HISTORY LESSON (PART 2)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

“Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

Acts 7:9-16

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The false accusations were meant to put Stephen on the spot. The conjurers of these lies painted Stephen as an enemy of the Jewish people, never ceasing to speak against the hallowed, sacred ground of Israel and the law had given through Moses to govern it. They sought to stir up fear in the hearts of the Sanhedrin by associating Stephen with Jesus, asserting that the Christian servant had said Jesus would destroy Israel and abolish the customs handed down from Moses.

In other words, Stephen was a threat, a threat that needed to be eliminated just as the Man he follows was.

It was a moment of truth as all eyes were on Stephen to hear what he had to say. But the chief priest spoke first and simply asked Stephen,

“Are these charges true?”

Yesterday, we saw in the first message in this series how Stephen didn’t exactly answer the question he was asked. Rather, he commanded everyone to listen as he began providing a history lesson to the Sanhedrin and all others gathered, a history lesson that we are looking at in this series.

Up first was Abraham but we saw where Stephen made it clear that it was God who was in charge, not Abraham. It was God who called Abraham to leave his country and people behind, traveling to where God wanted him to go. God would go onto tell Abraham that the land he would go to would be the same land that the Israelites would be led to more than four hundred years later. Again, it would be God in charge, not the people.

But before that would happen, God would bless Abraham with a son named Isaac who would then in turn bear a son named Jacob. Then the Lord would again emerge on the scene to make sure that Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and his twelve sons would become the twelve patriarchs, each the progenitor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. One of the sons would bear the name Joseph.

And this brings us to the second of Stephen’s history message as he commands the floor with the Sanhedrin and all present listening. In it, Peter reminds those present that Joseph had drawn the jealousy of his other eleven brothers. The scriptures tell us the resentment was over Joseph being favored by his father and so the brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, attempting to eliminate him but not through bloodshed.

The irony of what was happening as Stephen shared this story shouldn’t be lost. Because it was now the Sanhedrin who were jealous of first Jesus and then His apostles for the success they were having in making disciples of many Jews who were once loyal to the cause of Judaism. And so they sought to eliminate their threats but unlike Joseph’s brothers, they were willing to kill in order to get their way.

In both of these instances of jealousy leading to sin, we find God in the midst of things, ensuring that His way and will were done.

The Sanhedrin believed that by sanctioning Jesus’ murder, they would cut off the head of the Christian movement. They believed wrong because they failed to realize that their actions were really part of God’s overall plan to bring salvation to all mankind and use His Son’s death and resurrection for a catalyst for the movement.

They then would stone Stephen to death after his history lesson and the stern rebuke that followed. Their intent was to drive the fear of persecution into the hearts of Christians so they would give up their faith and belief in Jesus but all the Sanhedrin accomplished was to cause the Gospel to scatter and disperse well beyond Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria before it grew further into the ends of the earth.

How did this tie to the story of Joseph so many hundreds of years before Jesus? Was there a connection?

The answer is yes and a very interesting one.

I say this because the eleven brothers who sold their brother into slavery thought they were getting rid of him for good but it was God’s plan to raise him up as their savior. In other words, their very survival would hinge on Joseph showing them mercy, grace, and forgiveness. But before that would happen, Joseph had to enter into a personal journey of his own.

First, we read where God granted Joseph the gifts of wisdom, which helped him eventually gain the favor of Pharaoh, the very king of Egypt. This favor led to Joseph being made a ruler in Egypt with oversight over Pharaoh’s palace affairs.

After this special appointment, the scriptures tells us that a great famine struck all of Egypt and Canaan, causing “great suffering” among all the people including Joseph’s father, his eleven brothers, and the rest of his family because no food could be found.

But God did not wish for His people to perish. He desired that Jacob and his sons be saved. And so, Jacob sends his sons (called the forefathers in Stephen’s history lesson) to Egypt after hearing there was grain there and the person they had to request the food from was none other than Joseph but none of his brothers knew it at first. In fact, we read where it wasn’t until their second visit to Egypt that Joseph reveals his identity and Pharaoh learned about Jacob and the others.

Happy to learn that his son was alive after believed dead, Jacob himself went to Egypt for what was an awesome, joyous family reunion with seventy-five people in attendance. And in Egypt they would remain until death, their bodies then returned to Canaan for burial in a tomb purchased by Abraham in Shechem.

The story of Joseph is one grounded in love, forgiveness, and redemption, all orchestrated by a caring God who shows He is in control, no matter how much others might try to sinfully believe they are.

In the Gospels and the Book of Acts, we are reminded that this caring God continued to be a God of love and forgiveness and redemption, willing to use His own Son as an instrument of salvation, no matter how much wickedness and evil tried to win the day.

Today, God is still the God of love, forgiveness, and redemption, not wishing for anyone to perish but rather to enjoy everlasting life with Him through placing their belief in the Son Jesus that He sent to save.

My prayer is that through Stephen’s second history lesson you have found you way to an eternal hope and victory through Jesus that never can be removed. Ever.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the third part of this series and Moses. I hope you’ll join me then.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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