Genesis 42:8 “And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him”.

Have you considered that you don’t know God like he knows you?

We have no idea who we are dealing with, particularly before we are saved. If you did know Christ, he would change your life in a distinct manner. He would bring confession of truth, completely changed direction of life, telling others the gospel, giving you true reason and purpose and hope in living… if you knew him. … Because eternal life is knowing God… it’s not just “getting out of hell” fire insurance.

… We are not short on people that think they know God, know everything and like the children of Israel they’ve got him neatly boxed in their little cube of what they know… when they don’t know.

But it’s quite spiritually hazardous to not know what you don’t know. Because wisdom is not so much being a smarty pants, not at all, it is the ability to know that you don’t know “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD”

… Joseph’s life including how he deals with his reunion with his brothers who sold him as a slave in time past is replete with amazing truths about Jesus Christ, and this verse is a banger! You want a reunion with God that was broken by sin… that’s a strait gate and a narrow way and you didn’t know the half of it when you first came to him looking for what he had, but not realizing what needed to be done in your life!

Maybe you sold Jesus out before, there’s plenty of people who have done away with him … or so they though “and we shall see what will become of his dreams “… quite a statement wasn’t it… from them when they sold Joseph off not counting on ever having to face up to him again… only to years later find he was still very much alive and kicking! … LORD of EGYPT no less! Oh no!

In this story in Genesis is a great spiritual truth… Jesus knows you way better, and way before you even begin to know him. This brothers thought they knew a few things, they knew how to keep their dad at bay on the truth about Joseph… they thought they knew everything about themselves… they also thought they’d know how to manipulate Joseph’s good graces … pay him off, bring some balm and spices… they even had 10 heads working together… but together they knew nothing.

…. When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt after many years… it’s because a bad famine worldwide has made them go looking for a little something to feed their faces… and only Joseph’s got it! Only Jesus has the life you’ve been looking for! Remember that once everything else you try first finally inevitably dries up on you! Nothing Satan promises will fulfill you will actually do it… then they get together as the food situation is bad, and Jacob their father says “why do ye look one upon another”.. go to the Lord! Stop looking to people for what Jesus can only provide.

And so many people do pay a visit to church, have a browse through scripture as if it would bend and bow to them and awaits their judgment. And they go looking for Jesus, more specifically, the good he has to offer, only to find he doesn’t resemble at all what they had imagined! He doesn’t behave how they think. They realize they don’t understand this man… as Joseph’s brothers did dealing with Joseph who they did not know. And they come crawling back to him repeatedly, trying to avoid the terms and conditions Joseph clearly laid out to be accepted.

The Bible says “he hath shewed thee, o man, what is good”… Look, if you think you’ve got Jesus on your terms… you do not. You come to Jesus on his terms or don’t bother coming… as Joseph specifically instructed them.

And guess what, while Joseph behaves in a way they do not understand because they do not know who he is… there are going to be things you do not understand which require faith and grace… because many get offended by the fact that they come to Jesus with the balm and the spices and the money trying to bribe him and try to cut a good deal… only to realize Joseph isn’t buying it! Joseph did not buy their little story about how they were “we be true men”… much to their dismay of course. Maybe you’re horrendously dismayed when your little concept of Jesus doesn’t totter, bow and break to you vain imagination!

The thing is, they made a big assertion to Joseph… which Joseph could not meet them at. Jesus will not meet you on a lie. And the truth was actually damning. And I look back and my life, and you yours… is it that pretty? Isn’t a trail of rubbish?

Joseph already knew the truth. They hadn’t come to it yet… that NONE of us are true men, we are all liars, sinners and need the Saviour, and thank God he’s honest with us and loves us enough not to let us lie forever on the deathbed of sin. Joseph was not going to meet them based on their lie, there was an opportunity to be truthful with him, but they were not, and it was cya later for now and more lost time in drought and famine and fatigue. Just how long until you surrender friend?

Look, maybe Jesus is dealing with you, and his behaviour is foreign to you… well that’s good, because the Bible says Joseph made himself strange to them and spoke roughly to them… what’s all that about… that’s not what they expected… but it’s because he’s not like us, and when you come to Jesus looking for what you were promised… all the corn and no judgment… they’re shocked with how Joseph receives their assertion and audacity in light of what Joseph knows about them… and then they feel hard done by. Poor me! And it’s your fault, your fault, your fault they take a ride on that merry go round… and old Reuben says… didn’t I tell you not to do what you did to Joseph?

Tough times, all we wanted was some corn! But if the message of repentance of sins and faith in Christ is too rough for you, you can stay hungry without the relationship as you nibble on dwindling supplies of God’s provision and presence in your life… a trail that in time if you are seeking truth, you will have to resume because you will have no rest and must finally come seeking it where it is truly sourced. Noone else had what Joseph had. And noone else is shelling out eternal life people, only Jesus has it. Noone else can bring you to God people, only Jesus can “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared”.

And so we find out that there was only ONE person who truly knew them… and it’s the one they came to… having rejected him but he was gracious enough to receive them, and loving enough not to embrace them based on lies.

The Bible says “And they knew not that Joseph understood them”
Joseph understood everything about this situation. He was acting in love, but it felt like hate. He seemed to be acting unfairly, but he was perfectly just. You are going to realize in life that your conception of Jesus, your imagination and your conceit of Jesus… is not who Jesus is. He doesn’t conform to you… he changes you. You need to change, not him.

===
INTERMISSION
===

We live in a land of know it alls. Everyone knows everything “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased”, we are even now looking to “the king of AI” as our new all knowing God… something we can truly worship, while rejecting the all knowing God. This world that rejects Jesus is ripe for the promised beast it will be given to believe in.

… But let’s roll the timeline back a bit in Joseph’s life, and when Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had a dream one night while Joseph was in prison locked away… not a person in his kingdom could give him the understanding of a most basic truth of who God is and what God was going to do. Pharaoh didn’t know God, and you might be surprised who is in significant positions who just don’t know God at all. And when Pharaoh goes looking for answers in his magicians and worldly wisemen… he found out they didn’t know a single thing either… funny that. There’s a lot of magicians in pulpits these days, who’s only impressiveness lies in their ability to deceive, not the true power of God.

… but there was one person who had the answer! And the butler, a little someone who’d benefited a lot from Joseph finally remembered him (maybe that’s you Christian!) and he tells Pharaoh about Joseph. Joseph knows stuff! And pictured in Christ, we know God’s word is pointing us to a truth in Colossians… speaking of Christ “In whom are hid ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” Jesus knows everything… while we know nothing. Even Paul said he knew nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, and he was an educated, well read, smart man.

And so when you read about Joseph’s brothers coming to Egypt and telling Joseph and assuring him! just how good and truthful they are, when they’ve lived a most harmful lie over a whole decade… they don’t fool him one bit! If you’re telling Christ how good you are, you don’t know who you’re talking to!

But they truly believed it! While Joseph knew literally everything about them… the TRUTH about them. Friend, God sees straight through you “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”! … and that’s a good thing!

Let’s rewind even further… In case you don’t know, there’s a lot of backstory which has been taken for granted…, but to summarize, we get stuck into Joseph’s life in Genesis 37, where he is a younger brother in a large fairly dysfunctional family. His father favoured him, and Joseph’s brothers were so envious and hateful of him, and they were doing so much wrong behind their dad’s back… that they resented a young man that was doing right and had a heart for God… who does he think he is? Rah rah etc etc the usual…

They got him alone one day… they had majority, and aren’t we all so tough when we are in majority… and they grabbed him, stripped him and chucked him in a pit, mocking him and joyfully delighting in the pain they were inflicting upon him. It’s amazing how when we aren’t right with God how mean we can be.

But just so you know, God’s Spirit was moving strong in this story. Because Joseph’s suffering at the hands of his brothers, whom his father Jacob sent him to check up on them, sending him like a lamb to the slaughter… is what God LITERALLY did! with sending his own Son to us and for us.

But the point for now is, Joseph really did know them fully, he had experienced first hand who and what they truly were, and just how mean they really were to let their father suffer to protect themselves, than them suffer for what evil they had done. Nothing really has changed has it. How many of us let other people suffer because we won’t get right with God.

And while Joseph’s brothers lived a life concealing knowledge to mislead their poor old dad… you’re not helping your family if you’re living an assisting a lie that assists you… and that’s what is rife in our country and in leadership… Jesus deals in knowledge, and because he knows everything, he perfectly used what he perfectly knew to expose their sin, so they could experience the joy of getting right with God and the liberty that truth brings. See, God’s doing all this because he truly loves them, as you and me. Joseph truly truly loved his brothers.

Anyway, so we know Joseph had ended up a slave, but then he was hauled out of prison to tell Pharaoh what God’s word was saying. Which was that there was good times now, bad times to come… there was a coming problem, and a solution to enact now. Friend, NOW is the time to prepare. Now is the time to be saved. Thank God he loves us enough to tell us the truth, to let us KNOW, because he knows, while we and this world know nothing at all.

And so before meeting his brothers again, Joseph prepares for the famine… it’s urgent business because there’s seven years and the clocks ticking, and the souls of the whole world are at stake. People, use the good graces of God that you enjoy to prepare rather than indulge a life void of him. Because good years tick by… as yours will too… and they will end. “And the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the land of Egypt, were ended”.

There is an end. I know you feel you’re going to live forever, but there is an end… and what will your end be?

Thank God that there was a Saviour provided for God available when the famine came, who endured all the horrors of mankind, family no less, as Jesus at the hands of his very own people, for the purpose of providing salvation for all. That’s what God did in Joseph’s life. And like Joseph did, JESUS really does know. All those years as slave and in prison, were for the riches of the world. But now Joseph was exalted… Pharaoh put Joseph at his own right hand, just like Jesus is at God’s right hand… where he sits right now…

And then what’s next is that the message goes out… when the famine comes… I’ve heard there’s corn in Egypt! Jacob hears some good news and tells his son, go and get us some of that good stuff. And there is a great need, as bad as the need Joseph’s brothers had as the walked the desert sand to Egypt based on hearing there was some great guy down there who had what no one else had… and PLENTY! Of it! Praise God for his abundant salvation.

And so Joseph’s brothers go down to Egypt to get some corn…Christian stay faithful, soon someone will be on their way to you for a little corn… do you have any to spare?

And that’s where we come to where we started. Joseph sees them before they see him, Joseph knows them before they know him. They’ve just come to get corn… but they get so much more than they bargained on!

And then he behaves in a way they didn’t expect… because they don’t know him. They escape Egypt the first time… barely, leaving Simeon behind hostage! Joseph has started to command great authority and demand on their life which they try to wriggle out of, it’s an uncomfortable spot they’re in, but which God will do to you… because he knows you before you know him. And they put off going back there, but they HAVE to go back because there’s no corn anywhere else. I know many people who flirted with the strait gate, they came to the door, but they went nup, not for me! If there is any other way, any other promise of hope… people take that first! Anything but that strait gate Lord! Not knowing the time is so short.

But they are driven back to meeting Joseph again because there is no corn anywhere else. If there was any other way, people would take it, but God made one way to be saved… and you will have to go through that strait gate people… no one enters the kingdom of God but through the one strait gate.

And it’s a wonderful story, I’ve gone far too long, but there is a wonderful revelation of Joseph to his brothers when Judah shows, without performance or fake rubbish, the amazing work what God has done in his life which has changed him so dramatically from the Judah Joseph once knew and experienced first hand. And what a glorious reunion, restoration and regeneration. Eternal life is knowing Christ, he is truly worth knowing, he knows us far far before we begin to know him… he’s the best thing that will ever happen in your life, just as Joseph’s reunion with the brothers is a literal mountain peak of scripture… that could also be your own! God bless you for making it this far, thank God he knows when all knowledge is confused, upside down, dismayed and despairing… may God bless your life with his knowledge “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord”.

Blog Bible Faith Genesis Gospel Jesus Joseph Repentance Salvation Saved