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DIVINE SEARCHING

J. D. Gray

Our brother has been speaking about the Father’s appreciation of Christ. You get in this section these men who had little or no appreciation of what that blessed relationship was. The coat of many colours Joseph was invested in was a token of his father’s appreciation of him, and they had little or no appreciation of Joseph or of their father’s feelings. They put him into the pit, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites; then they go on in their own way. Over twenty years pass and then they have to go down into Egypt to buy grain, and they are brought into the presence of the one whom they despised. What a way divine Persons have of bringing us into the divine presence to face up to a matter, to face up to moral issues in our lives. “Then they said one to another, We are indeed guilty concerning our brother, whose anguish of soul we saw when he besought us, and we did not hearken”, Genesis 42: 21. Jehovah brought these men into Joseph’s presence by way of famine. God has His own ways of helping as to searching out matters in our lives. Things can go a long time; it went on a long time with Joseph’s brethren.

Then it says, “Go again, buy us a little food”. It brings them into the presence of Joseph as the one who divines. We are brought into the presence of Christ, dear brethren, as the One who divines, the One who knows; He knows our thinking, knows what we are; He knows us through and through. You get a sense when you are in a meeting like this that you are in the presence of God, and there is a searching going on in our souls as to whether we are real. They say, “we are honest” (Genesis 42: 11); they are tested as to whether they are honest; they are tested in the presence of Joseph. He brings them round and, as a result, Joseph was made known to his brethren. After over twenty years of deceitfulness in this family of Jacob he did not know the deceitfulness in his house. Then the final result was, after much heart searching and soul searching, that they were brought into the presence of Joseph through the need for food, because there was dearth in the place, famine was there. The famine was extended, they had to go again, it says they could have gone twice “certainly have returned already twice” (Genesis 43: 10), but matters were prolonged. They were not prolonged in vain, they were prolonged so that they came into the presence of the one who divines, who knows everything; but the result, as I say, was one of Joseph being made known to his brethren. What a state in a place to be arrived at after such a long period of dearth, deceit and unhappiness, as in this section of scripture!

I only use it to exercise our hearts and souls that we might be searched. Some one had been damaged in this section; Joseph had been damaged, a young man had been damaged, seventeen years’ old, and it went on for over twenty years, while his brethren were going on in their own ways, living their life trying to forget about him. God was working to bring them round to face the moral issue. That is how the Lord works. He brings them round in a way that they would least have expected. They went down to Egypt the first time, they never thought about Joseph; when they came into his presence their conscience reacted. If we get into the presence of God the things we may have forgotten about are manifested there; everything is manifested, the heart is manifested, the thoughts and intents of the heart. The word of God comes through Joseph to them, sharper than any two-edged sword, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (see Hebrews 4: 12). That is the word of God which all have to do with. May the Lord help us, for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
20 August 1991

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