LISTEN HERE SHOW SUMMARY In part three of this four part series, host Hans Finzel draws important parallels between Joseph and Jesus. SHOW NOTES JosephSeries III.mp3
SHOW TRANSCRIPT

HANS FINZEL: Welcome to our radio program, Missions on the Frontline. WorldVenture supports over 1,000 mission projects and missionaries in over 65 countries of the world. We’ve been sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. This program is part of our new initiative to educate our listeners on creative new ways to be involved in missions.

We’re right in the middle of a four-part series on life-lessons from Joseph, one of the greatest characters of the Old Testament. More pages are given to Joseph than any other person in the book of Genesis. When Moses put together the book of Genesis, it’s like God told him, “Now here is a life of unusual significance with so many life-lessons for generations to come. Give him plenty of air-time.”

So today we’re looking at the third life-lesson from Joseph as it relates to winning the battle for our character – the battle of temptation. If you have a Bible, if you’ll turn to Genesis chapter 39, we’re going to be looking at the great temptation when Joseph was tempted by Potiphar’s wife.

Now you might ask, “Why is a program on missions talking about Joseph from the Old Testament?”

Well, because Joseph is one of the greatest missionaries in all of history. Last week as we spoke about the vision, we realized that God had given a vision and because of his vision, he redeemed his whole family. Jacob, his father, and all his brothers and eventually 75 people came from Israel down to Egypt and survived the famine and grew over a period of 400 years to two million people. Then Moses rescued them and took them out of Egypt.

But it was Joseph, because of his vision, that got him into Egypt but at the beginning Joseph was alone. He was a cross-cultural missionary who landed in Egypt. He didn’t know the language; he didn’t know the culture; he didn’t like the food. There were so many things that he did not like about his circumstances; that he was forced to be there. But like any truly good, successful missionary, he learned to grow where he was planted.

Not only did he become successful, he became wildly successful. He became the head of Pharaoh’s household and no one was greater in all the kingdom of Egypt other than Pharaoh himself. So Joseph was certainly a missionary with a great vision.

By the way, we have a great vision here at WorldVenture. Our vision is to see men and women, boys and girls, communities, churches, cities and whole countries – transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. That’s our passion – to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to the places that have had the least opportunity on Planet Earth. We’re always looking for people who want to join us in this great adventure. If you will go to our website at WorldVenture.com, we have hundreds and hundreds of missionary opportunities for people looking for a great adventure and cross-cultural service. Also, we have just as many opportunities for donors and people who would like to give with their financial resources because they are not able to go personally. So go to our website at WorldVenture.com

As we look at Joseph today, I’d like to begin again with a list I have been sharing every week, just in case you didn’t get the whole list written down last week or you didn’t have a chance to listen last week about the Top Ten Things I Absolutely Love About Joseph.

I spent several years studying his life; not only in the Old Testament in Genesis but also the places where his life occurs in the book of Psalms as well as in the New Testament in the book of Acts. A couple of other little places – the book of Hebrews – and I found Joseph is such an encouragement to me because he learned not to become bitter by all the things that happened to him. In fact, that’s why I wrote this list, the Top Ten Things I Love About Joseph, because the more time I spent with him, the more I appreciated how much he can be an encouragement to us, right now, this year, where we are planted.
1.He was a dreamer. Dreamers are often misunderstood. In our day I think he would have been labeled a maverick, or a visionary, or even an entrepreneur. He was a dreamer and I love that about him because I’m a dreamer and I’m a visionary and we’re often misunderstood and many people try to stop us in our tracks and I just appreciate that nothing stopped Joseph from accomplishing that which God put on his heart.
2.He practiced faithfulness to God with no support group to motivate him or hold him accountable. It’s what I call obedience in solitude when no one was looking.
3.He kept his attitude positive in a very negative set of circumstances .He did not allow defeat to defeat him. As I said the week-before-last, he did not become chairman of the Pity Party. Even though he had so many reasons to be depressed he refused to do so. In fact, the life-lesson of Joseph is, “Get over it and get on with it.” Now that may be hard to do but I think the more we look into his life we can see it can be done and it is your attitude, not your aptitude, that will eventually determine your attitude in life. He was all about the right attitude.
4.He learned to grow where he was planted as a Multiple Uprooted One and missionaries are always being uprooted and cast from one culture to another. We have people that have been with WorldVenture over 30 years. I can think of one missionary couple who spent the first-half of their career in South America and Brazil. The second-half of their career in Mozambique, which is in East Africa, and now they have moved back to Brazil for the third… I guess instead of halves I should say the third, third of their career. Missionaries are Multiple Uprooted Ones who learn to thrive in cross-cultural situations. That was Joseph.
5.He grew better as a person through his trials; not bitter.
6.He knew the source of his gifting – that it was from God and not himself. As we saw last week, every time he had the opportunity to interpret a dream at a critical juncture in his life he acknowledged that it was not he who had the insights, but it was God who gave him the interpretation of the dreams. He acknowledged the source of his gifting.
7.He was the black sheep of the family that survived and thrived. Any of you out there feel like you are the black sheep? Well, I just want you to know it doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing career. It doesn’t mean you can’t do amazing things in God’s service in the church for the Kingdom. He was the black sheep. His brother’s sold him into slavery but he survived and thrived. That leads to number eight of the Top Ten Things I Love About Joseph.
8.He overcame a highly dysfunctional family with a passive father. I run into a lot of people that blame their problems on their family and they can wallow in the pity of that and they can not fulfill the dreams and aspirations and goals that they would love to accomplish in their lives. I know it’s hard to grow up… I grew up in a dysfunctional family and I had a passive father. My father’s been gone for 25-years and it’s hard not having a father. But I’m telling you, you can overcome it with the right attitude and staying close to God, which is exactly what Joseph did.
9.He was extremely gifted; yet humble. It says that he was strong, handsome, and he had unusual wisdom.
10.His whole life is a positive boost to the story of redemption. Again, that is why I think so many pages are given to him in the book of Genesis. Because he broke the sins of his father, Jacob, and his grandfather, Abraham, and he was able to just… In many ways he’s a type of Christ and in our next and final, in this four-part series, next week we’re going to look at the end on all the analogies between the life of Jesus Christ and the life of Joseph. His whole life was a life of faith; a positive boost to the story of redemption in the midst of very negative circumstances.
So let’s dig in to the story this week of winning the battle for our character – the battle of temptation. Boy, did he have a doozy of a battle. If you know the story of Joseph he was promoted to Potiphar’s house because of his gifting. After he had been sold into slavery, by his brothers into Egypt, all of a sudden the government, the officials, they take notice of this young, handsome, strong, gifted individual and he’s promoted into Potiphar’s household, who is one of the personal staff of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. Potiphar was the Captain of the Palace Guard, a strong, powerful man. He had a wife who was pure trouble for Joseph. We’re going to pick up the story in Genesis chapter 39 beginning in verse 2.
“The Lord was with Joseph and blessed him greatly as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. So Joseph naturally became quite a favorite with him. Potiphar soon put Joseph in charge of his entire household and entrusted him with all of his business dealings. From the day Joseph was put in charge, the Lord began to bless Potiphar for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs began to run smoothly, his crops and his livestock flourished, and so Potiphar kept giving Joseph more and more power and authority and control of everything because God was so obviously with this young man. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there he didn’t have a worry in the world except to decide what he wanted to eat.”
Man, did he have it made.
“Now Joseph was a very handsome, well-built young man and about this time Potiphar’s wife began to desire him and invited him to sleep with her.”
Remember I told you one of the Top Ten Things I Love About Joseph is his obedience in solitude? Well there was nobody around because Potiphar, all he was doing was hanging out at the local pub. I mean he had no worries, he had nothing going on, and I don’t think there was anybody around.
“She had a desire to sleep with him but Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “My master trusts me in everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except one thing and that is you because you are his wife. How could I ever do such a wicked thing?”
And then the final clincher…
“It would be a great sin against God.”
I love how he puts that – right into her face. You know he didn’t have to tell her at that juncture that he was a God-follower but he did.
Well verse 10, she kept putting pressure on him, day after day after day, but he refused to sleep with her and he kept out of her way as much as possible and there is a great tip. As it says in the New Testament for us young men, or older men, or whoever we are, men and women are tempted and it says, “flee youthful lusts”. That’s exactly what he did. As much as possible, he tried to stay out of her way.
By the way, what are all the reasons why you think he should have succumbed to temptation? Before we go to the rest of the story to see what happens next, I could think of a whole lot of reasons why he should have succumbed to this temptation.
Nobody was looking.
Nobody would have cared in this culture and is many cultures of the world, it was probably expected.
I just recently got back from a multi-country trip overseas and in the particular countries I was in (I’m not going to name it) but I was told business men are just expected to have women on the side; women who are kept in addition to the family. In many cultures that’s totally acceptable so nobody was watching; nobody would have cared.
You know something else that is so powerful to me, there is no record of Joseph having a girlfriend or being married so all these years since he was 17, and now he’s getting into his 30’s and he hasn’t had a woman. He would have certainly desired a woman. We don’t know what she looked like; it doesn’t say but I think there were a lot of reasons why he should have succumbed to temptation.
What are all the reasons that he did not? Well, it’s about integrity; it’s about character. It was about his rock-solid commitment to his Lord and that he was not going to defame and soil the name of his Savior for the sake of this momentary pleasure. And that’s why he said, “I’m not about to do this, because of the God that I serve.”
Well let’s see what happens next.
Verse 10, “She kept putting pressure on him, day after day, but he refused to sleep with her. He kept out of her way. One day, however, when no one was around she came in and grabbed him by his shirt, demanding, “Sleep with me!”
I mean the pressure that was just on and on and on; day after day. I’m just amazed at his resolve and his integrity and his character.
“Joseph tore himself away but as he did his shirt came off. She was left holding it as he ran from the house.”
As an aside, the other time that he really got in trouble in his life - when his brother’s threw him down the well - do you remember what they were holding in their hand? They were holding his coat-of-many colors and he ends up in the pit.
This time he runs away from her and she’s holding his shirt, his cloak, in her hands and as a result he gets thrown in prison.
“When she saw that she had his shirt and that he fled she began screaming, soon all the men came around and she said, “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to insult us. He tried to rape me but I screamed and when you heard my loud cries he ran off and left his shirt behind.” She kept the shirt with her until her husband came home and she told him the story.
After hearing his wife’s story, Potiphar was furious and he took Joseph and he threw him into prison where the King’s prisoners were held.”
I wonder if he was furious at Joseph or if he was furious at his wife? I personally think he was furious at the circumstance that he was placed in where he had to save face. I really think he knew Joseph well enough to know that Joseph wasn’t really guilty of this crime but his wife accused him of it in front of all these people and all his household; accused him of rape and so he threw him in prison.
We know what happened in prison and we’re not going to go there today; we don’t have enough time but again, in prison, he was there for several years and he interpreted the dreams for the baker and the cup bearer and eventually he was liberated in front of Pharaoh and all went well for him, even though he was still thrown into prison.
But I want to focus on this temptation and how he was able to overcome this temptation. One of the great writers, a book called, THE GREATEST MEN IN THE BIBLE, Clarence Edward McCartney says this about this temptation:
“This was no ordinary temptation. Joseph was not a stone – a mummy – but a red-blooded young man in his late 20’s. It was not one temptation on one day but a repeated temptation.
An old story tells how when Joseph began to talk about God to the temptress, she flung her skirt over the bust of the god that stood in the chamber and said, “Now God will not see.”
But Joseph answered her, “My God sees.”
You know, that was really the key. You know, what keeps us from secret sin? What keeps us from going in secret to those places that we shouldn’t go or going on the Internet and looking at things we shouldn’t look at? What is it that ultimately helps us keep our character in tact? It’s that simple principle – I know that God sees. That was powerful enough for Joseph and I’m just amazed; I’m totally blown away by his integrity.
Here is what Dietrich Boenhoffer has to say about this same incident:
“In our members [members of our bodies, he is referring to] there is a slumbering inclination toward desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power, desire sees its mastery over the flesh. All at once a secret, smoldering fire is kindled. The lust, thus aroused, envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us.”
You see, that’s exactly what happens in the fire of desire. The power of clear discrimination is taken away from us and we begin to rationalize. Again, if anybody had a reason to rationalize, I think it would have been Joseph.
Here’s what he could have said to himself. First of all, “I don’t even belong in this country.” Secondly, “I certainly don’t belong in this household. My brothers sold me into slavery; my father has forgotten me, I have been handed one bum-wrap after another. Life has just handed me one lemon after another. It’s not fair and I deserve to medicate myself.”
There are so many reasons he could have rationalized to himself, “You know, I deserve this and what’s it really going to matter? My life hasn’t exactly turned out the way I hoped it would.”
But if you go back to last week’s lesson about vision and faith, he didn’t give up his dream, his vision, his faith, his position, his integrity and that which he believed was God’s plan for his life because somehow he understood that God was weaving a tapestry.
There are really three areas of temptation in life, not just sexual temptation. It’s what 1 John 2:15-17 calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I’ve focused, of course, this whole story is about a temptation to be impure; to have adultery.
You know I think he was also tempted toward arrogance and pride and he did not succumb to that temptation because every time he had the opportunity he let people know, “I am not the great gifted one; my gift comes from God.”
The lust of the flesh, of course, is the onslaught of sexual, sensual temptations. All of us are victims to the lust of the flesh and, of course, with the explosion of the Internet, Satan has found a whole new tool to throw temptation into our path that has never been around in front of any other generation like it is ours today, the lust of the flesh. By the way, a great book for you men out there that struggle with this, one of the best books I’ve seen is called, THINK BEFORE YOU LOOK: AVOIDING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SECRET TEMPTATION, by Daniel Henderson. It’s called, THINK BEFORE YOU LOOK and it’s basically 40 reasons not to look at pornography and not to look at things we shouldn’t. So the lust of the flesh.
The second temptation according to 1 John 2 is the lust of the eyes. This is a craving for material things. The shopping lust; the craving for material things and the need to get the buzz from buying something is a huge lust of the eyes and it’s an area of temptation that we need to control.
Finally, the pride of life and that’s the boasting that comes from personal power or position.
As I come to the end of the program today I want to again give you some applications in the nitty-gritty from the life of Joseph as it pertains to temptation and avoiding the struggle of temptation, whether it’s the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the pride of life.
Here are some applications.
First of all, when you are transplanted to foreign turf you are thrown off-guard and it’s so much easier to fall into temptation. That’s true temporarily as well as permanently so business trips and any time you are away from your normal environment and out of town or your family is out of town and you are alone at home, these are the times we are thrown off-guard and we need to be the most on-guard.
Another idea, success can set us up for vulnerability. It was actually the great success of Joseph that set up the temptation because, frankly, he was so powerful and so successful in Potiphar’s household that she wanted to conquer him because of who he was and I’m not sure she would have gone after him if he didn’t have the power that he had. Of course he was young and handsome but he was also someone to be conquered. Success can set us up for temptation.
There are two key times in life when I think we are tempted the most; in times of defeat/despondency as well as in times of great prosperity and ease. Those are the times we are hit the hardest; either when we are really down and out, just defeated and despondent and depressed and we just have the attitude, “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. What difference is it going to make?”
Those are such vulnerable times as well as. Oh my gosh! How many times we’re on a mountain top, and I’ve experienced this so many times when I’ve had one of my greatest victories in my work or professionally or wherever, and all of a sudden, bam! We’re hit with temptation.
What did Joseph do? He refused. He ran for his life and he acknowledged the presence of God. It was because of God he wouldn’t do it.
I think that the tempter, Satan, seeks the successful person. The godly soul. The leaders who are respected by others. Those are the ones he wants to take out more than anyone else and that’s why he wanted to take out Joseph.
Another insight that I got from Chuck Swindoll, “There is no sin in the bait; the sin is in the bite. We don’t have to feel guilty because bait is thrown at us. We just need to have guilt if we bite the bait.”
Another application - idle time and solitude are the Devil’s workshop. Because they were alone in the house, the opportunity was ripe for temptation.
Another powerful application here is that bad things can happen to you after really good choices. He made all the right decisions but still, this terrible thing happened to him. You see, he decided not to succumb to temptation. He did the integrity thing and what was the result? Thrown into prison. So bad things can happen to you after really, really good choices.
Finally, the greatest gift that I can give my wife, Donna, and my children and to my grandchildren, is purity and faithfulness. There is nothing more important to give to my wife.
This has been Hans Finzel, and this is Missions on the Frontline, a ministry of WorldVenture. Our website is WorldVenture.com. We’re here to extend your vision, help make you aware of creative new ways you can get involved in sharing the great news of Jesus Christ around the world. Thanks for listening today. We’ll see you next week on Missions on the Frontline.