them because Moses had tarried so long on the Mountain.  They had allowed themselves to be deceived.  Whatever their original intentions, it becomes clear in Exodus 32:8 that the people immediately fell to worshipping the calf and violated the first commandment that God was giving to Moses on the Mountain (Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me.)

Now, God is omnipresent.  He could see the people in the camp and tend to Moses on the Mountain at the same time.  He KNEW this was going on the whole time, yet; He was giving Moses instructions of His will.  God informed Moses of his displeasure with the people and that they would die for their sins.  He told Moses that a new people, descendents of Moses would take their place and carry His will with them to the nations of the world. 

Moses was very distressed.  He prayed for God to forgive the people, reminding God of the covenant with Abraham and begging for mercy.  God decided to be merciful. 

Moses had promised the people that he would return in 40 days.  When the 40^th day arrived, Moses returned at sunset with the Commandments of God in his hands.  His assistant, Joshua was waiting on him at the foot of the Mountain.  They returned together at the end of the 40^th day after receiving the Revelation of God, just as promised.  When they approached the camp and saw what was taking place Moses threw the tablets of the commandments on the ground in frustration, breaking them into a million shattered pieces.  He took the golden calf and ground it to dust and spread the dust over water and made the people drink it.  This was his way of showing them the worthlessness of their idol and the lack of power it had.  Moses then stood at the entrance of the camp and told everyone who worshipped God to stand with him.  The entire tribe of Levi came. He then commanded those who were of God to slaughter those who had worshipped the golden calf, no matter how important those people were to them.   That day three thousand of the children of Israel lost their lives because of the sin of idolatry.

Moses went back up the mountain and prayed to God for the next 40 days while the people mourned their dead and atoned for their sins before God.  When the 40 days were up God told Moses to hew another set of tablets.  Moses ascended to the mountain a third time for God to inscribe the commandments.  Over the next 40 days God inscribed the commandments and told Moses that He had forgiven the children of Israel.   As Moses stood on the mountain with the commandments in his hands God taught Moses how the people could make atonement for their sins through repentance and prayer.  God proclaimed thirteen attributes for the people to recite in the days of their repentance.  These are a story unto themselves, but you can read of them in Exodus 34:6-7. 

After all of this Moses invited God to go before them and to use them as His people again.  God promised a covenant to Moses.  On the tenth day of the month of Tishrei (Yom Kippur) Moses returned to the camp and brought the commandments and told the people of God’s covenant with them.   God had promised them many blessings and miracles.  Moses’ face shinned so bright that the people were frightened and looked at him in awe.  Moses veiled himself and proceeded to teach the children of Israel the Torah.

Well……I tried to make that explanation as brief as possible, but you can’t leave much out and have the whole story.  Getting back to the reason for the Red Heifer, can you see how this ritual would signify the reversal of the sin of the golden calf? 

There are many mysteries surrounding the thought and ritual of The Red Heifer.  It was originally used to purify the people, especially from the contamination of death.  Death was considered the worst impurity of all impurities, life was considered the most sacred of all pure.  Sin had brought the death of three thousand people.  Think of the form of sin here.  They let others in the culture persuade them of untruth.  Can you see that around us today?  They didn’t just get up one day and decide to be disobedient to God, it seeped in on them from worldly influences.  Are you getting a picture of this now?  Could we in the United States of America be guilty of the sin of idolatry too?  The answer is not hard.  Do we too need to be made pure from the water and ashes of a red heifer?  Well, it did happen.  Just like God was merciful to the People of Israel who followed Him, He has looked down on us today and provided a way for us to be cleansed of the impurity of death from association with the ways of our current culture.  Our Red Heifer came in the form of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. 

After years and years of God teaching His people the story in a million different ways, God sent His Only Begotten Son.  The Son of God lived out the story in every aspect of His life on earth.  Can we not look upon His life and see that He was our sacrifice, our salvation, our only hope?  The church stands like Moses and says, you who believe in God come to my side.  Take a stand and live out what you believe no matter how hard the turn may be for you.  You may have to give up some things that are dear to you in order to come out of the world.  The answer though, on the other side of the cross, is life!  Life is worth it all. Eternal life is the final gift of God to His people.  Jesus died that we may live forever.  It is a pardox, much like the paradox of the Red Heifer.

Those who administered the ashes of the Red Heifer had to contaminate themselves outside the camp with the death of the cow.  This made them impure.  In taking on these impurities from death though, they were able to cleanse the people that they served. 

In considering this I think of the people today who have willingly made the sacrifice in risking their own lives to give medical help to those who have possibly fatal diseases, such as the doctors and nurses who have recently been in the news for treating cases of ebola.  I have noted that those who know God and have gone to their jobs with the backing of prayer and the heart of a servant of God have fared much better.  Is this a coincidence?  

Such was the case with our dear Jesus who took on our sins before God on the cross.  Sin is the greatest disease there is.  He took on all of our sin.  He was pure, but he became impure for a time  with our sins on the cross in order to cleanse us from the sin we have brought on ourselves.  

The priests of the temple went through the same ironic service year after year, always teaching in their actions the mercy and justice of God.  Mercy and justice existing together are yet another form of paradox we must consider in this story.

This is only a small sampling of the stories behind the mystery of The Red Heifer.  It is said that the whole Torah can be explained just from this one story.  It contains so much more than man can even begin to understand.  It is all about being obedient and faithful to God even when you do not know or understand what is going on in your circumstances.

The amazing story of The Red Heifer is a wonderful thing to consider as we make our way through a pagan world. 

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 107 WHAT JOSEPH AND CINDERELLA HAD IN COMMON

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

On the long, long journey to and from Israel's funeral, Joseph’s brother’s probably had a lot of time to think about what would happen to them in “life after father.”   

Odd as this sounds; these facts reminded me of Cinderella!  

I recently watched a modern-day version of  the "Cinderella" story.  It was very well done and the production really impressed me.  I loved the way the whole story emphasized the fact that Cinderella learned how to be herself and not try to impress others with false and superficial ways.  She learned not to be a people-pleaser and to require those who loved her to accept her for the beautiful person that she really was. 

 In this particular version of the old fairy tale, I loved how they added so many extra little details about Cinderella's life, including her thoughts.  She too had come to a sad time in her life, just like Joseph in our story today.  They both had lost the father they deeply loved.  Cinderella's  father's death was devastating to her.  It changed her world completely.  It was so similar to Joseph's story in that now there was a whole new set of circumstances for her to live through and many changed relationships that she must now deal with.  These circumstances were not easy.  She bravely faced the hard changes with love and courage.  She would miss her father so much!  Nothing would ever be the same again.  I could not help but think of Joseph.

Because they had stayed with their father and done everything the way he wanted basically so they could live underneath his blessings, Joseph’s brothers were now were living at the mercy of the hand of Joseph.  They were foreigners and strangers, living in a foreign land, much like Cinderella’s step-sisters when they had come to live in Cinderella's father's home.  They really had no right to anything in Egypt now, but because of their relation to Joseph, they had come into a rich and rewarding life in that land.  They probably appreciated this about as much as Cinderella's step-sisters.  Until Israel's death they took all of this for granted and simply thought they were entitled, but they surely did not want anything to happen to make them lose the blessings they had gained.

Joseph’s brothers depended on Joseph’s heavily blessed provision from God to survive.  Joseph had shared all he owned freely with them, holding back nothing.  They couldn’t take it all from him like Cinderella’s step family did, because Joseph had grown very powerful in the land; but they needed some type of reassurance that Joseph would always continue providing. They were very afraid of losing this easily gained good fortune that they had not worked a day in their lives for.

 

They knew Joseph had said long ago that they were forgiven, and he had never shown signs of holding a grudge against them for the way they had wronged him, but now; since Israel had died, they wondered if Joseph would become bitter and remember how they had treated him.  

Would he realize how different life could have been and might still be if none of their terrible evil deeds had ever happened and he had grown up in the land of Canaan knowing the constant love of his father and his other relatives?  

Maybe they had even  seen Joseph showing his two Egyptian sons the special places associated with his childhood days in the land of his birth during the time of Jacob’s funeral.  Perhaps they had seen a longing in Joseph's eyes that frightened them as he thought of “what could have been?”

  

The weaker brothers became very afraid of their grieving brother, and they decided to take action based upon their fears.  They all got together and sent word to Joseph asking him to consider that their father had requested before he died that Joseph forgive the wrongs they had committed against him. They knew Joseph would never question his father's last wishes.  

When Joseph received this message, he sat down and wept.  

At this point in our story, one cannot help but think of the shortest verse of the bible; that verse of just two little words: “Jesus wept.”  Joseph must have suffered a sadness similar to the sadness that Jesus felt as he looked upon those that he loved, yet he knew they had betrayed him in their weakness and in their humanity.  He loved them so much; yet they had hurt Him.  They had broken his heart.

The stinging tears of Joseph might have also been over a lot of the things he had lost; his father, the goodness of faithful brothers growing up, his home, the wasted years he had spent in prison for false acquisitions, the fact that his own sons did not really know the people that were his ancestors.  So much must have come to mind at the time and  many things such as this must have given Joseph great sadness and he wept.  

 As he wept, he must have prayed.  

Can’t you imagine Joseph talking to God as he was weeping and asking Him how all of this could be?  I’m sure his prayers were full of emotions and questions.   Even in his questions, it seems he trusted God to provide whatever answers he needed.  He did not lean on his own understanding.  He waited on God to guide him.  

At some point he came to himself and felt the peace of God within.  God must have spoken to him; because it is evident in the way he once again handled the very underhanded treatment of his brothers.  I say “underhanded” because it is clear that the brothers were acting out of fear and not really telling the truth.  

Of course Joseph’s father had wanted him to forgive his brothers, and Israel must have known in his heart that Joseph had already done this long ago.  Joseph had spent many days with Israel as he lay suffering and dying and if Israel had been concerned about how Joseph was going to treat his brothers he would have spoken directly to Joseph at that time, not his brothers.  Anyone reading Jacob’s last words to his sons would have realized this.  The brothers were simply fearful of Joseph’s power, and they were very full of their own terrible guilt.   They had carried it around with them unconfessed  for so many years, and now they simply could not let it go.  It had become a part of them.

Perhaps many of Joseph’s tears fell simply from the fact that he knew his brother’s own sins would always keep him from having a proper brotherly relationship with them, no matter what Joseph did to reassure them or mend the past.  Even if one party forgives, if the other party can't let go of their sin and move ahead, there is a block on the growth of the relationship and it will never mature and grow into what was originally intended.  

After he composed himself Joseph sent for his brothers.  

Can’t you see them coming before him trembling in fear, almost as much as that first day when they found out who he really was as he had revealed his true identity to them years ago in Egypt?

 They came and threw themselves at Joseph’s feet.  

“We are your slaves!”  they said to him.  

I’m sure a very old vision from the dreams of a young shepherd boy in a brightly colored coat must have flashed through Joseph’s mind when this happened.  Joseph had seen his dream from God come true several times now.  His brothers were bowing down to him, just as he had dreamed when he was a boy and they had made fun of him.  This flash-back to the past and remembering the dream probably also reminded Joseph that God was in the circumstances.  All of the details leading up to that moment of the dream coming true had been in God's control all along.  

 

And Joseph’s heart turned to the place of the peace of His Great God.  

“Don’t be afraid” he said to them, “Am I in the place of God?”

In other words, Joseph knew the only way judgment should ever be given was from the hand of God.  He knew in his heart he must totally forgive his brothers, no matter how hard it was for him in the flesh.  Joseph decided right then and there the proof of that old, old scripture so often repeated from Romans 12:19 (written way after the days of Joseph) “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.”

True forgiveness never involves revenge or judgement.  Only God may judge and only God can declare people guilty.  Joseph got that.  He realized that God's perspective was the only true perspective.   In spite of all they had done to him, and in spite of the fact that most likely they were again telling him a lie, Joseph forgave his brothers; completely and unconditionally, without restitution or repayment.

 

He did not overlook what they had done.  He agreed with their confession of their wrong.  They confronted one another and spoke of the facts together.  They did not sweep everything under the rug, but they talked the matter out and they came once again to the final conclusion that Joseph would overlook and forgive the wrongs that they had committed against him.

The forgiveness didn’t come because the brothers had fallen on their faces and begged, or because they had admitted their wrong and apologized.  Joseph wasn’t stupid.  He could clearly see this wasn’t a sincere apology, but only one brought in fear.  Had they not been afraid of the power that Joseph held over them, would they have even bothered?  Chances are slim to none.  Maybe some of them; but not all of them.  Joseph knew this but Joseph’s eyes were not on the humans who stood before him.  Joseph’s eyes were right where they had always been and right where they would always stay; fixed on God. 

Based on the spirit Joseph gained from listening to God, emptying his heart to Him and being obedient to God’s every word, Joseph explained his actions to his surprised and grateful brothers.  Joseph recognized in his life what so many selfish thinkers miss:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives!”

Had all of the circumstances of Joseph's life not happened the way they did the people of Egypt as well as the people of Israel would have starved to death.  God could have changed this in any way He chose to do so, but He decided to work through Joseph.  

God had shown Joseph the big picture.  Only God can do this, because only God sees the big picture.  This is because He is outside of time and we are inside of time.  We have tunnel vision; He has eternal vision.  His perspective is accurate, and ours is often shortsighted.  We do well to let God’s glasses do the looking for us in matters that are very important, such as this one was to Joseph.

For Joseph this was a moment of truth.  It was the realization of the culmination of all of his life's purpose.  He had matured so much in his walk with God that he didn't need dreams anymore.  Joseph had eyes to see.  God had opened them and he understood so far beyond the others living around him.  Things like this happen when your eyes are focused in the right place instead of worshiping yourself and the things of the world.  Joseph saw a glimpse, in these circumstances, of what Jesus saw on the cross.  He saw the end of the story; the one where God brings all bad circumstances around to work together for good.  Joseph had held on through it all and now he possessed within himself the greatest power and capacity that is possible from the human heart, that of unconditional love and forgiveness.

 

And so he told his brothers not to be afraid, that he would continue to bless them and provide for them.  As so often happens in this world, a whole newly forming nation was blessed from the goodness of one man’s heart toward God.

The people living in that day have long left the earth and gone into eternity, but if you could go back in time and talk to anyone from that day who lived in close proximity to this band of foreign brothers, they would tell you that Joseph was a lot like Cinderella.  He was one who always showed courage and kindness.

So my friends, the story of Joseph as well as the long walk through the Book of Genesis in this study is drawing to a close.  We will have one more lesson with a summary, but I will simply ask you every time you think of Joseph to remember Cinderella’s mother’s words to her; “be kind and have courage and you will do well.”  Joseph did!  


True kindness and courage can only come from God.