Bring Benjamin and Jacob - Tuesday evening 6.23.09

Genesis 43:7 - They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still living?’ he asked us.  ‘Do you have another brother?’  We simply answered his questions.  How were we supposed to know he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”

Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to buy food, thinking it would be a simple transaction.  They did not expect that the official in charge there would want to know if their father was alive, and would insist that they bring their remaining brother, Benjamin, there as well.  This is a prophetic illustration of how sinners meet the Lord and come to salvation.

They first come to church first wanting help with some superficial need, wanting to solve an immediate problem.  In the presence of the Lord Jesus, He asks about our knowledge of our Heavenly Father (symbolized by the father, Jacob), and requires evidence of the New Birth (symbolized by Benjamin, the last-born son, the one who shared the same blood lineage as Joseph).

Years before, Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery in Egypt, but the Lord raised Joseph to a high position of authority there, with control over all the food supplies during the famine.  His brothers came to buy food from the Egyptians, and they appeared before Joseph.  They did not recognize him because of the time that had elapsed - they assumed he was dead - and because he spoke Egyptian and was dressed in a way that disguised his background.  They felt that he treated them harshly for no apparent reason, asking them for proof that they were not spies.  They gave vague answers.  Today, most unbelievers avoid confronting their own sins.

What surprised them the most was that this person (Joseph, whom they did not recognize) wanted to know if their father was still alive, and that he had such a keen interest in their youngest brother who was absent.  Joseph’s goal all along was to have Benjamin and Jacob brought to Egypt to remain there permanently with him.

This is a wonderful illustration of our salvation experience.  Joseph serves as a prophetic illustration of the Son of Man - our Lord Jesus - and his work of salvation.  Man comes to Christ initially with some need, but his priorities are mixed up - he does not realize that his immediate problem (whether finances, illness, broken relationships, etc.) is nothing compared to his spiritual problem.  Man faces an eternity without God, the overwhelming weight of our sin and guilt.

The Lord Jesus begins to speak to man, even though sinners at first do not fully recognize who He is or what He has done for them already.  What does the Lord Jesus ask of us when we first come to him?  Not our money (Joseph always returned their money back in their sacks of grain).  Rather, He wants to talk about whether the Father is alive.  The unbeliever does not care about the Heavenly Father, man’s Creator, any more than Joseph’s brothers cared about Jacob (which was very little, considering they lied to him and made constant trouble for him).  Joseph is the one who is concerned about whether the father is alive, just as Jesus is the one who wants us to know that we have a living Father in heaven.

The ten brothers only mention the father to explain why they were traveling together in a foreign country, which looked suspicious - they appeared to be a band of spies.  Unbelievers talk about God only at convenient moments when they want to appear connected to certain other people.  They invoke God at weddings and funerals and other cultural events, when people who normally focus exclusively on their personal interests suddenly need the community’s support or acceptance.

We have a Father in Heaven who is ALIVE.  Man-made religion does not teach people this.  It presents God as a statue, or a weak old man with a long beard, mostly an idea or abstraction.  They do not communicate the message that the Father is alive and working in the world today, that He speaks today, that He has a project he is carrying out, that we should try to discover His will and obey it.  Jesus’ first concern is to bring us to know the Father.  Jesus is the Way to the Father (John 14:6).  He reveals the Father to us (John 14:9-12; 16:25).  Jesus prayed at the Last Supper, “I have revealed you to those you gave me out of this world (John 17:6; see also John 17:26).  The Lord Jesus wants us to know the Father, to know that he is alive. God is not just an idea or something we believe in.  He is alive and working in our lives.  Jesus questions the heart of man about the Living Father, challenging us to recognize and appreciate Him as we should.  Jesus does not accept a man who does not recognize His Father.

Joseph’s other demand was to see Benjamin, who was missing from the group when they arrived.  Benjamin was special to both Joseph and Jacob.  He was the only other son of Rachel, Joseph’s mother, so he was the only brother with whom Joseph shared a full blood relationship.  In addition, Benjamin had not been old enough to participate in the wrongs the other brothers did to Joseph; he was innocent.  Jacob, the father, also had a special love for Benjamin because of his mother Rachel - she was the only woman Jacob truly loved.  He endured the requirement that he first marry Leah, her sister, and work seven extra years for her in order to get to marry Rachel.  Rachel was special.  Another reason was that Benjamin was the youngest son and was born in Jacob’s old age (that is what his name means, “son of my right hand,” and expression for son born in old age).  Both Joseph and Jacob had a special attachment to Benjamin.

Benjamin in this story represents the New Birth, the operation of the Holy Spirit in the life of a man to make him a new creation.  Jesus has a special connection to the Holy Spirit through the Blood of Calvary, and because Jesus and the Holy Spirit both proceed from the Father as part of the Trinity.  The Father has a special concern for the New Birth, the operation of the Holy Spirit, because of its connection to the Blood of his Son, and because the New Birth comes to us from eternity (symbolized in this story by the “advanced age” or “old age”).  Man comes to Christ focused on his personal, material problems, but the main concern of Jesus is to see the New Birth in us, to see that we are born again.

As he looked about and saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother’s son, he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?  And he said, “God be gracious to you, my son.”  Gen. 43:29 - This is the main thing in our lives that pleases the Lord - the New Birth.  This is what invokes his blessing and makes us his son (”God be gracious to you, my son”).  Joseph sent his brothers on their way with the grain they wanted, but he insisted that they could not come back without Benjamin.  When people first come to church asking for a blessing, they often receive the answer they need.  Yet many never return, because they have no interest in the Lord, no commitment to the giver of the gift.  The Lord is merciful and answers prayers of unbelievers sometimes, to try to get them to return to him, to be born again.  If we return seeking more, He wants to see evidence of the New Birth in our lives.  It is not enough for people to talk about being born again.  Jesus looks for proof in our lives.  He wants to see the genuine presence and operation of the Holy Spirit.  Joseph gave Benjamin a fivefold portion of everything, (Genesis 43:34; 45:22), pointing to how much more Jesus values regeneration in our lives than any other material thing.

Joseph always did something to draw them back again.  The first time he kept Simeon with him in Egypt, the second-oldest brother.  The brothers were self-centered men and did not care that much about their brother Simeon, but it gave them some reason to go back.  The Lord Jesus always puts something in the heart of a visitor to the church that tugs at their heart to return and be saved.  Many will ignore this pull, because they are self-centered and self-satisfied, but the Lord puts it there nonetheless, in His grace, to give us another opportunity to return to him, another reason to come back with Benjamin, evidence of the New Birth.  Their problem now is that the father also insists on being with Benjamin.  The brothers feel pulled between the two (Joseph and Jacob), but in reality they were all being pulled together by Joseph.

The second time they come, they indeed have Benjamin with them.  They planned on this being a quick, temporary arrangement, so they could go back to their own lives and forget about the demanding person who controlled the food in Egypt.  This time, however, Joseph puts his own silver cup in Benjamin’s bag, so that when they discover it, he has an excuse to bring Benjamin back and keep him in Egypt permanently.

The silver cup was for drinking wine and somehow foretelling the future.  This speaks of the blood of Jesus (the cup of the New Covenant) and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (see Ephesians 5:18-19), which brings revelation and prophecy.  As unspiritual men, the brothers could not distinguish true revelation from the world’s “divination,” but we know the difference is the source.  Revelation comes only from the wine of the Holy Spirit, which we obtain through the Blood of Jesus.  Man returns a second time to God, in his need, this time having the experience of New Birth.  This experience is only temporary, though, for those who return to the world.  They lose the New Birth.  Jesus has an intense desire to see the New Birth, the evidence of the Holy Spirit, in our lives permanently.  So he places in our hearts a blessing of the Blood - something that belongs to Christ, exclusively and unmistakably, just as the cup clearly belonged to Joseph.  This brings them back to him to stay.  His concern is for eternity, not just for this world.  Man focuses on this world and his needs in this world.  The Lord is concerned about our eternal home.

The brothers now had a serious problem, because they could not return to Jacob without Benjamin (notice they could not return to Joseph without him, and now they cannot go home without him).  They said they were afraid Jacob would die if they returned without Benjamin, but they actually feared for themselves.  Reuben had offered to let Jacob put his own sons to death if he returned without Benjamin, and Judah had taken personal responsibility and had invoked permanent rejection (exclusion from the family) by Jacob if Benjamin were lost.  Judah even tried to remain in Egypt and send Benjamin back with the brothers (Judah’s name means “praise;” this reminds us of how many Christians want to substitute excited praise and worship for real transformation of their lives by the Holy Spirit - they would rather be loud worshippers than have evidence of the New Birth).  Joseph knew this would happen, and that the only resolution would be to reunite Jacob, Benjamin, and himself in one place.

We cannot come to the Father without the New Birth.  He will not accept us back without evidence of the Holy Spirit working in us.  There is no substitute.  People talk as if they feel sorry for God the Father (evangelists sometimes make it sound like He needs us or something), but the real danger is to ourselves.  We will be under a curse without the New Birth.  Jesus is putting us in the position where we must deal with the complete Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The goal is for us to come and stay, in full relationship with the Trinity.  Joseph told his brothers, go tell my father that I am alive and return here to stay.  Jesus told us that in his Father’s house there are many rooms, and he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us.  The Son has gone ahead and prepared a place where we will have everything we need.  The Spirit produces the New Birth that is so precious to both the Father and the Son, who shed his blood for it (the cup of the wine).  The Father is alive and wants us to be with him in eternity.  This is a wonderful illustration, a detailed prophetic picture, of the plan of salvation for each person.