Genesis 39:1-6 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian… 1. We have all our captivities at some time or other in our experience. The essence of Joseph's trial here was that he was taken whither he had no wish to go, and was prevented from going back again to the home in which his father was sitting mourning for his loss. But is not interference with our comfort or our liberty still the bitter element in all our afflictions? Take bodily illness, for example, and when you get at the root of the discomfort of it, you find it in the union of these two things: you are where you do not want to be — where you would never have thought of putting yourself — and you are held there, whether you will or not, by a Power that is stronger than your own. No external force constrains you, no fetters are on your limbs, yet you are held where you are against your own liking, and you do not relish the situation — you are a captive. But the same thing comes out in almost every sort of trial. You are, let me suppose, in business perplexity. But that is not of your own choosing; if you could have managed it, you would have been in quite different circumstances. Yet, in spite of you, things have gone against you. Men whom you had implicitly trusted, and whom you would have had no more thought of doubting than you would think now of doubting your mother's love, have proved deceitful; or the course of trade has gone against you, and you are brought to a stand. You have been carried away perhaps by brothers, perhaps by Ishmaelites — for the race is not yet extinct — from the Canaan of comfort to the Egypt captivity, and you are now in helpless perplexity. It may be standing, not like Joseph, in the slave-pen, but in the market place of labour, and condemned to do nothing, because "no man hath hired" you. Ah! there are many, too many always, in a largo city like this who are in just such circumstances. What then? Let them learn from Joseph here that the first thing to do in a captivity is to acquiesce in it as the will of God concerning them. 2. But then, in the second place, we must learn from Joseph to make the best of our remaining opportunities in our captivity. If he was to be a slave, Joseph was determined he would be the best of slaves, and what he was required to do he would do with his might and with his heart. This is a most important consideration, and it may, perhaps, help to explain why similar trials have had such different results in different persons. One has been bemoaning that it is not with him as it used to be, while the other has discovered that some talents have been still left him, and he has set to work with these. One has been saying, "If I had only the resources which I once possessed I could do something; but now they have gone, I am helpless." But the other has been soliloquizing thus: "If I can do nothing else I can at least do this, little as it is; and if I put it into the hand of Christ, He can make it great"; and so we account for the unhappiness and uselessness of the one, and for the happiness and usefulness of the other. Nor will it do to say that this difference is a mere thing of temperament. It is a thing of character. The one acts in faith, recognizing God's hand in his affliction, the other acts in unbelief, seeing nothing but his own calamity, and that only increases his affliction. So we come to this: keep fast hold of God's hand in your captivity, and do your best in that which is open to you. That will ultimately bring you out of it; but if you lose that you will lose everything. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither. |
    |