INTRODUCTION:

1. Genesis 41 ends with the report that the famine in Egypt “was over all the face of the earth…And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands” (41:56, 57).
2. The famine was affected the land of Canaan, and it was the need of Jacob and his household that reunited Joseph and his brethren (42:1-4).
3. I mentioned last week that the cruel jealousy of Joseph’s brothers, his sale as a slave into Egypt, his faithfulness under temptation, his imprisonment, his interpretation of the chief butler and the chief baker’s dreams, his patient endurance in prison; and then the dreams of Pharaoh and the chief butler remembering his faults, etc. all connected the pit in Canaan with the palace in Egypt.
4. Now in Genesis 42, we see another important link in the chain of Providence that brought Joseph and his family together in Egypt.

1. THE TRIP TO EGYPT
2. THE MEETING WITH JOSEPH
3. THE BROTHERS’ REPENTANCE

I. THE TRIP TO EGYPT (42:1-5).

1. The news got around that there was corn in Egypt, and when Jacob found out he told his sons to go there to buy some (42:1-3).
2. Jacob’s words, “Why do ye look one upon another?” (42:1) might indicate that Jacob’s sons were remembering how mistreated Joseph, and how they sold him into slavery (cf. 37:28).
3. The mention of Egypt called up memories which they would much prefer not to think about. However, there was a severe famine in the land, and the pressure of desperately needing food allowed them no time for indecision and hesitation.
4. They had to go. Jacob told his sons, “Get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die” (42:2, 3).
5. Only ten of Joseph’s brothers took the journey. Jacob would not allow his youngest son Benjamin to accompany them, “for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him” (42:4).
6. Since Joseph left (and at this time Jacob thought Joseph was dead – 42:13, 36), Benjamin was Jacob’s last and only comfort.
7. He couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to Benjamin.
8. One can imagine the uneasy feelings of the ten brothers as they journeyed to Egypt, and as they recalled the terrible events of twenty years before, when they threw Joseph into a pit and then sold him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.
9. They had no idea what awaited them in Egypt, and they were better off not knowing. Had they known that Joseph was the governor of Egypt, and in charge of the food distribution, they probably never would have gone.
10. W.H. Griffith Thomas said it was well that they did not know, “for it might easily have led to troubles of various kinds for themselves and their father. It is a merciful Providence which hides the future from our view, and calls upon us to take one step at a time, and to learn the spiritual meaning and significance of each event in the retrospect of experience” (Genesis).
11. God was getting ready to expose their sin, which had been buried for twenty years. It would be painful, but necessary.

II. THE MEETING WITH JOSEPH (42:6-25)

1. When Joseph’s brothers came face to face with Joseph they did not recognize him. And when they bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth, they were fulfilling his early dreams, though they did not realize it (42:6, 9a; cf. 37:7).
2. It is not surprising that they did not recognize Joseph. He was only seventeen-years-old when they last saw him. Now he was about thirty-eight-years-old.
3. With his Egyptian language, appearance and position, they never would have considered that this great Egyptian official was their little brother who they had sold into slavery.
4. Joseph’s rough treatment of them has puzzled many students of Scripture. Some have even criticized Joseph as being unkind and vengeful (42:6-9). Joseph’s treatment of his brethren was harsh, but he did it so that they might be led to acknowledge their sin.
5. Since Joseph was filled with the Holy Spirit, and since his relationship with God was the most important thing in his life, there does not seem much doubt that the Lord was directing him in what he did. This becomes very clear as the story unfolds.
6. Besides, if we tempted to feel sorry for Joseph’s brothers we should remember that they were hard men. These were the men who had massacred the entire village of Shechem in Genesis 34.
7. These were the men who threw Joseph into a pit and then sat down to eat a meal, while he was in the pit crying to let him out.
8. These were the men who sold Joseph into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.
9. Now twenty years have passed, and Joseph charged them with being spies come to see “the nakedness of the land” (42:9), that is, the unfortified and unprotected position of the land.
10. Joseph was getting them to tell their story, including their family history. They said to Joseph, “Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not” (42:13).
11. “And one is not” (42:13). That seemed to be what Joseph was looking for! Joseph’s brothers assumed he was long gone, never to be found (42:7-13). They were in for a big surprise.
12. They said, “Thy servants are twelve brethren . . . the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not” (42:13). This indicates that though Joseph may have been gone, he certainly wasn’t forgotten.
13. Joseph kept up the pressure, repeating, “Ye are spies” (42:9, 14, 16). Joseph wasn’t seeking revenge. He was looking for repentance.
14. Joseph had to put on a stern front in order to get his brothers to repent. It would have been easy for Joseph to reveal himself prematurely to his brothers, but that would have been the weak and impulsive thing to do.
15. Their character had to be tested. So Joseph pressed on.
16. Joseph wanted definite proof of their sincerity and truthfulness, so he made a proposal that one of them would return home and fetch their youngest brother, in order to prove that they were telling him the truth (42:15-20).
17. Over twenty years earlier, Joseph’s brothers cast him into a pit. Now "he put them all together into ward three days" (42:17).
18. These three days in prison would give them time to consider all that had happened…and to repent (42:21-23).

III. THE BROTHERS’ REPENTANCE

1. In prison, the memory of their sin was brought vividly before them.
2. Joseph’s actions obviously paralleled their actions many years before, but he did not do it for revenge or for punishment. Joseph was led by God, and God wanted them to remember and to repent (cf. 42:21-23).
3. God used their imprisonment to awaken the consciences of Joseph's brothers. There God could bring even stronger conviction. Their guilt was beginning to strike home.
4. The plan worked, because what we see here is genuine repentance (42:21, 22). We see here three elements of repentance.
5. Conscience – “We are verily guilty concerning our brother…”
   Memory – “in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear.”
6. Reason – “therefore is this distress come upon us.”
7. One preacher referred to conscience, memory and reason as “God’s three great hounds to bark and bay at the door of the soul” (John Phillips).
8. First, let us consider the conscience. It took many years, but now the brothers developed a very guilty conscience (42:21, 22).
9. Matthew Henry refers to the “office of conscience.” He says, “It is a remembrancer, to bring to mind things long since said and done, to show us wherein we have erred, though it was long ago, as the reflection here mentioned was above twenty years after the sin was committed.”
10. I remember hearing a preacher say, “Your conscience is the best preacher you’ll ever hear.”
11. John 8:9 says, "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience..."
12. In Romans 2:15, the apostle Paul refers to man’s “conscience also bearing witness.”
13. The problem is oftentimes people turn off their conscience just like they turn off the preacher. First Timothy 4:2 speaks of those who have “their conscience seared with a hot iron.”
14. Growing up here in Queens, I never saw a cowboy branding cattle with a hot iron, except on television. They did this to identify the owner and protect his cattle from cattle rustlers.
15. Try to think of this red-hot iron searing a man’s conscience!
16. Joseph’s brothers may have thought that by selling him into Egypt, they were finished with him. But they were wrong. And for over twenty years their consciences bothered them.
17. And now their trip to Egypt brought Joseph’s brothers to the place where conviction was starting to develop in their hearts. Every man has a conscience – even hard sinners have a conscience.
18. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the famous Sherlock Holmes novels, apparently had a strange sense of humor. He sent telegrams to twelve different friends with this brief message, “Fly at once; all is discovered.” Within 24 hours all twelve had left the country.
19. There are many examples in the Bible of sinners with a troubled conscience. Consider the penitent thief on the cross.
20. When the other thief railed on Jesus, the penitent thief rebuked him, saying, “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?” (Luke 23:39-41).
21. Think of Herod the tetrarch. Herod had John the Baptist’s head cut off. Matthew 14:1, 2 says that when Herod heard of the fame of Jesus, he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead.” Herod’s guilty conscience was bothering him.
22. Think of Judas Iscariot going out and hanging himself.
23. We think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth seeing Banquo’s ghost at the other end of his dinner table.
24. Macbeth’s conscience bothered him but he did not repent. His wife’s conscience bothered her but she did not repent. Judas Iscariot’s conscience bothered him but he did not repent. Herod’s conscience bothered him but he did not repent.
25. A troubled conscience may not be enough to bring a man to genuine repentance. It is an element of repentance but conscience alone is not enough.
26. When I was a child there was a little cartoon character who used to say, “Let your conscience be your guide.” That is a very misleading statement. Conscience alone is not enough.
27. When the apostle Paul stood before the chief priests and all their council, he said, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day” (Acts 23:1).
28. Paul could say that because he was in the will of God, and was filled with the Spirit of God.
29. But Joseph’s brothers had been out of the will of God for a long time. They had guilty consciences, but Joseph wasn’t finished with them yet.
30. A guilty conscience is a good start, but it is not enough.

`Tis not enough to say
I’m sorry and repent
And then go on from day to day
Just living as we went.
Repentance is to leave
The sins we loved before
And show that we did earnest grieve
By doing them no more.

31. The second element of repentance is memory – “in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear” (42:21).
32. Memory is one of the most marvelous faculties of our nature.
33. Oftentimes when a person receives the kind of evil treatment that he has dealt to others, he remembers his sin and is convicted. Joseph’s brothers remembered what they had done to Joseph.
34. Even though it had been well over 20 years they remembered it well (Gen. 42:21). Guilt cannot be buried. It cannot be disposed of.
35. Some people try and drown their guilt with alcohol and drugs but nevertheless the guilt keeps resurfacing.
36. Some people go to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts to try and erase their guilt but to their dismay and despair the guilt keeps coming back.
37. Oftentimes these psychiatrists will prescribe pills in an effort to erase the guilt but that doesn’t work.
38. I knew a certain woman that was promiscuous and wound up getting pregnant out of wedlock. She went and had an abortion but the guilt was tearing her apart. She got married and later became a Christian but the guilt kept would not go away.
39. Psychiatrists could not help her. The medication they prescribed could not help her. She was in and out of various mental hospitals.
40. Why all this pain and suffering? The memory of her sin.
41. The first two elements of repentance are conscience and memory. The third element of repentance is reason – “therefore is this distress come upon us” (42:21).
42. Here we see man’s concept of divine retribution. Someone has said that within the breast of every man is a defendant, a judge, witnesses, jury, and an executioner. You might say there is an entire courtroom in your conscience.
43. Joseph’s brothers knew that God was dealing with them. They may not have recognized Joseph but they recognized the hand of God.
44. They said, “Therefore is this distress come upon us” (42:21c). Reuben says at the end of verse 22, “Therefore, behold, also his (Joseph’s) blood is required.”
45. Later on, Judah says, “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants” (44:16). Yes, the Bible repeats this principle over and over: “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
46. People have come to me after a meeting and said, “How did you know about my sin?” and yet I didn’t know a thing about it.
47. One woman was living with a man out of wedlock and she told me, “Every time I hear you preach the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.” I told her she needed to repent of her sin and get saved. But she would not repent and she stopped coming to church.
48. A few years later I was out knocking on doors and she answered the door of a different house. She had moved in with a different man!
49. Oftentimes sinners will be under great conviction, but they will not repent and get right with God.
50. The Bible says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).
51. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” It took over 20 years for Joseph’s brethren.
52. The Spirit of God produced grief of heart, and exercises of conscience, and here they were 20 years later face to face with Joseph, not realizing who he was but feeling guilty over what they had done to him many years before.
53. “And they knew not that Joseph understood them” (42:23). Joseph's heart was bursting with the desire to disclose himself to his brothers, but he had to wait.
54. “And he turned himself about from them, and wept…” (42:24). There is no mention of Joseph weeping when his brothers threw him into a pit.
55. There is no mention of Joseph weeping when his brothers sold him into slavery.
56. We do not see Joseph weeping when he was falsely accused and put in prison.
57. But when Joseph heard his brothers admit their sin, he wept (42:22-24).
58. Joseph forced himself to act hard in front of his brothers, but actually Joseph was very tender-hearted, and he wept often (cf. 43:30; 45:1, 2, 14, 15; 46:29; 50:1).

CONCLUSION:

1. Romans 11:22 says, “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.” Joseph’s treatment of his brothers seemed harsh, but he only did it in order to get them to repent.
2. Joseph was not really harsh, but actually very kind and compassionate (42:24a).
3. “And they knew not that Joseph understood them” (42:23). Joseph's heart was bursting with the desire to disclose himself to his brothers, but he had to wait.
4. “And he turned himself about from them, and wept…” (42:24). There is no mention of Joseph weeping when his brothers threw him into a pit, and there is no mention of Joseph weeping when his brothers sold him into slavery.
5. We do not see Joseph weeping when he was falsely accused and put in prison.
6. But when Joseph heard his brothers admit their sin, he wept (42:22-24).
7. Joseph acted harsh in front of his brothers, but actually Joseph was very tender-hearted, and he wept often (cf. 43:30; 45:1, 2, 14, 15; 46:29; 50:1).
8. Joseph is a picture and type of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 11:35 says, “Jesus wept.”
9. Luke 19:41 says that when Jesus beheld the city of Jerusalem, He wept over it.
10. We ought to weep over this big wicked city of New York. There are millions of lost sinners living all around us.
11. Many years ago, two Salvation Army officers tried to start a mission but they were getting nowhere. Frustrated and tired they appealed to the General to close the mission. General Booth sent back a telegram with two words on it, "TRY TEARS." They followed his advice and sinners started getting save.