(The following was extracted from “Lectures on the History of Joseph” by George Lawson, D.D., who was the Professor of Divinity to the Associate Secession Church from 1787 to 1820. We quote from the Preparatory Note: “Intelligent readers of these Lectures cannot fail to be struck with the original thinking discovered in them, the author’s knowledge of human nature, and his singular talent for generalising moral instruction. Mr Spurgeon has said of him: ‘Dr Lawson had a fertile mind, and a heart alive both to the human and Divine side of truth. He writes with a pleasing simplicity of style.’ ” What follows is the author’s comments on Genesis 39; vv 1 to 9:)
Joseph was sold and bought as if he had been a beast, or a captive taken in war. How improbable was it that he should ever be the lord of his brethren, or the Lord of Egypt! But God provided a master for him, in whose house he was to enjoy a respite from his sufferings. All the ways of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and His eyes are upon His people for good at the very times when they seem to be forgotten.
The Lord was with Joseph; and if the Lord was with him he was a happy man, although his fond father was not with him. He was a stranger in a strange land; he was also dependent on the caprice of a haughty master, and yet he was blessed; for he enjoyed the presence, the protection, the favour of the Lord.
We are too ready to doubt of God’s favour if we meet with unprosperous accidents, or if we are not speedily delivered from afflictions; as if outward prosperity were a sign of God’s favour, and adversity a sure sign of His hatred. But do not the Scriptures declare that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth? The Lord was with Joseph, and could easily have restored him at once to his father’s bosom, yet He did it not, but left him many years in a state of slavery. Cease then to judge God’s ways by man’s ways — For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so God’s ways are higher than man’s ways. He shows His love, and manages His affairs according to His own infinite wisdom, and not according to the plan which our weak understandings could prescribe. Shall we presume to teach wisdom to the Father of Lights? If Joseph had been at this time raised to all that dignity which he afterwards possessed, where would the glory have been which he obtained by his unequalled continence and meekness, his extraordinary wisdom, his constant patience? The crown of Egypt would not have been so bright an ornament to Joseph’s head as the glorious virtues which God enabled him to show forth in a suffering condition, and which his sufferings fitted him to display in his exaltation.
But Joseph was not left in his servile condition without manifest tokens of the love of God; for the Lord made him to prosper in all his undertakings and labours, so that he soon obtained the esteem, the love, and the confidence of his master. Prosperity is not always a sign of God’s special favour, yet prosperity undoubtedly comes from God, and is a fruit of God’s love to His people, when He sees that prosperity is better for them than adversity. But how did God show Himself present with Joseph by making him to prosper? Was not Joseph’s prosperity more properly his master’s than his own, when all the business which he transacted was his master’s and the profit rebounded to him? It is true that Joseph’s prosperity was, to outward appearance, his master’s advantage rather than his own. But as the little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked, so the benefit which Joseph derived from God’s kindness to him was far greater than his master’s. He saw the love of God mitigating and sweetening his sorrows, and recommending him to his master’s favour, that he might spend even the days of his banishment and humiliation with comfort. The more clearly we can discern the love of God in any prosperous incidents, the more pleasure we can take in them. A breathing in bondage with the love of God is worth more than all the prosperity which godless men can enjoy.
The blessing of God upon Joseph’s labours was so conspicuous, that his master himself observed and acknowledged it. Great was the honour that God put upon a poor servant, when a great man in the court of Egypt honoured him with his attention and his respect, and acknowledged him to be blessed of the Lord. When men are precious in God’s sight they are honourable, whatever be their station in life. If they are at present despised by men, they are honoured by angels; and when God makes it known that He loves them by signal proofs of his favour, He will make them honourable in the eyes of those who formerly despised them. When Laban saw that the Lord was with Jacob, he courted him to abide in his service. When Potiphar saw plainly that the Lord was with Joseph, he made the young man the overseer of his house, and the manager of all his business. It is good to have those for our friends and for our servants who are beloved by the Lord. His kindness towards His people overflows to all with whom they are connected. Pious stewards, or pious servants of any kind, are a blessing to their masters, because they are faithful, and manage all their affairs in the fear of the Lord. But they are a blessing likewise on another account, because the Lord makes all they do to prosper, Ps. 1: 4; and we are sure that no skill or industry will be of any use to men without the blessing of God.
The blessing of the Lord was upon everything that belonged to Potiphar, as far as Joseph was concerned in it, before he was advanced to the stewardship; but after Joseph became Potiphar’s steward, the blessing of the Lord was upon everything that he had, whether in the house or in the field, for Joseph’s sake. Great was the favour that was now conceived for the young slave, and an entire confidence was reposed in him. Potiphar saw that he had no more occasion to trouble himself with anxious cares about anything that belonged to him. He was sure not only that every business would be managed with care and fidelity, but that good success would attend all his affairs. Potiphar now knew nothing of all that he had, save the bread which he did eat; all was left in the hands of Joseph, who never betrayed his master’s confidence.
The ancient patriarchs were rich and great men; yet, through the wise providence of God, they are placed in circumstances which furnished them with opportunities for setting an example to men of the lowest station. Joseph, like his father Jacob, is an example of contentment, industry, and fidelity to servants. It is true, servants cannot command success, and God does not bind Himself by an absolute promise to grant success to the best conducted affairs. But it is undoubtedly the duty of servants to take the most likely means to promote the prosperity of their masters, and to seek the divine blessings upon those affairs that are committed to them. By such behaviour, they are likely to prove blessings to their masters, and to attain that favour and confidence which they take pains to deserve. But if they should be ungratefully treated by their masters according to the flesh, they have a Master in heaven who will by no means suffer them to want their due reward.
Masters may likewise learn from this passage what treatment is due to faithful servants. They ought to trust, to honour, and to love them. Potiphar was a stranger to the family of Israel, and yet he loved Joseph for his fidelity, and honoured him as the instrument of God’s providential blessings to himself. Christian masters have far stronger motives to honour Christian servants, whom they know to be not only servants, but above servants, brethren, partakers of the same heavenly blessings and dignities with themselves. Thus masters who do not honour faithful servants endeavour to make Solomon a liar, for he says that “as he who keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof, so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.”
Joseph spent his time comfortably in the house of his master, for the Lord made his yoke easy, and his burden light. He might now have waited patiently for his exaltation, which he was sure would come in due time; but he needed other severe trials to prepare him for it, and to make way for its coming to him. God only knows what degree of trouble is necessary for His people, and how long it is proper they should continue under its pressure. It was Joseph’s comfort that he was beloved by his master, but it was his misfortune that he was too well beloved by his mistress. He had a lovely face, which his mistress could not behold without conceiving a regard for him, which proved for a time prejudicial to Joseph, but infinitely more prejudicial to herself.
Beauty of person and face is a quality which gains love, and ought to make the possessor of it thankful; yet let not the fair pride themselves in their lovely features, which may prove a snare to the beholders, or to themselves. Sarah’s beauty pleased the eyes of Abraham, but cost him many anxious thoughts, and sometimes instigated him to use dishonourable methods for the preservation of his life. Joseph’s beauty was a dangerous snare to his mistress, and procured him the misfortune of a tedious confinement. Hast thou beauty? trust not in it, but be modest and cautious. Dost thou want beauty? be content, and thankful that you are free from those snares which often attend it. Dost thou behold a beautiful face in the other sex? beware of being too much charmed with the lovely aspect. Remember that “favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain”. “Lust not after the beauty of the strange woman,” says Solomon to his disciple, “neither let her take the with her eyelids.” That the other sex may stand in need of like admonitions is too plain from the story of Potiphar’s wife.
She saw Joseph, she loved him, and said unto him, Lie with me. Her eyes ensnared her heart, and she lost her modesty, as well as every other virtue. She must have been lost to all sense of shame when she so barefacedly tempted Joseph to violate her chastity. Joseph was now in a dangerous situation. Few young men could have resisted the strong temptation which he was enabled to encounter. How easily did his brother Judah, in a more advanced period of life, fall before a temptation, which, in the comparison, was very small. We may say of Joseph, that there were few like him in all the earth. Sin spread out, before him its strongest attractions — pleasure and profit. It drew up the most formidable terrors in battle array, but none of all these things moved Joseph. He held fast his integrity, and would not let it go, for his heart was mightily fortified by the fear of God, and he was powerfully supported by that grace “which is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of the divine glory with exceeding joy.”
He not only refused to comply with his mistress, but gave her his reasons for refusing; and these reasons were well adapted to cure her of her madness, if it had not been incurable. “Behold,” said he, “My master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath into my hand: there is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
If a man has not a lively sense of important benefits conferred upon him, he is worse than a brute. Even lions, we are told, have testified a grateful disposition for benefits conferred on them; and we know that the dog and the horse, and even the stupid ass, are very far from being insensible to kindness, Joseph, we find, was penetrated with a sense of the favours heaped upon him, and would not behave in a manner unworthy of them. And if Joseph, a poor slave, had such a grateful sense of Potiphar’s favours, how monstrously ungrateful was the wife of his bosom, who wished to repay his love with the blackest stain to his honour!
Confidence will always beget in a well-disposed mind a disposition to repay it with fidelity; and one who betrays trust is regarded as an enormous transgressor of the laws of society. Joseph was trusted with everything by his master, and therefore he resolved to observe inviolable fidelity. Such motives to honest behaviour were strong, though not the strongest that governed his soul. He proposes them, however, at greatest length, because the force of them would be best understood, and perhaps felt by his mistress. How base was her conduct, when she tempted his favourite servant to betray him in the most cruel manner, and to repay the greatest favours with an irreparable shame.
“He hath withheld nothing from me but thee, because thou art his wife.” These words ought to have pierced her heart like daggers. She was his wife, and a man’s wife ought to be his alone, and not another’s with him. The servants that have everything else put into their hands, the friend that is to a man like his own soul, must consider the wife of their master or friend as his exclusive property. The more favoured they are in other respects, the more careful must they be to maintain this property inviolable. A man’s wife is a part of his own flesh. To separate between a man’s soul and body is not a much greater injury than to separate a man’s wife from himself.
“How then can I do this great wickedness?” Joseph speaks as if it had been impossible for him to bring himself under the guilt of such atrocious ingratitude, injustice, and impurity. It would have been impossible for him to commit a crime so black and complicated, without divesting himself of humanity as well as piety. He found an unconquerable reluctance in his heart to such baseness, and endeavoured to convey his own way of thinking into the heart of his tempter, by setting before her eyes in few words the complicated horrors of that iniquity to which she wished to seduce him. Adultery is not only a sin, but a great wickedness. It is perjury and impurity in their highest degree. It is, in any circumstances, a great wickedness, abhorred by heathens as well as Christians, and judged by many nations to deserve a painful and ignominious death.
When Joseph was tempted to this sin, he placed before his own eyes, and endeavoured to place before his tempter’s eyes, its extreme malignity. It is one great misery, that in a time of temptation, we lose the benefit of our knowledge, by a temporary forgetfulness that seizes upon our hearts, and renders us an easy prey to the devil. We are often surprised that men and women should make themselves, in one fatal moment, miserable for life, with their eyes open. But their eyes were not open at the time when they gave such a fatal stab to their fame and peace. The God of this world found means to shut their eyes, till they had done his work, and then their eyes were opened to see the shame of their nakedness. Whenever you find yourselves dangerously tempted to any iniquity, beware of forgetting what reason, what experience, what the Scriptures tell you concerning it. Pray to God that you may be enabled to retain just apprehensions of its malignity in the hour of darkness. When your corrupt hearts would fix your eyes upon present pleasures, turn your thoughts to the vileness of the sin, to the intolerable misery which it brings, and to those mighty arguments which ought to steel us with unshaken resolutions to keep ourselves pure.
Turn your thoughts to God the great Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. “How shall I do this great wickedness,” says the holy patriarch, “and sin against God?” If the excellences of God, the relations in which we stand to Him, the account we must give to Him, the sure vengeance denounced by Him against the workers of iniquity, were always present to our minds, temptations to rebellion against Him would lose much of their strength. “I have kept thy precepts, and thy testimonies,” says David, “for all my ways are before thee.”
“How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” The offence against Potiphar would have been very inexcusable, but it was a small thing compared with the offence which would have been given to God. God is our Maker, and our Judge. He is infinitely glorious, and His laws are worthy of Himself. To sin against Him is to sin against our own souls, for He can kill both soul and body.
Under the Gospel, we see in the light of the cross of Christ what it is to sin against God. He would not suffer the least sin to escape unpunished. For all sins that have been, or shall be pardoned, full satisfaction was made by Christ. He endured all the horrors of the curse of God, that all rational creatures might know how evil and how bitter a thing it is to sin against the Most High. If, in the most ancient times, those who knew the Lord said, “How can we sin against God?” how much more will those, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified, tremble at the thought of transgressing His commandments, unless they are under the bewitching influence of the devil!
Beware of sinning against men, because in doing so you sin against God.
Our fellow-men are entitled to our regard, and we ought to render unto all their due; but let us ever remember that our chief regard is due to God, and that we ought to discharge our duty to men in the fear of God, and under deep impressions of His authority. The transgressions of the wicked said in David’s heart, that the fear of God was not before his eyes. By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. If we felt upon our spirits past transgressions of His majesty and glory, what manner of persons would we be in all holy conversation and godliness!
It is not enough for us to resist one, or two, or twenty temptations to any sin. We ought to continue steadfast and unmoved amidst all the terrors and all the allurements that are spread out before our eyes. God is ever the same, His love is ever the same, and our duty is ever the same, whatever Satan may suggest, whatever bad men may say to us, and whatever corrupt motions we may feel in our own spirits. Samson refused for a long time to satisfy Delilah’s insidious questions concerning his great strength, but at last the mighty man was conquered by the tears and importunities of a fair woman. He revealed the fatal secret, and his indiscretion cost him his eyes and his life. Thus sinners startle at the first proposal of a temptation. They refuse for a time to comply with the great enemy of their souls, but at last, tired of resistance, they yield to the destroyer, and bring that guilt and misery upon themselves which the devil, with all his wiles, could not have brought upon them without their own consent. They forget the important words of our Lord: “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved; and he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.”