Chapter 6: The Steps Of The Throne
CHAPTER 6: THE STEPS OF THE THRONE
(Genesis 41)
"The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not obtained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Standing on what too long we bore.
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern--unseen before---
A path to higher destinies!"
LONGFELLOW.
THE FACTS OF Joseph's exaltation from the prison-cell in which we left him, to the steps of pharaoh's throne, are so well known that we need not describe them in detail. We will dwell briefly on the more salient points.
I. HOPE DEFERRED.
"Remember me when it shall be well with thee." It was a modest and pathetic prayer that Joseph made to the great officer of state, to whose dream he had given so favourable an interpretation. Some, however, have said he had no right to make it. They have said that he had no right to ask this man to plead with Pharaoh, when he himself had access to the King of kings, and could at all times plead his case at His court. The Moslem thought embodies itself in a characteristic legend. It says that God had changed his cell into a pleasant and cheerful place by causing a fountain to spring up in the midst, and a tree to grow at the door with shadowing branches and luscious fruit: but that, when he made this request to the chief butler, the fountain fell down and the tree withered; and this because, instead of trusting in God, he had relied on the help of a feeble man.
Well, there may be some truth at the foundation of all this; and yet it ill becomes us to bear hardly on the captive in the hour of his soul's deepest anguish. The strongest faith has wavered at times. Elijah sank down on the desert sand, and asked that he might die. John the Baptist, daunted and despondent, sent from his gloomy cell in Herod's castle to know if Jesus were indeed the Christ. Savonarola, Luther, Edward Irving, passed through darkness so thick that it almost put out the torch of their heroic faith; and if at this moment Joseph eagerly snatched at human help, as being nearer and more real than the help of God, who of us can condemn him? who of us can help sympathizing with him? who of us would not have behaved in like manner? Many a time when we have professed that our soul waited only upon God, we have either eagerly hinted at or openly shown our needs to those whom we thought likely to assist.
This cry, "Remember me," reminds us of the prayer of the dying thief to our Lord, as he was entering into the thick darkness. But how different the reply! The promise was quickly made and swiftly kept. And as the sun was setting over the western hills, the believing penitent had entered the city which is never bathed in sunset glory, and had learnt what it is to be in Paradise with Christ. Far otherwise it was with Joseph.
The great man no doubt readily acceded to his request, and promised all he asked. "Remember you," he said; "of course I will." And, doubtless, in the fulness of his heart, he resolved to give Joseph a place among the under-butlers, or perhaps in the vineries. And as he passed out, we can imagine him saying, "Good-bye: you will hear from me soon." But he "forgat." Oh, that word "forgat'! How many of us know what it means! Day after day, as Joseph went about his duties, he expected to receive some token of his friend's remembrance and intercession. Week after week he watched for the message of deliverance, and often started because of some sudden knock which made him think that the warrant for his release had come. Then he invented ingenious excuses for the delay. No doubt the butler had had to receive the congratulations of his friends; arrears of business had perhaps accumulated in his absence, and now engrossed his attention; many things had probably gone wrong which required time and pains to set right; or perhaps he was waiting for a good opportunity to urge the claims of his prison friend on the king. How many hours of anxious thought were spent thus, hoping against hope, combating a sickly fear, which he hardly dared to entertain! But at last it was useless to hide from himself the unpalatable troth, which slowly forced itself upon his mind, that he was forgotten.
Hope deferred must have made his heart sick. But he kept steadfast. If he was disappointed in man, he clung the more tenaciously to God. "My soul," said he, in effect, "wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation." Nor did he trust in vain; for, by a chain of wonderful providences, God brought him out of prison, and did better for him than could have been done by the chief butler of Pharaoh's court.
It may be that some who read these lines are in perplexity or distress which may be compared to that of Joseph when in the dungeon. And they have again and again schemed to effect their own deliverance. They helped a friend to emigrate, on the understanding that, if he got on well, he should send money to help them over too. They have applied to people who were befriended by them when they lived in the same poor street, but who have subsequently risen greatly in the world. They have got certain manufacturers and men of influence to make a note of their name and address in their pocket-book. But nothing has come of it all. They were at first very hopeful. They thought each post would bring the expected letter. There was a woman in America who went every morning for ten years to the village post-master to ask for a letter from her son, which he promised to send, but which had never come. But the embers have grown colder and colder still. Hope has flickered out. It is sad enough to be disappointed; but the sting of disappointment is when we are forgotten.
II. THREE BRIEF PIECES OF ADVICE TO THOSE IN SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES.
1. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils I we cannot live without human sympathy and friendship. We long for the touch of the human hand and the sound of the human voice. We eagerly catch at any encouragement which some frail man holds out, as a drowning man catches at twigs floating by on the stream. But men fail us; even the best prove to be less able or less willing than we thought: the stream turns out to be a very turbid one when we reach it, in spite of all reports of its sufficiency. "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord: for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited."
2. Turn from the failure and forgetfulness of man to the constancy and faithfulness of God! "He abideth faithful." He cannot promise and fail to perform. He says Himself: "Thou shalt not be forgotten by Me." A woman may forget her sucking child, and be unmindful of the son of her womb, "yet will I not forget thee." He may leave you long without succour. He may allow you to toil against a tempestuous sea until the fourth watch of the night. He may seem silent and austere, tarrying two days still in the same place, as if careless of the dying Lazarus. He may allow your prayers to accumulate like unopened letters on the table of an absent friend. But at last He will say, "O man, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt."
3. Wait for God! We are too feverish, too hasty, too impatient. It is a great mistake. Everything comes only to those who can wait. "They that wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth." You may have had what Joseph had when still a lad--a vision of power and usefulness and blessedness. But you cannot realize it in fact. All your plans miscarry. Every door seems shut. The years are passing over you with the depressing sense that you have not wrought any deliverance in the earth. Now turn your hear to God; accept his will; tell Him that you leave to Him the realization of your dream. "Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it." He may keep you waiting a little longer; but you shall find Him verify the words of one who knew by experience his trustworthiness: "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them, because they trust in Him."
III. THE LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
First, the wife of Potiphar makes a baseless charge, which leads to Joseph's imprisonment; then, the young prisoner ingratiates himself with the keeper of the prison, and is allowed to have free access to the prisoners; then it happens at the very time that two state officials are thrown into gaol on suspicion of attempting to poison their royal master; then the verification of Joseph's interpretation of their dreams shows that he is possessed of no common power; then that department of memory in which Joseph's face and case are hidden becomes sealed, lest anything premature should be attempted on his behalf; then, after two full years, the king of Egypt dreams. To the casual observer there might seem a great deal of chance in all this; but the historian, directed by the Holy Spirit, lifts the veil, and shows that God was working out, step by step, His own infinite plans.
The dream was twice repeated, so similarly as to make it evident to the dullest mind that something was intended of unusual importance. The scene in each case was the river bank; first the green margin of grass, next the rich alluvial soil. To say the least, it was a bad omen to see the lean kine devour the fat, and the withered ears devour the full: nor can we wonder that the monarch of a people who attached special importance to omens and portents should send in hot haste for the army of priests who were always in close attendance upon him; and who on this occasion were reinforced by all the wise men, adepts in this branch of science. But there was none that could interpret the dream of Pharaoh. "God made foolish the wisdom of this world."
Then, amid the panic of the palace, the butler suddenly remembered his prison experiences, and told the king of the young captive Hebrew. Pharaoh eagerly caught at the suggestion: he sent and called Joseph; and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon--the margin says, "they made him run." Still the king's impetuous speed was compelled to wait till he had shaved himself and changed his prison garb. Perfect cleanliness and propriety of dress were so important in the eyes of Egyptians that the most urgent matters were postponed until they were properly attended to. Alas, that men should be so careful of their appearance before one another, and so careless of their appearance before God! Many a man who would not think of entering a drawing-room if his linen were not snowy white is quite content to carry within his breast a heart as black as ink.
It is beautiful to notice Joseph's reverent references to God in his first interview with Pharaoh. "It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." "God hath showed Pharaoh what He is about to do." "The thing is established by God; and God will shortly bring it to pass." The hypocrite is quick enough to interlard his conversation with the name of God: no doubt this is owing to his belief that a true child of God will often do so; and there is some truth in the belief. When the heart is full of God, the tongue will be almost obliged to speak of Him; and all such references will be easy and natural as flowers in May. Oh that our inner life were more full of the power and love and presence of Jesus! If our hearts were inditing a good matter they would boil over, and we should speak more frequently of the things that touch our King. Joseph was not ashamed to speak of his God amid the throng of idolaters in the court of Egypt: let us not flinch from bearing our humble witness in the teeth of violent opposition and supercilious scorn.
This position of recognizing Jehovah being assumed and granted, there was no difficulty in interpreting the consumption of the seven good kine by the seven lean kine, and of the seven full ears by the seven empty ears, blasted by the east wind; or of indicating that the seven years of great plenty should be followed by seven years of famine, so sore that all the plenty should be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and that plenty should consume the land.
Now that the interpretation is before us, it seems wonderful, not that Joseph gave it, but that the wise men of Pharaoh's court failed to discover it. But perhaps God ordered it that the diviners should be rendered stupid and "mad," so that an opportunity should be made for the advancement, to which, from his childhood, Joseph had been destined. In this, as so often befals, there was an illustration of the Divine words, "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
Then, in the presence of the thronged and breathless court, surrounded by the evil eyes of the magicians, who could ill afford to surrender their prestige and place, or the rich emoluments of their office, the young Hebrew interpreted the royal dream. That dream was framed in a thoroughly Egyptian setting, and was connected with the Nile, whose waters were regarded by the natives with an enthusiastic regard, whether for their peculiarly luscious, refreshing, and nutritive qualities, or for the annual inundation which bore far afield the rich, fertilizing soil. Indeed, for these and similar considerations the river was the object of idolatrous worship. The buffalo, a species of ox, well-known anciently in Egypt, delights to stand in the water in hot countries, remaining for hours in that cooling bath, with all the body, except the head, immersed. The sight of horned cattle coming up out of a river would, therefore, not be a rare occurrence; and Joseph had no difficulty in carrying his audience with him, when he said that these seven kine--as also the seven ears of corn on one stalk, after the nature of that species of bearded wheat still known as Egyptian wheat--were emblems of seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt.
But perhaps the thing which gave Joseph most influence in that court was not his interpretation, but the wise and statesmanlike policy on which he insisted. As he detailed his successive recommendations: the appointment of a man discreet and wise with this exclusive business as his life-work; of the creation of a new department of public business for the purpose of gathering up the resources of Egypt in anticipation of the coming need; of the vast system of storage in the cities of the land--it was evident that he was speaking beneath the glow of a spirit not his own; and with a power which commanded the instant assent of the monarch and his chief advisers. "The thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such an one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" Oh that we might carry with us, even into business relationships, the evident stamp of the Spirit of God! It were worth languishing, even in a dungeon, if only we might have time to seek it. But it is to be had on easier terms: "Ask and have; seek and find; open your heart and receive."
There is an interesting illustration given to us here of the words, "Them that honour Me, I will honour." When Joseph had interpreted the dream and given his advice--little thinking as he did so that he was sketching his own future--Pharaoh said unto his servants, "Can we find such an one as this is, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?" Then he turned to Joseph and said, "Forasmuch as God hath showed thee this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. See, I have set thee over the whole land of Egypt."
It was a wonderful ascent, sheer in a single bound from the dungeon to the steps of the throne. His father had rebuked him; now Pharaoh, the greatest monarch of his time, welcomes him. His brethren despised him; now the proudest priesthood of the world opens its ranks to receive him by marriage into their midst, considering it wiser to conciliate a man who was from that moment to be the greatest force in Egyptian politics and life. The hands that were hard with the toils of a slave are adorned with a signet ring. The feet are no longer tormented by fetters; a chain of gold is linked around his neck. The coat of many colours tom from him by violence and defiled by blood, and the garment left in the hand of the adulteress, are exchanged for vestures of fine linen drawn from the royal wardrobe He was once trampled upon as the offscouring of all things; now all Egypt is commanded to bow before him, as he rides forth in the second chariot, prime minister of Egypt, and second only to the king. What a comment is this on that rapturous outburst, on the model of which the Virgin Mother composed her happy ode!
"The Lord killeth, and maketh alive;
He bringeth down to the grave,
And bringeth up.
The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich;
He bringeth low, and lifteth up.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,
And lifteth up the beggar
From the dunghill,
To set them among princes,
And to make them inherit
The throne of glory."
All this happened because one day, for the sake of God, Joseph resisted a temptation to one act of sin. If he had yielded, we should probably never have heard of him again; he would have been slain by the siren who has slain so many more strong men, and would have gone down to the dark chambers of death. No happy marriage, no wife, no child, would have fallen to his lot. No honour or usefulness, or vision of the dear faces of his kin, would ever have enriched his life with their abundant blessing. What a good thing it was that he did not yield!
Let us stand firm; let us seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; let us deny ourselves immediate pleasure for the sake of the far-off harvest of content; let us honour God by obedience to his least command; let us dare to say, No; let us be willing to decrease. And then the tide will turn: God will not be unfaithful to forget; He will turn again and have mercy upon us, and will exalt us to inherit the earth.
And when that day comes, let us ascribe all to God. I admire the names which Joseph gave to his sons. They show the temper of his heart when in the zenith of his prosperity. Manasseh means "forgetting" -- God had made him forget his toils. Ephraim means "fruitfulness "--God had caused him to be fruitful. Be true! you shall forget your sorrow and long waiting; you shall be fruitful. Then be sure and give God the praise.
IV. THE PARALLEL BETWEEN JOSEPH AND THE LORD JESUS.
It is surely more than a coincidence. "Coming events cast their shadows before." The Holy Spirit, enamoured with the mystery of love which was coming, anticipated its most striking features in the life of Joseph. Joseph was rejected by his brethren; Jesus by the Jews, his brethren according to the flesh. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites; Jesus was sold by the treachery of Judas for thirty pieces, and then handed over to the Gentiles. Joseph was cast into prison: Jesus abode in the grave. Joseph in prison was able to preach the gospel of deliverance to the butler; Jesus went and preached the gospel to the spirits in the prison. The two malefactors of the cross find their counterpart in Joseph's two fellow-prisoners. Joseph, though a Jew by birth and rejected by his own brethren, nevertheless was raised to supreme power in a Gentile state, and saved myriads of them from death; Jesus, of Jewish birth and yet disowned by Jews, has nevertheless been exalted to the supreme seat of power, and is now enthroned in the hearts of myriads of Gentiles, to whom He has brought salvation from death, and spiritual bread for their hunger. The very name that Pharaoh gave to Joseph meant "Saviour of the world "--our Saviour's title. Yes, and we must carry the parallel still farther. After Joseph had been for some time ruling and blessing Egypt, his very brethren came to him for forgiveness and help; so in days not far away we shall see the Jews retracing their steps and exclaiming--as thousands are now doing in Eastern Russia--" Jesus is our Brother." So all Israel shall be saved!
We have now, therefore, to think of Jesus as seated on his throne, Prime Minister of the universe, the Interpreter of his Father's will, the Organ and Executor of the Divine decrees. On his head are many crowns; on his finger is the ring of sovereignty; on his loins the girdle of power. Glistering robes of light envelop Him. And this is the cry which precedes Him, "Bow the kneel" Have you ever bowed the knee at his feet? It is of no avail to oppose Him. The tongue of malice and envy may traduce Him, and refuse to let Him reign. But nothing can upset the Father's decree and plan. "Yet have I set my Son upon my holy hill." "In his name every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord." Agree with Him quickly. Ground your arms at his feet. "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry."
V. THE WORLD'S NEED FOR CHRIST.
You remember Pharaoh's dream. Seven buffaloes, which had escaped from the torturing heat into the comparative coolness of the water, came up on to the banks and began feeding on the sedge. Shortly after, seven lean kine came up, and, finding nothing left for them to eat, by one of those strange transformations common to dreams, swallowed up their predecessors. So the seven shrivelled ears devoured those which were rank and good. This is a symbol of a fact that is always happening, and is happening now.
Our rulers, like Pharaoh, are having troublesome visions lust now. In Europe and in England weak things are destroying the strong; hungry creatures are devouring the flourishing and the fat; the sterile is swallowing up the fruitful: and there is no visible improvement. Those who know how much we spend each year for drink and for our army; for extravagance and show--will understand what I mean. Oh, it is grievous to see how much is being squandered to no purpose on all these things, when our toiling masses are sinking deeper and deeper into misery and need! And where is the cure? It seems beyond our reach. Our wisdom, with its parliaments, its learned articles, its congresses, seems at its wits' end and non-plussed. At this very hour, for want of something better, millions of men are under arms to keep the hungry and weak from further devouring the flourishing and fat. For God Himself is bringing Egypt to despair, that it may learn the need of that Jesus who--like Joseph once--is now hidden from its view. Then these Bibles shall be searched for guidance, and places of Christian worship shall be crowded; and the Rejected One shall reign, and his bride shall be given Him. Then shall earth rejoice; for He cometh to rule in equity, and his reign is goodwill to men!
It may be that seven years of famine have been passing over you, devouring all that you had accumulated in happy bygone times, and leaving you bare. Do you not guess the reason? There is a rejected Saviour transferred to some obscure dungeon in your heart. There never can be prosperity or peace so long as He is there. Seek Him forthwith. Cause thyself forgive years of shameful throne. Give the reins of shall restore to thee the eaten to run to Him. Ask Him to neglect. Reinstate Him on the power into his hand. And He years that the cankerworm has eaten.