Bible Text: Genesis 44:1-34 | Preacher: Pastor Joe Ricchuiti | Series: Genesis, The Substitute

1.  “We imagine we would be all right if a big crisis arose; but the big crisis will only reveal the stuff we are made of, it will not put anything into us.  ‘If God gives the call, of course I will rise to the occasion.’  You will not unless you have risen to the occasion in the workshop, unless you have been the real thing before God there.  If you are not doing the thing that lies nearest, because God engineered it; when the crisis comes instead of being revealed as fit, you will be revealed as unfit.  Crises always reveal character.”  (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)  This is the lesson of Genesis 44: crises reveal character; and character is not formed in a minute.

2.  Joseph sets up a final test of his brothers’ character.  Have they changed?  Have they grown, especially in relationship with God?  Have their attitudes changed?  Do they have concern for Jacob and Benjamin even above their own concerns?

3.  All that they trusted in/counted on, was taken away; their word, their money, their integrity.

4.  The test is set up in such a way that to save their own skins they would have to betray Benjamin (as they had Joseph 20+ years earlier).

5.  Not only do they not betray Benjamin but Judah offers to take his place as a slave so that Benjamin might be releases and save Jacob from a grief that would kill him; a wonderful picture of the later descendant of Judah, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus Christ, who would offer Himself as a substitute for sinners on the cross of Calvary.