Are You The Victor?                                                             11/25/45

 

Scripture:  I John 4: 7-21

 

Text:  I John 4: 18;  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

 

The very face of the earth needs renewal.  Scarred and ugly with the marks of warfare, and scarred even more in the souls of hosts of people, the sight of its wounds is not lovely.  And now, hosts of people feel vaguely uneasy about the awful power of released atomic energy, as demonstrated in three bombings.  A few seem panicky about the future of mankind - perhaps not without cause.  Of course, if we are to place our reliance on power and material, looking to human nature in its frailty and its recurring sins of greed and mistrust, there is cause for pessimism.

 

But we who have called upon God, who have known the name of Christ, have no reason for despair.  Even when we can see no hope, we should have hope!  For through the years of history, God has had a way of caring for his own creation.  And mankind is often overruled by the will and work of God.

 

Consider an old, old story - a familiar one found in the book of Genesis.  The land of Palestine has been sorely troubled through the years of history, as indeed it is now!  In the time of this particular story there was trouble within the family of Jacob.  His older sons were resentful and jealous of a younger brother, Joseph.  They disliked him because they believed he was a tale-bearer, tattling all sorts of family ills to their father.  They disliked him for what seemed to be their father’s indulgence and preference for him.  His coat of many colors was one for the idle -- not a working man’s coat.  And their dislike of him was fanned to seething hatred when Joseph began to talk of dreams in which he was set in authority over them.  They would have none of his notions of lording it over the others.

 

Things came to a head when their father sent Joseph to see how the older brothers were getting along with the flocks some miles from home.  As the young fellow approached the others, they had a bitter laugh over “that dreamer.”  And they hatched up a plot to get rid of him as he toiled nearer them over the rough trail.  At first they thought of having him killed by some manner in which it would appear the wild beasts had done it.  The oldest, and possibly a little more responsible, of them did not quite like the idea so he proposed that they just throw him into an old water hole which happened to be near by.

 

By this time, Joseph had reached them; so they seized him, tore off the brilliant-colored coat and threw the boy into the pit.  Things happened swiftly.  A caravan appeared in the distance.  The sons of Jacob were herding their sheep in an area that was on the trade routes.  The famous balsam and myrrh from Gilead were used in Egypt for embalming the mummies, and there was quite a trade carried on in these, as well as other commodities.  So one of the brothers remarked that “The Ishmaelites are coming from Gilead bearing their spices and balsam and myrrh to be sold in Egypt.”

 

In their angry, impetuous action toward Joseph, they saw a further possibility of disposing of the hated youngster.  Slavery was common and people were not infrequently sold into it.  They could sell Joseph, thus avoiding the technical guilt of murder on their hands, and at the same time lining their pockets with some change.  Best of all, they would not be hearing from him again, for, as long as he lived without violence at their hands, why should they ever be concerned about him again?

 

So they hoisted him up out of the pit as the passing caravan drew near.  They dickered with the Ishmaelites for a price on a slave, and sold Joseph to him for 20 pieces of silver.  And the Ishmaelites sold him again in Egypt when they got down there.  Everybody made something on the deal except Joseph.  Of course the brothers had to hatch up a plausible lie to tell their father about the disappearance of the boy.  But that was easy.  By tearing up the coat and rubbing it in the dirt and smearing the tatters with some blood from one of the sheep, they had something with which they easily convinced their father that the boy had been torn to pieces by lion or bear or wolves.  [Genesis 37: 1-33].

 

It was a thoroughly foul deed, appearing even more so in the light of the fact that these men of that tribe were among those to think of themselves for years to come as God’s chosen people.  Things like that, done then and now, on small scale or at the level of national dealing, are enough to discourage the thought of righteousness.

 

But it happens that the story does not end there.  Few stories do end either in the perfection of “happiness-ever-after” or in permanent stench.  In the case of Joseph, he turned up again.  Some years after the brothers had gotten rid of him, there was famine throughout their land, and all over the whole Mediterranean basin.  There was food in Egypt, but that was due to the shrewd foresightedness and care of a certain official down there.  For certain abilities of the slave boy, Joseph, had been noted in Egypt.  And, after many painful experiences, he had been put in charge of a very important post.  During years of plenty, he had organized Egypt to store away one-fifth of the crops of each good year.  Egypt was dry enough so that grain could safely be stored, simply by providing enough barns and granaries to hold it.  So when the years of drought and starvation came, Egypt had generous stocks of food!

 

When old Jacob, up in famine-ridden Palestine heard about this, he said to his sons; “Don’t stand staring at one another, do something!  Go to Egypt and buy grain!”  The rest of the story is as good as the earlier parts of the tale.  When the brothers got to Egypt, the high official to whom they applied for the privilege of buying grain was non other than their own younger brother, Joseph - entirely unrecognized by them.  They were not expecting to see him; never thought of him except when their father remembered and mourned.

 

He recognized them at once, but did not make his own identity known to them until their second visit for grain.  Maneuvering to get control of the youngest brother, Benjamin, he frightened them thoroughly.  Then he could contain himself no longer.  He commanded: “Cause every man to go out from me” and there stood no man of Egypt with him while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren; and he wept aloud and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard -- the walls must have been thin and the listening ears very curious.  [Genesis 42, 43, 44, 45: 1-4].

 

After he had told them who he was, Joseph went on to say: “Now, therefore be not grieved or angry with yourselves, that you sold me hither; but God sent me before you to preserve you to a posterity in the earth and to save your lives for great deliverance, and so it was not you that sent me hither, but God.”  [Genesis 45: 5; 7-8].

 

Later on, after the family had moved to Egypt, and after their father, Jacob had died, the older brothers evidently feared that, at last, Joseph would turn on them for their evil deed.  Again he reassured them with these words, “Fear not, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”  [Genesis 50: 19-20].

 

That is the story.  The sale of Joseph was as mean a deed as the hearts of evil brothers could conceive.  And there is no defense of it!  But Joseph knew, and pointed out to them, in those later years, that God had overruled the evil for a good purpose of his own.

 

My purpose in reviewing that familiar old story this morning is to point out to you the same conclusion to which Joseph came.  God can, and does, bring good even out of the evil doings of men.

 

We take it for granted that His order can be built on the good deeds of sincere people.  And that seems right.  But the point of this story, and many other human experiences like it, is that God can overrule even our evil accomplishments, and bring good out of them.

 

If you should want to say, “but surely God will not overrule all deeds,” then I think you should at least ask yourself what kind of deeds did you yourself give him to overrule?  What kind of material do you offer him today?

 

The fact that great good came out of an evil deed done to Joseph did not make the brothers comfortable.  Their guilty consciences made them long apprehensive that Joseph would eventually throttle them when he had a chance.  A sin is still a sin unless we repent of it and ask cleansing of it at the only fount where it can be washed away.

 

But the point of this discourse is that God’s goodness can and does triumph, and that we have the way of sincere repentance open before us.  So there is hope for individual people like us and for whole nations of people who will repent and live in the light of God!

 

So cast aside your fears.   A lot of our fears are groundless, anyway.

 

Of course we can’t act as though there was no such thing as fear.  Everyone, even the bravest, has some fear.  Misgivings haunt our consciousness.  A child may be afraid of dogs, or of closed closet doors.  In later years we may live in a vague apprehension of death.

 

There is a certain virtue in our fear.  If we had no fear, we should show no courage.  Without the awareness of danger and the will to meet it, people would be as unfeeling and as unvirtuous as stumps.  The railroad sign, “Stop, look, listen,” is an appeal to a fear that is an asset.  We fear hunger, and that keeps us at work.  We fear fire and we check our houses against its hazards.  We fear infection, and school ourselves in habits of cleanliness.  A doctor may appeal to fear: “Do this and you will die.”  Books appeal to fear in such titles as “The Road to Serfdom.”  Within measures, fear may normally act as a deterrent and even as a guide.

 

But think of a man so afraid of hunger that he becomes a miser!  so afraid of infection that he goes crazy over it, and dies of nerves instead of by germs!  Such fears become blackmailers, as Leslie Weatherhead has said; the more a man yields to them the more he has to yield.

 

There are numerous techniques by which we can meet our fears.  First of all, face a fear without trying to evade it.  At least we need not feel the cowardice of the one who will not even look at, or acknowledge, his fears.

 

And then meet a fear with action.  In the fear of ill health, go to a doctor without delay.  In the fear of loneliness share that fact with some wise counselor or deliberately share some neighbor’s suffering - there is plenty to share!  In a vague, formless, unfounded fear, get a hobby, forget it in work. -- All of which you could probably have told me.  And maybe these suggestions seem only like plasters and pink pills.

 

Suppose that life still seems bent on defeating or torturing us.  Is there a heaven of good will that is meant to overcome earth’s troubles?

 

“Underneath are the everlasting arms.”  [Deuteronomy 3: 27].  Our fears are but the twisted prophetic evidences of such heaven.  Our very fear of pain and death shows that we were meant, by a divine will, for health.  Our fear of loneliness shows that we are not meant to be alone but were intended for friendship.  Our fear even of deserved punishment shows that we were meant for holiness.

 

Our great yearning for soundness, and joy, and eternal life is the bright, polished, other side of our fears.  “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”  [Psalm 42: 1].  We were meant to be the victors!

 

The real victory is not, after all, in what some psychologist or minister or doctor can say to us, but in some sign, given by God, that our deep yearnings are known and satisfied.

 

Friends are the signs of victory over loneliness.  Doctors are signs of victory over sickness.  But these signs are never enough by themselves.  We need some sign lifted above the earth, of which we are moved in love to say, “There is God speaking.”  There is such a sign.  When Jesus came to die - everyone but he was afraid.  Priests were afraid that if he lived their pride and place would be shaken.  Pilate was afraid Caesar would depose him if any disorder arose.  The soldiers were afraid.  The disciples were afraid and fled.  But he was not afraid.  He had prayed, until his renewed faith in God was strong.  Shrinking back from the cup of suffering, he nevertheless accepted it without reservation, putting his whole soul and existence into the trustful words, “Thy will be done.”  [Matthew 26: 39].

 

“There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casteth out fear.” 

[I John 4: 18].

 

There is an old motto over the mantel piece of an old English Inn, “Fear knocked at the door.  Faith answered.  None was there.”

 

The first words spoken of Jesus were: “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy.”  [Luke 2: 10].  Among the last words ascribed to Jesus are these:  “Fear not, I am the first and the last.  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive forevermore; and have the keys of death and hell.”  [Revelation 1: 17-18].

 

Fix your eyes on Jesus the Christ, the “Great Sign.”  Pray to the Father regularly, faithfully.  Remember that he can alter your situation, and the world’s, in a moment if he loose his power.  And with Him, you shall be victor!

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, November 25, 1945.