Something's all out of whack here. Those are hot. There are many things going on in these chapters, in the next few chapters, and a number of themes to explore. The overarching tension is from the test that he gives. They don't know who he is, and he went ahead and accused them, falsely. and used it as a test to explore and to show them their need of repentance. The test given by Jacob is the thread, as I said, that ties these chapters together, the next three chapters. And the test has at least three parts or objectives to it, the testing of a guilty heart, the testing for sincere obedience, and the testing for true repentance. And the tests that God gives us in life, of course, these things all overlap. They're not necessarily done in this kind of order here. And they overlap and intertwine through these chapters as well. And I'll cover those in the following chapters. So let's look here at the first test, the test of a guilty heart, because we see in particular how their guilt comes up quickly in this chapter and is not mentioned as much in the other chapters. The testing of Israel's guilty heart, that is, of the tribes of Israel, not Jacob himself, of course, although he shows some weakness, as we see in the end of the chapter here, a lack of trust and faith in God. They need food. They're in Canaan, and there's a drought, as prophesied and interpreted by Joseph. And so verses one through five, when Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, Jacob said to his sons, why do you look at one another? I just, you know, you have this picture in your head, bonk, the three stooges hitting him over the head. What are you guys doing staring at each other? We need food. Get out of here and get out there and get it. I hear there's food down in Egypt. Go take care of it. God uses the difficulties of life to help his people. And this is the opening stage, the opening picture. that God uses to prod them out of where they were, where they were comfortable at. Let's not forget the prior chapters where their daughter hung out with wicked, unbelieving pagan women. One of the sons did the same thing as well, was friends with the prince, right? And they got into trouble, didn't they? They were comfortable with their pagan surroundings. And so God takes care of this and brings them down to Egypt. What happens in Egypt? Well, they're surrounded by pagans as well. Ah, yes, but what do we learn in the next chapter, actually, when they sit down and eat with Jacob? That the Egyptians don't eat with the Hebrews. So they're segregated. God brings them to a culture that says, we're going to segregate you. That's actually good for them, isn't it? They're separated from the pagan culture. and although they have 400 years of being isolated in that regards and they'll have revelation like God is good with them in that regards and they're not running around killing entire cities, getting pregnant and things like that in the way that the problems that Jacob and his family has. So it's for their good. This kind of hardness and harshness of providence where God directs and moves them in ways they don't understand. And they clearly don't because Jacob says, I don't want to send my son down there. I just want the food. I don't want to mess with this. And God's going to force him down there. And we feel that at times in our lives sometimes. We're just like, okay, Laura, take this from me. I don't want to deal with this. Hmm? No? Maybe you have to deal with it. And God works the providence out in your life, hems you in, and you have no choice but to deal with the difficulties or change your situation. Joseph, however, is the test for the family that is the sons, the brothers. He gives this test, verse 6 through 20. Now, Joseph was governor over the land. Remember what that is? He's in charge of everything. The only person who can stay his hand is Pharaoh himself, the demigod. And Joseph is a powerful man, not just politically, but socially as well, because he married into the priesthood. And we find out he has a divining cup, so he's probably considered, by default, a priest. And here he is apparently micromanaging the whole process, it seems. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down to him. And he saw who they were, and he recognized them. Of course, they didn't recognize him. He does not look like a Jew. He looks like an Egyptian. And the closest you can get to that, of course, would be the movies you've seen. The Mummy would be a good one. The clothing is, I don't know how authentic, but enough that you can see they're different. The way they cut their hair, they're clean shaven, as I pointed out, the clothing they have. He speaks Egyptian. He has an interpreter. They don't recognize him at all. This is several years later, many years later. But he recognizes them. They haven't changed much apparently. So let me summarize this chapter. And I'll also point out a few highlights here. He sees the brothers, he recognizes the brothers, and he remembers the dream. It's emphatic in the text here. It says twice that he remembers them, he sees them, and then he talks to them and then it breaks the conversation up, Moses does, and he points out, then Joseph, verse 9, remembered the dream. And that triggers his actions apparently. when he accuses them of being spies. And then he wishes to test their stories. If you're not really spies, then the story you've told me must be a true story. Verify, give me proof of the truth of this story of you being a bunch of brothers and you have another younger brother elsewhere. And bring him over here. He sends them away with food. But instead of taking the payment for the food, they take the payment and put it back in the food bags. And the brothers discover their money in the food bags, panic. This is bad. It's bad enough that we come to the man, he accuses us of being spies. You could die on the spot. I mean, Joseph had the power to kill him on the spot just by his say-so. No court of appeals. No rights that we have in America. Nothing like that. And then they get free I mean, they wanted to pay for it, they paid for it, and they find out all the money's here. So they're thinking, oh, they're going to come after us saying, you got free, where's the money, you didn't pay us. I mean, this is even worse. This is one problem after another. They're scared spitless. I know I'd be. And then they give Jacob the news that they can't come back to Egypt without Benjamin. do one thing after another. They have to face the wrath of their father. But the dream, what's interesting about the dream, and reminding him of the dream, the dream or the dreams that he had, the two of them, was that his family would bow down to him. And in this text, they bow down to him. In verse 6, and twice more in verse chapter 43, excuse me, it mentions being bowed down as well. It came to pass. The prophecy came true. His dreams came true. He's a great leader and his family is bowing before him, although they're completely oblivious of them fulfilling prophecy. Isn't that fascinating? So the story here, of course, shows that God is true. He keeps His covenant promises. He protects His church. He brings them through the labyrinth of providence. It's a labyrinth because we can't figure out where everything's going to go in life until it actually happens, do we? And that's what happened to them. It just seemed natural. You'd look for food. Oh, I look for food, you find trouble. They get in trouble. They get thrown in jail. They find out they didn't pay for their goods, and that doesn't look good. And now they've got to come back with their youngest brother. God's providence works in mysterious ways and he has a dream that came to pass. He's now a leader and his brothers are here and he's going to test them. He's going to test them. He remembers the dream and apparently the dream triggers his idea. I'm going to accuse them and test them. What was Joseph doing? I know that's the thought in my head when I was a young teenager reading the Bible and hearing about this in Sunday school class. What is Joseph doing? Why is he accusing them of something that's not true? What do we call that? False accusation? He looks manipulative. He manipulates the situation in a deceitful line. That's what it looks like. And I think that's perhaps what it is. The commentators I looked at, they're like, that's what it looks like. And Calvin says it reminds us the best of saints are still sinners. He even has a false oath. Maybe you don't recognize this. In verse 14, and then again in verse 16, he says, by the life of Pharaoh. Did you catch that? Oops. Where did that come from? That doesn't look very godly. Any oath you give should be before God and your yeas should be yay and nay and the like and this is before Pharaoh. So I think it's just that simple. I think that's how all of you would read it intuitively. What's he doing? He shouldn't be doing this, playing games with them. So let's not make it complicated. Everyone sins. But God can bring goodness out of the sin. God uses Joseph's manipulative test as a real test of providence. The test must be given to those who are untrustworthy. That is true. Joseph is correct on that point. How he did it is wrong, I believe, but that they should be tested for sincerity is true. We do that often. We do it intuitively with family members if we know they have a tendency to lie. We're like, okay, well, we need to have proof here. You have a tendency to lie. Well, mom, I'm your mom, don't mom me. You will give me evidence that you did take care of the room, mow the lawn, cash the check, I don't know, whatever the case may be. That's intuitive, we know that. If someone's untrustworthy, you must test them. And God does the same thing for us. And then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, John the baptizer, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. bear fruits worthy of repentance, he says. And it's spoken of again in Acts, that you could just say, I repent, and you cry, and you say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? I wronged you. Okay, I accept that, yes. But you got to have fruits worthy of repentance. What are you going to do to show that your words are more than just words? That's the test. Isn't that a test? You're testing the repentance. John the Baptizer does it. The church does it in Acts. It's what God does. Verses 15 to 16, that you shall be tested. He says twice, that your words may be tested. Verse 20, bring your youngest brother to me so your words may be verified, or what, tested. Verse 34, repeated in different ways, so I shall know that you are not spies. So more negatively, that's the brothers summarizing to their father what this crazy, wacko Egyptian wanted from them. And then we see the brother's guilt exposed, verses 21 to 38, because of the test. Then they said to one another, after three days in an Egyptian jail, probably the same jail that Joseph was in, we are guilty. We are truly guilty concerning our brother. You think someone's got a guilty conscience all these years? Not just, well, you know, I lied to you, Ruben, and, you know, Simeon's like, I understand, it's okay. Sure, they sinned against you over those years. Now, is this particular sin still sticking in their crop? It's in the back of the story, of course, it's implied they are guilty. Here they are coming before Joseph. What's going to happen? We are guilty, verse 21. Our sins have caught up with us, verse 22. You did not listen. Now there comes a reckoning for his blood. Reuben says. So the test, however wrongly it was initiated and maintained with false accusations, had a desired effect by God's providence. To wake up a conscience to its own guilt. They're acknowledging their guilt. There's conviction there. I don't dovetail the sermons on purpose, okay? It obviously ties into this morning about conviction and the law of God. They knew they sinned. They woke up to their consciences to a real guilt, not something made up and not real. They knew they were innocent with respect to being spies, but they knew they were guilty in essentially killing their brother, giving him to slavery, and letting him go off to wherever, and they didn't care. Selling him, kidnapping him, is punishable by death in the Mosaic Code. So it had its desired effect. They felt the guilt. And this is where it's manifested in this chapter, hence a test for guilty hearts. That is to expose the guilty hearts. Fear magnifies and gets stronger with a guilty conscience. Again, it's there at the beginning. They meet the second most powerful man in Egypt, or probably the then known world. Sure, they're kind of nervous and scared, and, okay, we're just here to buy food, please don't beat us. And they bow down to him, showing reverence and obedience. Nevertheless, it becomes more clear now. They look into their sacks the first time. Their hearts failed them, and they were afraid. When they stop at an encampment and take care of their animals, he opens up. grain, maybe to feed the animals, and whoa! Is this the money I'm supposed to pay them? We got it for free? That's not going to look good. Egyptians aren't in the habit of getting away free food. They're scared. They're scared spitless is what we would say to them. As the word here is, their hearts failed them. We would say, what, you had a heart attack? What in the world? And they were afraid. And again in verse 35 at the end, they saw the bundle of money and they were afraid. So very afraid. Fear typically is there and magnified with a guilty heart before it confesses its guilt. There's no confession of guilt yet, brothers and sisters. This is just an exposure of guilt. Unresolved guilty consciences, what do they do? They jump at shadows. The accusation was spies and, ah, well, he found out. Oh no, you know, he killed Joseph. What now? Where would you get this connection? Oh, that's right, you've got a guilty conscience. I think we've experienced the same thing ourselves with our own sins. We've not resolved them. We have the guilt. And someone comes along, something bad in life happens. We're like, uh-oh, God's gonna get me. Probably a lot of that In America these days, a lot of people, for a long time, have heard some semblance of truth, and they keep turning it down every generation. And now we're scared of all kinds of things. So, if you are guilty but have not repented, you should have fear. You should have fear. You should be very afraid. But there seems to be perhaps a growing evidence here, again, a thread in this narrative. If we were to read it all together at once, and one of my commentators mentioned this should all be one sermon, but you would just not read the whole thing and just highlight a point, and I thought, no, no, no. No, no, three chapters? I don't think so. I'm going to have at least three sermons. Growing Apprentice, verses 37 and 38, or at least a soft heart is probably a better way of putting this, a softer heart. Where do we see that? Reuben says what? Kill my two sons! If something happens to Benjamin, we need to bring him down there, give him my hands, I'm trustworthy. Okay, well, that's come a long way from, you know, you shouldn't kill him, you should throw him in a pit. and sell him off, and he didn't really stop them, Reuben, it's just verbal. Not a confession, but some evidence of a softer heart. Fear, as I said this morning, can be the mallet that tenderizes a hardened heart. Secondly, testing of the church's guilty heart. So in this chapter we have the building up before the next two chapters where we have resolution, chapter 44 in particular. There's this crucible, this test for the brothers. And the first part of the test is to show their guilt. And they recognize their guilt, they feel their guilt, and they feel fear. They're scared spitless. God does the same thing for the church. God brings difficulties to the church to expose guilty hearts, to test guilty hearts. Acts 26.19, Therefore King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance." That's testing the repentance, testing the guilty heart to see if it's truly given up its guilt and sin to Jesus Christ. I hope we see that. You don't have to use the word test, but what else is it? But things befitting or fitting to map with repentance, evidence of repentance. That's what it's saying. That's what Joseph wants. That's what God wants from us. The book of Acts as a whole, it's a transition of the Old and New Testament. The Jews were not ignorant of the fullness of repentance and tests. They were given the Old Testament prophets, that Christ came and told them the truth about redemption, but they'd rather keep their guilty hearts than to submit to Christ. The great test for them was Christ coming. First John the baptizer saying, repent, for judgment comes nigh, the axe is laid at the root of the tree, and it was, and it did, and it cut down the Israelite tree, the Jewish tree. The branches is the illustration of Romans. God pruned them off because the crucible and the test they had to show true repentance was to accept Jesus Christ and be baptized in his name. They wanted nothing to do with it. That is the mass of them, the most of them. They failed that test. The final test of the Old Testament church is echoed there, interestingly enough, at the end of Acts. Acts 28, Paul gathers a large crowd of the Jewish leaders in Rome. and talks about Christ from the Old Testament all day. It's an all-day seminar. And they listened, and they walked away, and they didn't believe. Well, think about it. And they debated and quarreled amongst each other about it. And so Paul essentially throws up his hands Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will hear it. They will give works befitting repentance. I've exposed your guilt with the test of the gospel, if I could use that word. The test of the gospel, which is will you repent and believe in Jesus Christ? Will you accept your exposed guilt by the law of God? Will you exchange your guilty heart for faith in Jesus Christ? Well, the church has faithlessness. We have guilt. We're not perfect. Yes, we are justified. But the church collectively has people within her who struggle with various degrees of sin, and some are not even saved. The New Testament church has guilt in that regards. Paul admonishes an entire church, the Church of Cormen, doesn't he? He's got two books about it, saying, what's your problem? You're not acting like Christians. You're failing the test. It's exposing your guilt. Admit your guilt, repent, and obey. That's the test for all Christians. Admit your guilt, repent, and obey. It's as simple as that. It can be very hard, of course, because sin is real. Not always in that order, not always at once. God test Israel of old. God tested the church. Jewish church, which he eventually judged. He tests the New Testament church, and Corinth is an example of that, because in the 2nd Corinthians, he thanks God that they listened to him, and restored one of those they were supposed to have judged, and they did apparently, and that's what they should do. That's the test, confess, repent, and obey. He tests the church, and he tests you as well, not just the church as a whole, Presbyterians didn't like what she does do to expose our guilt. They test us individually. What test do you have? We have guilty hearts to one degree or another at times. It's not always an earth-shattering thing. I'm not saying it's supposed to be as intense as this. Oh, great, I'm going to be thrown in prison for three days. Thanks, Pastor. But it may be for some people. I mean, I praise God by, as it were, outward evidence. You're here. I mean, evening worship is especially hard for many people. That's generally an indication of perseverance. And you're not one of those who has to be thrown to the lions to learn the hard lessons of Christianity. Some people are. They go through their entire life fleeing from God. We know some stories. They know better. They've been taught about the gospel. And so God says, fine, I'll give you up to Satan, and you're going to have a miserable life for a long time. So they finally give in, and their hardened hearts, their guilty hearts are exposed, they acknowledge it, confess, and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Fruits of befitting repentance, worthy of repentance. Depends upon our knowledge of sin, and how much we have sinned, how much habitual sin it is, and for how long we've sinned. But God is gracious in testing our guilty hearts. Because we often forget to test ourselves. There are texts in the New Testament, I have not gone into the details of this. You can look them up. Study school class. Talk about examining yourself to see if these things be so. That's a test. You must test yourself. The arenas of testing. Of course, our life in the broadest sense. Marriage. There you go, there's a crucible. Work. Church. Do we love our wife? Do we obey our husband? Do we work as unto the Lord, or are we lazy? Do we love our church? Do we pray and help one another? Are we indifferent? These are tests in that sense of God saying, are you serious about following me? If not, then this is a test. It's going to show your guilty heart. What can you do? Admit your guilt, repent, and obey. But there's no other way. To follow Jesus, it takes time, it takes a lifetime of killing the desires of the flesh, doesn't it? And of living unto God, killing the old man and renewing the new man. in Christ Jesus. It is hard. I don't want to discourage you, but I want to encourage you to show you that the tests are good for you. The tests expose your guilt. We don't always know our guilt. And the toils and the difficulties of life that catch us off guard, market collapses, you lose your money, you lose your job, these things are there to test us often. and to show us. And so we should be ready to see what these tests teach us and to examine our hearts and to thank God for exposing our guilty heart that we may bring forth fruits of works worthy of repentance. Let's pray. We come before you and we thank you God that you have indeed designed your providence often with a testing. Testing for various and sundry things to be sure, but one test seems to be pretty consistent in our life, to test our guilty heart. That is to expose our guilty heart, to wake us up, to slap us in the face, that we say thank you Jesus. May we have willing hearts to submit to you. In your name we pray, amen.