Life’s fiery difficulties, if accepted from God, can burn off the dross and make us pure gold.
Following the unexpected meal in the Grand Vizier’s home, Jacob’s sons had left with a new supply of grain. But also, unknown to them, was their double payment, and Joseph’s cup in Benjamin’s sack. Stopped just outside the city by the royal guard, the men are so sure of their innocence, they say: “With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves” (Gen 44:9). What is their horror, then, when Benjamin’s sack is opened to reveal the silver cup! Back to Joseph’s house they go, totally demoralized, “and they fell before him on the ground” (v 14). Here they were, experiencing the hopeless despair of their brother in the pit, in the caravan, in the slave market, and in the prison. But then Joseph refuses the older sons’ offer to be his slaves, saying he just wants one—Benjamin! Now what Joseph had hoped for happens. Judah, the one who led them in selling him, pleads for his father and his grief if Benjamin doesn’t return. He offers himself to be enslaved instead. Joseph is overwhelmed and commands the room to be cleared, except for his family. Then, “I am Joseph.” Stunned silence. “Please come near to me,” he says. They come near and he continues: “Do not…be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (45:3-5). They can’t believe their ears! Or their eyes! Listen to these words, dripping with grace: “God sent me before you to…save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God” (vv 7-8). What a sample of what every sinner receives when, by faith, we come to the cross. Though guilty of Christ’s death, He does not hold it against us, but forgives us, and, through that death, offers us eternal life!