Connect with Skip - Skip Heitzig

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Connect with Skip Heizig. We're glad you've tuned
in for today's program. Connect with Skip Heizig wants to
connect to you to God's never changing truth through verse
by verse teaching of his word. And that's why we
make messages like this one today available to you and
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(00:22):
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That's Connect with Skip dot com. Now let's get into
today's teaching from pastor Skip Heitzig.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Joseph has grown up. Joseph is wealthy. Joseph works for Egypt.
He's got a two camel garage. He's got a wife,
he has two children. Verse four. Jacob did not send
Joseph's brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, lest

(01:04):
some calamity befall him. Now again we are we're getting
some insight into the family dynamics, the family of Jacob.
Just remember back, it was Joseph that was the favored kid.
He got the special attention, he got the special code,

(01:25):
he got the supervisor's position. He didn't have to work,
He just had to spy on his brothers, creating this
hostility and division within the family. Now there's favorite boy
number two. Why is he the favorite boy because he's
Joseph's brother, the second son of Rachel. There's only two

(01:46):
boys born of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph's gone, Benjamin
is left. The only living link to that favored wife
of his is now Benjamin because Joseph's gone. Remember Jacob
had four wives. He had layout I was the first one.

(02:07):
He didn't want her, but he got her. You remember
through Laban he got zilpop bill Ha handmaids that became
his wife and bore children. But the girl he fell
in love with love at first sight, was Rachel. He
loved her and he worked so hard for her. The
Bible says those seven years and then seven more years

(02:29):
were but a day because of the love that he
had for her. Just was like, whatever, I love her
so much. I don't care how much I have to work.
She's gone. The only living link left is Benjamin, so
he gets favored child status. Boys go down to Egypt,
but not Benjamin. I believe this is a mistake. You see,

(02:55):
when Joseph was around, Joseph was the favorite child. But
Dad let him run around, right like, go find your brothers.
They're pasturing some fifty miles from here. Just go and
say hi to him and bring him some food. See
how they're doing. He let his son go out and
have freedom. He's keeping this kid at home, not even
letting him travel to Egypt lest something happen to him.

(03:20):
Here's the mistake, and it happens when something happens in
a family, like an accident or a death of a child.
With the children that are left, the parent in wanting
to protect, will overprotect, will completely box in because they
want to protect. All that they have left is bound

(03:41):
up in that one child. And I believe it's a mistake.
He's smothering his son. Verse five, and the sons of
Israel went to buy grain. Among those who journeyed for
the famine was in the land of Canaan. Okay, I
want to give you just a little bit of a
topography lesson if you don't mind, and geography lesson. If

(04:05):
there was famine in Egypt, there was severe famine and Canaan,
now I want to explain that. And if you have
a map in the back of your Bible, you can
look at the Fertile Crescent. You can follow Israel down
as it curves, and the sea line curves toward the
left and you enter into the Nile Delta. You see,

(04:26):
the Nile Delta had a consistent yearly flooding that took place.
It would swell and the waters would predictably run its banks.
They would take that water and they would funnel it
out into rivulets around the area and grow their grain.
It was known as the bread basket of the world.
It happened every year. Well, apparently, since the Nile begins

(04:50):
inland in Africa, there must not have been enough rains
to cause that swelling to take place like it normally did. Well,
if there's no rain in that region, then Canaan or
the land of Israel is even worse because there is
no major river that everybody drinks out of. There's the

(05:12):
Jordan River, but I mean it's it's like in many
places a quarter the size of the Rio Grande. First
time I saw the Jordan River, my tour guide said,
now don't blink, we're going over the bridge. Keep your
eyes fixed. And we went over this little stream, and
he said, that was the mighty Jordan River. I thought,

(05:34):
you've got to be kidding. Why do you call it
a river, It's a stream. Israel, the land that God
would bring the children of Israel into from Egypt, God said,
is different than the land of Egypt. Keep all these
thoughts going, don't don't, don't lose me here. Turn with

(05:56):
me to Deuteronomy chapter eleven for just a moment. It'll
come together. Deuteronomy chapter eleven, Versus ten and eleven. Just
two verses Deuteronomy chapter eleven, beginning in verse ten. For
the land which you go in to possess is not
like the land of Egypt from which you have come,

(06:20):
where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot
as a vegetable garden. Now you're going watered it by foot? No,
it must be a typo and watered it by hand. No,
watered it by foot. They had these machines back then,
like pedal bicycles that would would pump the water into
these little streams to divert it, and then pumping the water,

(06:43):
it would go into their fields and flood their fields,
and so they would use foot pumps. You used the
annual swelling of the Nile River to grow your crops
when you were in Egypt as a vegetable garden. But
the land which you cross over to is a land
of hills and valleys, not a delta hills and valleys

(07:04):
which drinks in water from the rain of heaven. See
the difference. In Egypt, the water source was denial. In Canaan,
the land of Israel, the only real water source is
going to be rain collected from heaven. So no rain,
no life, no rain, no food. It's good to remember

(07:27):
that as we're going through it. It makes more sense,
and it will even help when we get to passages
like Deuteronomy twenty eight and twenty nine, where God says
to the children of Israel, when I bring you into
the land of Canaan, if you love me, if you
honor me, if you obey me, the blessing that I
will give you is rain from heaven. If you don't,

(07:47):
I will withhold the rain so that you won't have food.
They were totally contingent, absolutely dependent upon God. Well, if
there's famine in the land of Egypt, then you got
to know where Jacob and his kids are. There's this
severe famine. If there's no rain, there there's no water.

(08:08):
So you've just got a picture. Now, caravans over the
Sinai Desert and over the Siuez Desert on their way
to Egypt, and among them are the sons of Jacob
verse six. Now Joseph was governor of the land, and
it was he who sold to all the people of
the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down before

(08:31):
him with their faces to the earth. What was going
through Joseph's mind when those brothers were bowing down to him?
A dream, A dream twenty one years earlier. This looks familiar.
It's what I saw in my dream, those sheaves all
bowing down. But that was followed up by a second dream.

(08:53):
That's why he knew this wasn't the fulfillment really of it,
because the second dream showed the sun, moon and the
eleven stars, not ten eleven stars, So he knew one's
missing and another his dad has to be there. Also.
His younger brother, Benjamin has to also appear, because the

(09:15):
dream had eleven stars, there were only ten, but that
dream flashed in his mind as they start bowing to
the earth. We're getting into some of the best chapters
in the Bible, and let me give you a theme.
One of the themes you're going to find in this
and the next several chapters. As Joseph and his brother's

(09:37):
meet once again, it's the theme of forgiveness. You know.
Forgiveness is what separates the men from the boys in relationships.
When you can look eye to eye at somebody who
has hurt you like this and truly love them, and
truly forgive them, and not act all put off and

(09:59):
all alone and all like mad and stuff, you've passed
a great test, you see. It's easy to love people
who love you. I like that guy, he always says,
I'm cool. Anybody, any heathen, can do that. The worst

(10:19):
person can do that. Anybody who gets a path of
encouragement will respond. But what do you do when someone
opposes you, oppresses you, or does you wrong. That's why
Jesus said. You've heard that. It was said you shall
love your friends and hate your enemies, I say, and

(10:40):
you love your enemies do good to those who hurt you,
Pray for those who spightfully use you, bless those who
curse you. That separates the minor leagues from the big leagues.
You're going to see that here. Joseph won't hold anything back. Now,
it might seem at first that he is, but you'll
see that when he acts gruff toward them. This is

(11:02):
simply a test. This is a test. It is merely
a test. He's reeling them in to see if they'll
pass a series of tests. There'll be three meetings that
will show those tests. Verse seven. Joseph saw his brothers
and recognized them, but he acted as a stranger to
them and spoke roughly to them. Then he said to them,

(11:26):
where do you come from? And they said, from the
land of Canaan to buy food. So Joseph recognized his brothers,
but they did not recognize him. They couldn't have recognized Joseph.
I mean, they might have looked at the face and said,
those features seem familiar, But it had been twenty one years.

(11:49):
He was just a teenager when that happened. They wouldn't
have changed quite as much as he would have changed
from seventeen years or twenty one years previous to him
being seven ten years of age, what would that make him?
Thirty eight? Number two was an he's an Egyptian. Now

(12:10):
he's wearing Egyptian robes. His head is completely shaven, his
face is shaven. And because his nobility, he would have
worn a goateee, a fake go tee. Egyptian men were
given these goates They made them out of horse hair,
and they'd lacquered them and made them stiff, and they
came down and they would fix them to their chins.

(12:30):
They just thought that was super cool. I had dig
your goatee, man, where'd you get it? It's like it
better than mind. Mean, they were all into this. That
was their fashion. So because he's made up like this,
he speaks Egyptian, he knows it fluently. He knows the
culture and the custom. They wouldn't have recognize them in

(12:53):
his robes, in his get up with his language.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
You're listening to connect with skip Heitzig. Before we returned
to the message, consider this, Abraham's life was full of
ups and downs, but God was in every moment. In
God Print The Life of Abraham, Pastor skip unpacks seven
engaging messages from the Book of Genesis to show how
God shapes the hearts of those who trust Him through

(13:17):
trials and triumphs. Abraham learned what real faith looks like,
and this powerful seven message series will encourage you that
you can too. This resource is our thanks for your
gift of fifty dollars or more to help reach more
people with God's word through Connect with skip heidzig. So
request your CD package and digital download of Godprint when

(13:38):
you give at connectwiskip dot com slash offer or when
you call eight hundred nine two to two, eighteen eighty eight.
Now let's rejoin today's teaching.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
And he says, Notice he spoke roughly to them. Okay,
now go back, go back in time and think how
roughly they treated him twenty one years prior. Now he's
roughing them up, not physically, just verbally. He's just acting tough,

(14:10):
and he's not doing it for any retribution's sake. It's
a test. Let's see how they react to this test.
I'm going to talk to them abruptly. Have they changed
these brothers of mine? Is there any remorse at all
in their heart for what they've done? Well? What about Benjamin?

(14:30):
Is he even still alive? Did they treat him like
they have treated me. He doesn't know the answer to
those questions, so he's testing them just to see where
they're at. First nine, Then Joseph remembered the dreams which
she had dreamed about them, and he said to them,
your spies, you've come to see the nakedness of the land. Okay,

(14:54):
So he acts suspicious. There's something you got to know.
It was protocol to act suspicious. It's protocol to act
suspicious because when there's a famine in the world and
you're like the only game in town holding grain, you
have to be worried about your borders that are vulnerable,
that are porous, and the land of Canaan was the

(15:14):
most porous border at the time. They're wondering are people
trying to sneak over here? Am I going to feed
their armies? And are they going to come and take
over the land of Egypt. So it was protocol to
act suspicious. What's interesting is if you ever travel anywhere
in the Middle East today, they still act suspicious. It's

(15:35):
hard to get into Israel. Try to board an l
Al flight for Tel Aviv, you'll be interrogated. In America
thirty minutes to an hour, sometimes not like our little
you know, checking your boarding pass and they will why
are you here? Who are you with? Who's your father?

(15:55):
They start asking a number of questions. And if I say, oh,
I've to Israel thirty two times red flag, why why
are you going back? You say with the group? Point
out the group to me. How many are in there?
Do you know them personally? How long have you known them?
It's because of the security issue. It's always been a

(16:18):
volatile place. Here's another little story. I was trying to
get into Jordan one time when they were not having
friendly relations with Israel. Just it borders just across the
Jordan River, is Jordan from Israel. I am flying into
a mon Jordan. I'm flying in with Franklin Grant and
Dennis Sagajanian, the world's tallest cowboy. As I go into

(16:43):
a mon Jordan, I didn't have the presence of mind.
I had a single passport at the time instead of
two like a carry Now I had won and it
had Israel stamped seventeen times in it. So I go
to the passport control. They look at my passport, they
flip the pages. They look at me. They flipped the pages.
They closed the passport, handed to me and said, you

(17:04):
will take the next plane out of the country. You're
not allowed in our country. Why you've traveled to Israel.
That's it. So I thought, I'm toast and Franklin tries
to vouch for me, and this doesn't matter. I don't
care who you are. Finally get this, Dennis aka Janian
steps up like a cowboy in Jordan in an Islamic country,

(17:28):
pulls out his San Clemente chaplain's badge that's all just
a little child, has a big cross on it, and
he goes, I'm a law enforcement officer, sir, I'll take
this man into custody. And I'm going, oh great, this
is that's so stupid. I'm going that's so lame. I'm

(17:49):
rolling my eyes. The guy looks at Dennis, looks at
the badge, looks at Dennis, looks at the badge and goes, okay,
you come, I kid, you not I got in the
country because of my point is they're very suspicious. So
he accuses them, you've come to see the nakedness of

(18:11):
the land. He's testing their hearts, finding out what they're
what they what about their past and what they've been
up to. Are they trustworthy? And of course he would
act this way. You see, people who sell brothers into
slavery usually aren't trustworthy. I don't know, it's just something.

(18:31):
So he's very suspicious, and rightfully so. So he retains
that power over them until the right moment Verse ten.
And they said to him, no, my lord, but your
servants have come to buy food. We are all one
man's sons. We are honest men. Your servants are not spies.

(18:53):
Now Joseph has to be like choking inside, laughing inside.
We are honest men. It's so hard to put on
this act for him. But he said to them, no,
but you have come to see the nakedness of the land.
They said, your servants are twelve brothers, the son of
one man in the land of Canaan, and in fact

(19:17):
the youngest is with our father today and one is
no more. Who would that be, Yeah, that would be Joseph.
They have no idea who they're talking to. He that
speaketh to thee m he right as Jesus said to

(19:38):
the woman in Samaria. But Joseph said to them, it
is as I spoke to you, saying you are spies
in this manner, you shall be tested by the life
of Pharaoh. You shall not leave this place unless your
youngest brother comes here. Again, he acts gruff roughly, he's

(20:03):
opening a wound on purpose. He's opening the wound of
the past to see what kind of conscience they have
to awaken their conscience to what they have done. Listen,
his brothers were scoundrels. Just just go back, just remember
it was the brothers of Joseph, the sons of Jacob,

(20:25):
who killed slaughtered all the Shechemites. Remember that story. It
was Judah, one of the brothers, who went looking for
a prostitute and slept with his daughter in law. These
are scoundrels. So he's treating them as scoundrels. Now, notice

(20:46):
it says by the life of Pharaoh. This is an
oath he's taking in Pharaoh's name. Why would he do that, Well,
it would once again mask his identity to them. Further,
what if you were to say, I swear by your God,
the only true in living God, they were to go
your Egyptian. So he's taking a very common oath by

(21:08):
the name of Pharaoh, by the life of Pharaoh. Verse sixteen,
Send one of you and bring your brother, and you
shall be kept in prison that your words may be
tested to see whether there is any truth in you
or else by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.
So we put them all together in prison for three days.

(21:30):
Now the word prison literally means custody. They didn't necessarily
have to be behind bars. They were just kept sequestered alone,
no freedom for three days. A lot of time to think,
a lot of time to process. All the while, Joseph
must have been thinking, I wonder how they're going to
take this. I wonder what they're gonna come up with.
I wonder what they're going to say in the midst

(21:52):
of this test. It's absolutely fascinating. Then Joseph said to
them the third day, do this and live for I
fear God. Okay, that's a red light that should have
been he's dropping a hint. Now, I fear God. It
seems to just go right over their heads. If you

(22:12):
are honest man, let one of your brothers be confined
to your prison house, but you go carry grain for
the famine of your houses and bring your youngest brother
to me. I'm sure he couldn't wait to see Benjamin,
his flash brother, his blood brother, so your words will
be verified and you shall not die. And they and

(22:36):
they did so. Then they said to one another, They
said to one another, now listen, they're gonna have a
little conversations like they rally. They get together and they talk.
They're talking out loud, not knowing Joseph understands Hebrew, even
though he's speaking to them. You all see it. They're
speaking in Egyptian with an interpreter. But now they're just
sort of processing this in Hebrew, not knowing Joseph heres

(22:58):
and understands every word. There's so they said to one another,
we are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw
the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us,
and we would not hear. Therefore, this distress has come
upon us. They're referring back twenty one years prior to
what happened with Joseph. And Reuben answered them saying, did

(23:21):
I not speak to you sing do not sin against
the boy? And you would not listen? Therefore, behold his
blood is now required of us. Starting to work, they're
processing their treatment of Joseph. They're going, oh, man, twenty
plus years ago, do you remember that God's getting us

(23:44):
back for that. They're distressed over it. Now you see
the repetition of the word we and us. It's emphatic.
I read in the Hebrew. It's emphatic we and we alone.
It's like we're getting busted by God. He's singling us
out here. It's an admission of their guilt. Now I
say it's working, because to admit your guilt is always

(24:09):
the first step. You'd be surprised how long a person
can go and not be able to say it's my
fault or I'm sorry, I'm the one. They just have
all well, you know, if she wouldn't have done that,
then of course what I said probably was improper. However,

(24:35):
there's always an excuse, but to admit you're wrong is
always the first step in healing and reconciliation and forgiveness.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
We're so glad you joined us for connect with Skip Heitzig.
Before we go, we want to remind you to request
this month's featured resource, God Print The Life of Abraham.
This seven message series from Pastor Skip terce's Abraham's walk
with God and invites you to discover how faith can
grow even through fear, doubt, and delight. It's our gift

(25:07):
to you when you support connect with skip Heitzig with
a donation of fifty dollars or more. Call eight hundred
nine two two eighteen eighty eight that's eight hundred ninety
two to two eighteen eighty eight or visit connectwiskip dot
com slash donate. Thanks for spending time with us today
and we'll see you next time. On Connect with skift Heidzig,

(25:28):
make it.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Connects, make Connects of the cross Chassong makes connect.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Connect with skift Heidzig is a presentation of connection communications
connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.