Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri
### Genesis 39

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Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Genesis 39.

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, brought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand.

So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had, he put under his authority. So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house, and all that he had that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph. And she said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife.

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So it was as she spoke to Joseph day by day that he did not heed her to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time when Joseph went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was inside that she caught him by his garment saying lie with me. But he left the garment in her hand and fled and ran outside.

And so it was when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought into us a Hebrew to mock us. He came into me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it happened when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out that he left his garment with me and fled and went outside.” So she kept his garment with her until her master his master came home.

Then she spoke to him with words like these, saying, “The Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came into me to mock me. So it happened as I lifted my voice and cried out that he left his garment with me and fled outside. So it was when his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him, saying, “Your servant did to me after this manner, that his anger was aroused.” Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

And he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever they did there, it was his doing. The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.

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Let’s pray. Father, we desire to believe and grow in our belief that you are with us. That we might prosper serving you and submitting to your providence and avoiding the seductive desires of the world. Help us, Lord God, now to understand your scriptures. May your spirit write these words upon our hearts deep into our being that we might be transformed and that the attributes of the greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ, might be pressed into us by the spirit that we may go forth from this place with faces that shine from his presence.

In Christ’s name we ask him. Amen.

Please be seated. The younger children may be dismissed to go to the nursery.

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Ready to serve but not ready to sin. This is Joseph.

This is a concluding narrative that we’ll be preaching in the book of Genesis as we’ve looked at a series of portions of that book looking primarily at the relationship of men and women, the marriage ordinance in Genesis 2 and 3, and then the results of the fall on male-female relationships. As we’ll see, Joseph concludes the story of Joseph that continues right up to the end of the book of Genesis. It concludes this series and makes Genesis into really a very self-contained book depicting the progress of history: the creation, fall, recreation in the coming Messiah, and then the salvation of the whole world, all the nations of the world being discipled by Joseph by the end of the book.

So it forms a complete narrative. This story of Joseph, adding at the end here stories of Judah and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham and before that the Sethites and Cain and Adam, really fully rounds out the narrative structure of the book of Genesis and gives us a very compact way of looking at male-female relationships and their relationship to dominion.

I want us, by way of application, to leave the sermon today wanting to be like Joseph, to be like the Lord Jesus Christ who came not to be served but to serve. I want us to be further along the road here in an hour or so in a willingness and a readiness to serve coupled with no readiness to sin.

I’ve given you a three-point outline again this week to make it easier to kind of remember these things.

Remember last week: three place names tells us the story of Judah in Genesis 38, another son of Jacob, kind of contrasted to Joseph but still brought to salvation. Remember he went down to a place whose name meant retreat, and the picture of the descent of Christians as they move away from the brotherhood of other Christians. He went down to the place of retreat.

While he was there, he had children by a Canaanite wife—improper marriage—and those children were summed up in his actions in the next place name where those children were born or at least identified with. That place name meant dry wadi or deception or a deceptive river. And Judah and his three sons were deceptions. Remember his first son was so wicked, somehow probably sexually, he was killed by the Lord. The second son fails to fulfill his obligation. Then Judah deceives Tamar. His third son won’t give her to him. So he moves from descent—going to descent—to moving to deception in that descent.

But then Tamar comes to him at twin wells, the place name where she comes to meet him dressed up. And as a result of those twin wells, God in his great mercy and providence and sovereignty turns that story—that is so uncomfortable for us—into a story of twin salvation for both Judah and Tamar, and also a picture of twin conception of the two children, and another picture of Jacob and Esau wrestling in the womb, and one comes forth as the younger supplants the older, and that younger one is in the line of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, here as well we’ve got three names—not place names now—but I’m relating all these things to Potiphar. We’ll look first at Joseph and Potiphar’s house. Then we’ll look at the center of chapter 39, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. And then 39 concludes itself with the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s prison.

So you could think of it as chiastic again—has a beginning and an end, sort of like the beginning, and in the middle is the pivot point of his rejection of the temptation of the seductress.

I don’t have this on your outline but you might want to write: besides Roman numerals 1, 2, and 3, Roman numeral one—the emphasis I think is service. Service for Roman numeral one. Roman numeral 2 is a story of seduction. Another seduction for Roman numeral number two. Roman numeral number three is surgery. God does deep surgery on Joseph.

Now, next to those three S’s, let me give you three more S’s to help you remember the basic application. Ready to serve but not ready to sin.

We’ll find in the service section of Joseph in Potiphar’s house, the application there is we should serve. Serve is the application in the section dealing with seduction and Potiphar with Potiphar’s wife. The application will be sanctification. Sanctify yourselves. Serve God. Sanctify or set apart yourselves in the second Roman numeral.

And the final one, where Joseph is in Potiphar’s prison and God is doing surgery on him, the application to us will be submit. Submit to God’s surgery.

So this is what we’re going to be talking about. And hopefully those three place names, those alliterated three S’s will help you to remember this and carry this forward into the rest of your life.

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Okay, let’s talk first then—we’ll do an overview of the text, then we’ll go back and kind of resume some major themes of the text. But first, the overview of the text.

First, Joseph in Potiphar’s house: first resurrection, service, and exultation, verses 1-6.

Okay, we read turning to the text: “Now, Joseph had been taken down to Egypt.” Remember, Judah voluntarily went down away from his brothers. Joseph is not voluntarily doing this, but he was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was thrown into a pit. Remember that? Thrown into a pit, brought up out of the pit, sold to the Ishmaelites. They come along and sell him to Potiphar.

Now, in both Isaiah 5:14 and Psalm 22:29, the pit is used as a description of death. So what we have—obviously the picture of Joseph being thrown into the pit and then being brought back out to serve in the master’s house—is a picture of death, resurrection. We are dead in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are united with him in his death and we’re united with him in his resurrection to serve in our master’s house.

So Joseph goes down to Egypt as another picture of this declension into the pit into Egypt.

Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian—let me just mention that, by the way. That “officer of Pharaoh” means a eunuch. Now, we don’t know if Potiphar was a eunuch. He had a wife. So apparently he wasn’t a eunuch. But that’s the kind of dedication to not giving way to one’s appetite sexually that is pictured right at the beginning of this story.

One of the themes we’ll see throughout this story is the control of appetite—the sexual appetite and others as well, the control of appetite. And Potiphar is that kind of guy who’s self-controlled. The eunuch, captain of the guard, chief slaughterer—is one of the ways that you could translate that “captain of the guard”—both in terms of preparation of food and overseeing that, but also destruction of enemies.

So he’s a picture of the greater Potiphar, the Lord Jesus Christ. Potiphar, I think, means “offspring of the sun,” and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who brings us to true commitment to God, controlling our appetites and being used in his service. But in any event, he’s an Egyptian and he bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.

And then verse two tells us that—well, let me just say there that in the context then of the first thing we hear about Joseph, he’s brought into servitude. He’s bought as a purchased servant by Potiphar. So Joseph’s initial status with men is one of death in the pit and then servitude in terms of being in servitude to an Egyptian. Repeats that: brought to Egypt, Potiphar, an Egyptian. So Joseph is a picture—his initial status with men is one of servitude and death.

But Joseph’s status with God is stressed for us here in Potiphar’s house because the text goes on to say: “the Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.”

Joseph’s status with God is defined in two ways. One, the Lord is with him. The Lord’s presence is with Joseph in the context of difficulties and troubles. Yet God is with Joseph. We’ll see this reiterated at the end of the text as well in Roman numeral 3, in the prison. God is with Joseph and he prospers him there. So this central story of the seduction with Potiphar his wife is bracketed by God being with Joseph here and God being with Joseph in prison.

One of the keys to avoiding temptation is having an ongoing understanding of the presence and abiding of God with us by means of his word and prayer. So Joseph is in that kind of relationship with God.

But secondly, Joseph is not just one whose God is with. It says that he is a successful man. Remember Abraham’s servant—Eliezer—at the well seeking a husband for Isaac. He was successful when God answered his prayers. He became a successful man. Eliezer was the same word that’s used here about Joseph. It doesn’t mean he was successful in terms of his position in Potiphar’s house. It means that what he did was successful because God was blessing him in his path. The same word is used of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53: “he is successful” in that his sufferings produce the justification of many. So Joseph is a picture of the successful, suffering servant whose prayers to God are answered and God prospers him in his way.

So his status with God is that God is with him and God is blessing him on the way.

Third, as a result of this, Joseph has an improving status with men. There’s a progression here of God’s using Joseph in Potiphar’s house. The first thing we read is: what was with Joseph? He was a successful man. Verse two: “and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.” Don’t gloss over that. He’s already been given a successful completion to part of his task. As Potiphar buys him, he buys him and then in the context of the way the text reads immediately places him as a house servant.

Now, in the ancient world and in big cultural areas today, there are field servants and there are house servants. And later on, the text tells us that Joseph is head not just to the house but the field. So Joseph isn’t going to be a field servant. He’s already improving in his status of servitude, slavery. He’s a slave in the house. And in the house is a better job than in the field. And that’s because God is prospering Joseph.

“And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand. So there’s a recognition of God’s blessing upon Joseph and as a result Joseph found favor in his sight and served him.”

Again, a small little word—”served him”—but what the term means is he became Potiphar’s right-hand guy. He became Potiphar’s servant in the sense of being his assistant. This is the same word that’s used about Joshua serving Moses. It’s the same word about Elisha serving Elijah—the servant being the right-hand guy, the one who is really at the right hand of power, the way the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of the father. So Potiphar’s personal assistant is what happens to Joseph. He pleases Potiphar as being a house servant and then gets a promotion to the idea of being the personal attendant or assistant to Potiphar in his house.

And then third, it even goes on from there: “he served him. Then he made him overseer of his house. And all that he had, he put under his authority. So it was from the time that he made him overseer of the house and all that he had that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate.”

So the third stage of promotion: first, he gets into the house servant. Second, he does so well and God is blessing him and Potiphar sees that his service is being blessed by God. He is serving Potiphar well and he gets promoted then to become his personal assistant. And then as personal assistant he’s given everything of Potiphar’s except for one thing—his wife. He’s given control or oversight over everything.

You see this progression of Joseph being the preeminent servant—the servant par excellence, the servant exemplar, the example, the model servant—gets promoted because of God’s presence with him prospering him, and then Potiphar seeing what’s going on and exalting him, and then finally he is given complete trust. Not only is he put in charge of everything, but Potiphar gets to forget about whatever it is that he’s put into Joseph’s hand.

He’s that faithful as a servant. He is that circumspect. He’s that controlled in his appetites that Potiphar can put everything in his hand and forget about it. All that he left in Joseph’s hand, he did not know what he had. Didn’t have an accounting from Joseph except for the bread which he ate.

“Now, Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.”

So Joseph is pictured here in Potiphar’s house as being the servant exemplar whose service is prospered by God. It’s founded upon the presence of God with him. That motivates him to be a great servant and his service in Potiphar’s house results in his promotion to becoming one who is given the great blessings of having no accounting even required from him.

Later on in the kingdom period of Israel in 2 Kings 12:15, there are those who are going to do the work of repairing the temple. And we read in verse 15: “moreover, they did not require an account from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be paid to work—men for they dealt faithfully.”

That kind of wonderful faithfulness on the part of Joseph, and later on the part of the men who take the money and do the work—how many of us would trust someone with all of our house? Okay. And not even require an accounting. We were so confident that this man is committed and faithful to his master. Do you see what this means?

And remember Potiphar is doing this with a Hebrew, a foreigner. You know, racism has been in place ever since the nations began, and you know, national pride and all that stuff. How many of us, you know, in an unregenerate state would be so impressed with a servant of a different race or culture—and the Hebrews were not looked upon highly by the Egyptians. They were looked down upon. How many of us would put that kind of fellow in charge of all that we had and require no accounting from him?

Why did Potiphar do that? Well, God is prospering him. There’s supernatural stuff going on. But the text wants us to tie that to him serving. That’s what’s talked about here. He’s a servant. Over and over again, the word is used. Over and over again, Joseph’s hand is pictured. Everything gets into his hand. He has power and authority from God because he’s put his hand to service.

Now, remember, this is a purchased slave, purchased off the slave market. See, but he doesn’t grumble or dispute about that. He doesn’t whine. He gets himself to work serving in the place where the providence of God has placed him. And he does it so well that this Egyptian puts everything into his hand with no accounting required. Amazing picture of service. You cannot, other than the Lord Jesus Christ, find a better example in the scriptures or in history of service than Joseph.

See how nicely this brings to a conclusion the whole Joseph narrative—the story of creation, fall, recreation in Christ, ultimately picturing all that in Joseph, the man who was the exemplar servant even while a slave, a purchased slave.

And then fourth here in Potiphar’s house: man’s improving quote unquote status with God. I wanted to just make a brief comment here. We read that the blessing of God was on all that he had in the house in the field: “the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.”

I think we have a picture of common grace there—so-called common grace. We have the blessings of God upon the Egyptian’s house, not seemingly converted at this point. And that is pictured as God’s common grace to mankind. But understand that the text tells us that the blessing on Potiphar’s house was not for Potiphar’s sake. It’s for the sake of Joseph. That’s what the text says. So that’s where I put the improvement of Potiphar. Yeah, he gets blessing, but really the blessing is on Joseph. The blessing of Potiphar’s house is for Joseph’s sake. It’s aimed at him. It’s aimed at being the vehicle by which he will ascend to rule all of Egypt and feed the entire world. That’s what he ends up doing by the end of Genesis. All the nations are in great famine. God breaks the staff of bread and God brings all the nations to Joseph, the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he might feed the world.

So the world is blessed for the sake of Joseph. So there really isn’t common grace as such. The grace is God’s saving grace to Joseph and the crumbs from the table fall on Potiphar’s house.

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Now before we leave this first section, remember what I said: the theme here is service in Potiphar’s house. The application is we should be servants. We should serve. Wherever God in his providence puts us, we’ll see in a minute that Joseph will have a much more difficult state to serve in—prison—harder time in prison than even this purchased slave that he was in Potiphar’s house. But Joseph is the picture to us of service, service, dominion. The exercise of dominion and increasing responsibility given to men is based in the providence of God and how well we serve other people.

Here at Reformation Covenant Church, you know, we maybe we’re in a bit of a transition here. We’ve got this building fund. We’re going to be talking Friday night about that, looking at a building on Wednesday. And it’s important for us to see what God is doing to us. I believe there are some reasons why we think it’s important not to purchase land and build. Difficulties with that. And God, the providence of God—we don’t know yet. The providence God, we may find ourselves in a neighborhood sometime in the next few years. Our church decloaking. We’re kind of like a cloaked church during the week, you know, aren’t we? We kind of come together and there’s no sign out front. They don’t even know we’re in here. We disappear and that’s it.

Well, we’re going to decloak here. We’re going to—there was an old movie, I can’t remember. I never can remember the name of that movie, but about a village that just came back to life every I don’t know 50 years or something. They had such great community. What’s it called? Brigadoon. There you go. Stage play and movie. And they had such great community and fellowship. They wanted to preserve it forever. So they came back for what a day or something every 50 years. That’s kind of like we are. We do stuff during the week. I know that. But there’s a sense in which we are not entered into the full service to the world or to the community that we would like to be.

And the beauty of trying to find a church in the context of neighborhood is it immediately puts us in the position of being in Potiphar’s house, so to speak—pagan neighborhood where we will be required to serve God with the kind of service that Joseph had, and our Lord Jesus Christ gives to us.

Now, we don’t wait for that. I’m not trying to say don’t serve until then. You know, you’re faithful in little or you’re not given much. Joseph is faithful in little and he’s given a lot more. And we want to be faithful in the in both the physical location God gives us on the Lord’s day and we want to be faithful in the small things of service we can do in an informal way throughout the week. Or we can’t expect God then to entrust us with more in the context of a physical location that has presence and service capabilities in a community.

So service is the application. We need to train our kids. Remember I said a couple weeks I prayed, one of the prayers praying through the Psalms. What a good thing that is to model our prayers after the Psalms. And the Psalms says that the righteous do good. So simple, but that’s what we’re supposed to do. Do good. Do good. I encourage my children now. Get up in the morning. Try to remember to tell them, “Do good today.” At the end of the day, think what God has done through you—doing good for somebody or something. Service is the picture of Joseph.

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Okay. Secondly though, the text goes on to the middle section, middle structure to talk about Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. The reversal of the third fall. Seduction is the theme here. The application is sanctification.

As one commentator said, Joseph suffered from one endowment too many. He was beautiful in terms of form and appearance. The only other place that phrase is used is his mother Rachel. Rachel had a you know, her body was nicely formed and her face was nicely appearing. And Joseph is the same thing. He’s kind of like a preeminent man in that way. But of course this draws the attention of Potiphar’s wife.

So first of all the harlot makes her entrance, and you know, I like I said, the idea of these texts is to look at male-female relationships. And as you know, we did have the picture of Tamar and prostitution in the last chapter. But here it seems like—and I mentioned this last week—we see a devolution of sexual relationships. You know, we had marriage, we had polygamy which was cycling down. We had prostitution. So now sex is taken out of the context of either legitimate marriage or multiple marriages and put into the context of commerce.

But now we have the full harlot appearing for what I think is the first time in the scriptures, and this will be a dominant theme throughout the scriptures. Israel will be seen as a harlot by God in various places in her life. Book of Revelation closes with judgment on the harlot. Well, here the harlot makes her appearance and it’s like the degradation of the sexual relationship. It goes down and even the women see the woman was a prostitute before—applying her craft for money. The man was taking use of the prostitutes because of their declension.

Judah using the services of Tamar—and Romans 1 says that declension, even the women mess up and have weird affections for one another. So it’s like if you can pervert women, the culture has really become perverted. And here you’ve got a picture of a harlot who has longing eyes, lustful eyes for Joseph. That’s what the text says. And she’s got a brazen mouth. Look at the text in verse 7:

“Came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph and she said, ‘Lie with me.’”

Brazen mouth. She’s that harlot of the first few chapters of the book of Proverbs that we’re warned over and over and over against.

And this is why if Joseph blows it here, things turn out a lot different. The way the cycle is completed—let me just mention that. We’ll talk about this a little bit more, but don’t look at your charts now. It’ll confuse you. But what I’m talking about: the third fall is that you know, Adam and Eve fell in the garden, and then Cain is tempted and he falls and kills his brother. And then do you remember what brings about the flood? The Sethites—the godly line—intermarry with the ungodly line. The sons of God look at the daughters of men and they make wives of him.

So you got Joseph here, a son of God, the daughter of men. He’s not looking at her. She’s looking at him and enticing him. And the text will tell us day by day she did this. You see? Well, the Sethites fell. The godly line fell and the flood came after that third fall of man: Adam and Eve, and Abel, the Sethites.

And Joseph is the picture of the reversal of the Sethite fall. Jacob was the reversal of the fall of Cain and Abel. He doesn’t wrestle with Esau militarily and try to kill him. He wrestles with God in prayer about the matter. And lo and behold, there’s no war between Jacob and Esau. He’s reversed the fall or a picture of the reversal of the fall of Cain and Abel, affected by the coming of Messiah.

Of course, Abraham was the reversal of the fall of Adam. Adam couldn’t wait for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of authority and rule. Adam impatiently stole from God authority and rule, trying to determine for himself good and evil. Abraham patiently waits. That’s the picture of patient, patient, patient waiting for God to give him reign and authority.

Jacob wrestles with Christ in prayer and as a result is reconciled to his brother. And Joseph is committed to God. He is sanctified. That’s the application of the central section: sanctification to God in the face of seduction.

And Joseph is the picture then completing the cycle of the three falls. He completes the third re-creation, the third resurrection from that fall of the Sethites. And now the temptation of the daughters of men is successfully resisted. Now the picture of that is broader than simply sexual relationships. It’s the world. It’s coveting the world. That’s what the tenth commandment is: covet your neighbor’s wife or anything else that is your neighbor’s. It’s a failure to control appetites that led the Sethites to their fall. And it is a control of appetites in service to God and sanctification to him that affects the full dominion of Joseph and, by way of application, it will affect the dominion of the Christian church as well and of us as individuals in that church.

Joseph is met by the harlot making her entrance here. Her seduction is a command: “come lie with me”—and it shows the devolution of male-female relationships.

I, again like I said last week, and it sort of seems like a side point, kind of a passing comment, but I think there’s something very important going on here in the sense of male-female relationships. I heard some music the other night and it was interesting watching people dance. You know, from about the 60s on, people dance apart for the most part. Now we got swing coming back and some of that stuff, but a lot of dancing these days, you’re in isolation from the other sex. You’re off dancing by yourself really.

You see, we are going through this same downward spiral where now Playboy is followed by Playgirl or whatever it is, where women now also are getting into lustful ways of being. The society declines when you move away from Jesus Christ. It’s pictured in the declension, the break up of relations between men and women. And you do not get back as a Christian church to exercising dominion and authority in the world, discipling the nations, without working out that most basic of relationships—your relationship to your wife, your relationship to your husband.

You see declension. Another characteristic of our modern culture is songs that degenerate into base sexual urges. Again, that’s because of this devolution, this continued progression of fall. That’s what happened to the Sethites. That’s what happens to people today.

And the whole point of this is at the center of the re-bringing back, away from a full sense the fall of man in Adam, Cain, and the Sethites—has at the center of that is working out relationships in the context of men and women. Joseph will marry an Egyptian woman after all of Egypt is converted. He’s a picture of Jesus marrying the Gentiles again. Judah and Tamar, the messages come along. But he refuses the desire of the world in the context of the seduction of the harlot.

And I just, you know, what I’m saying is: your relationship to your husband and wife is not some peripheral relationship. I believe it’s central to this text. It’s central thus to the re-creation after the fall. It’s central to the exercise of full dominion and service. And if you can’t work that out, get help. Get help through prayer. Get help from your brothers and sisters in the Lord. Get help from the elders of the church. We’ll pray for you. We’ll try to do what we can to encourage you in that way. But it is a very important truth that the scriptures portray for us here.

Now, one other thing about this is that Joseph—she’s sort of like she’s sort of like Adam and Eve here. The harlot is she wants Joseph to lie with her. She wants to go for that forbidden fruit, and Eve temp, you know, wanted Adam to engage in the same sin as her. So she’s sort of like that. And she’s also the one thing withheld from Joseph.

I made that point earlier in the text. He says it here in response to her advances: “Look, my man—pastor doesn’t know what is what’s with me in the house. He has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in his house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you because you are his wife.

You see where—see he’s Adamic here in his recovery as well. I mean Adam had everything in God’s house. He was put in control of everything but one thing he couldn’t have. Joseph is put in charge of all of Potiphar’s house but one thing—he can’t have the woman who comes after him.

Now, see, he’s tempted in the same way as Adam. He’ll also be tempted with the brother thing, right? Cain and Abel. Brothers throw him in the pit. Later on, he sees his brothers. Is he going to kill them or is he going to save them? He feeds them. He feeds them bread. He keeps them alive. And he brings them to recognition of their sins. He brings them to salvation.

So Joseph, being the third element of this picture of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph really recapitulates all three. And he resists here the forbidden fruit, the one thing gets kept from him.

How does he do it? Well, in your outline, I’ve got that the new Adam resists the forbidden fruit, the one thing withheld by three ways. First, he honors the trust shown in him. Look what he says: Potiphar has put all this stuff in my hands. And ultimately, God has entrusted him with this position. Secondly, he says, “How can I sin against Potiphar in this way?” And third, he honors God. He honors his position. He honors the woman’s husband. And he honors God by declaring sin. what it is.

“How can I do this awful wickedness, this terrible sin in the sight of God?”

If resistance to temptations of the world are central to God’s giving us authority in the context of the world, if our service has to be matched with our sanctification in resisting seduction, we want to understand how God portrays us to do this thing. We want to look at this most perfect of servants and discern, if we can from the text, how he did it, so we can know how we’re supposed to do it. How we’re supposed to resist temptation. Not just sexual temptation, but coveting all the things of the world.

And like I said here, what he does is he thinks of his position. He thinks of the other man and he thinks of God. And we should do that same thing.

Several of our men travel. You know, she didn’t just stop with one flirtation here. She day after day tries to wear him down. Samson was worn down in the same way—twice. You know, when he had the riddle that he wanted to give the answer to, his wife persists him day after day and finally he gives in. Later on with his secret of his hair being the secret to his strength, his wife persists him day after day and wears him down.

Joseph is pestered day after day. But what girds him up in his loins to resist that temptation? It’s a contemplation on his position from God, the other men who will suffer the effects of his sin. You know, hearts are going to be broken tonight as one song talks about in terms of sexual temptation given into—you’re going to ruin lots of people’s lives when you give into appetites of the world. And third, he of course meditates on his relationship to God.

And Christian, I tell you and I tell myself: when temptation comes knocking at the door, that’s what we got to think about. What’s it going to look like? What’s it going to do to your position of service? It’s going to hurt him. You’re not going to be given—if he’s if he falls in here, he’s not going to be given everything when it comes around to him serving Pharaoh. He got a very limited sphere of influence at that point in time. Your position, the other people involved, and your God.

God wants us to resist the Sethite temptation and be like Joseph. And that’s the way to do it.

The harlot’s love then turns to hatred, envy, satanic words, and the removal of authority. She’s the harlot here, and she tries to wear him down, as the text goes on to say:

“So it was as she spoke to Joseph day by day that he did not heed her to lie with her or to be with her.”

But it happened—you know we could spend time there but we won’t. But just recognize that the harlot, if she’s not successful in producing “lying with me,” she’ll settle for you just hanging out with her. And the world, if it can’t get you totally to toss off the restraint on your appetites, will at least want you to be in bed with it, so to speak, okay, to—and that’s what it says here.

He wouldn’t lie with her or be with her. That’s the kind of sanctification we need in terms of resistance of the temptation of the world.

“But it happened about this time when Joseph went into the house to do his work. None of the men of the house was inside. She caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me.’ He left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside.”

See, the garment is important in the story. Remember—and not just here—remember Joseph? He’s the one that had that really neat garment, the coat of many colors or many pieces. He was robed with the authority of his father because of his service to the father at home. The service didn’t start in captivity. It began at home. A picture for us and our children.

Children, when your parents want you to serve at home, it’s not because they’re lazy or they don’t want to do stuff. They’re training you to rule the world. Joseph couldn’t rule the world till he learned to serve at home and had the robe of authority given to him by his father, learned to serve in slavery, and learned to serve in the deepest, crummiest prison. That’s what prepared Joseph for ruling in the world.

And if you want to rule in the world, as you should for the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s through servants. Joseph ruled in his father’s home. He was a good servant to his dad, and his dad gave him a robe. Potiphar, he’s serving him. And he’s got a garment on, a robe. And the harlot, the satanic attack upon you via the harlot is an attempt to strip you of robe, garment or authority.

You see, now later when Joseph goes to serve Pharaoh, the text tells us explicitly that Pharaoh puts a really nice garment on him. I mean we—you know, we’re just 20th century rationalistic men. Clothes mean virtually nothing. Try to wear something nice on Sunday, we don’t even think of it. But robes are a picture of service and responsibility and authority.

And three times Joseph is robed up, twice it’s taken off. His brothers take that robe off him, right? Because they don’t like his authority. And Potiphar’s wife, the harlot, doesn’t like his authority either. Ends up taking his robe as he runs away. And then she uses it in her story.

Now she’s a rejected woman. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. She turns to envy. You remember what envy is, right? Envy is different than covetousness. Covetousness says, “I want what you got. I’ll try to get it somehow.” Envy says, “I can’t have what you’ve got. I want it. And if I can’t have it, you can’t have it either.”

Joseph, you’re not going to lie with me. I want life through relationship with you and your authority and your blessing. If I can’t have it, you’re not going to have life.

She then tells the servants in very interesting language. This master Potiphar brought this guy into his house, our house, and he’s going to sport with us. Now and lie with me. Look what a turkey my husband is. See, she’s a very wicked woman. Says, I shouted and he ran away. He took his garment off cuz he wanted to lie with me.

Well, actually, his garment is off because he was being sanctified to God.

Then she tells her husband pretty much the same story. Little different twist. This Hebrew that you brought into the house—it’s your fault. He’s been trying to lie with me. She’s trying to get him killed. Killed. That’s what envy does. It’s a satanic attack upon God’s blessed servant.

That seems to work. Get to that in just a minute. Seems to work. But she uses satanic words. She uses the actual recitation of the story with minor changes here and there to bring ambiguity in. Remember the way the satanic speech was pictured in the Garden of Eden in the temptation. Satan using those weird deceptive words. Well, that’s what she’s doing here. She’s a picture of the harlot, a picture of Satan behind the harlot trying to remove Joseph’s robe of authority, and she hates him and she’s going to try to kill him.

Just like his brothers had taken off his robe. They couldn’t have the authority he had with dad. They wanted it, couldn’t have it. He’s not going to have it either. We’ll kill him. Just like later on, the attacks on the church in the book of Acts says the Pharisees were moved with envy. They couldn’t have what those gentile Christians and those converted Jews had. So they wanted to kill him.

Well, that’s what’s going on here. Joseph death is taught by the harlot. Very important to recognize these forces at work in the context of a culture.

Joseph responds as the man of God, the spiritfilled man. Later on, Pharaoh will say, “This man is full of the spirit of God.” Pharaoh will be brought to that confession of Joseph. He’s a picture of the fullness of the spirit that brings us to service and brings us to sanctification.

So we resist seduction in the context of the world. 2 Timothy 2:22 says:

“Flee also youthful lust. Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

That hearkens back to Joseph. Flee youthful lust. Young men, if you get in a situation where somebody’s hitting on you, don’t entertain it. Don’t start down the slippery slope. Flee. Turn on your heel. Witness to God if you must on the way. And get out of the way of the harlot. She does not want your life in the sense of a good and prosperous life. She doesn’t want to bring you joy. She, ultimately being motivated by Satan, wants to kill you. The seed of the Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman. You will be attacked by the seed of the serpent.

And in this world, you can best believe if you haven’t been enticed already to sexual seduction, you will be. As young men, know the story of Joseph, know the importance of service. He wasn’t there goofing around. He was in the house that day serving and know the commitment to God, to our position that God has placed us into, and the other people in the story that prevents us from falling into that kind of sin.

Flee youthful lust. And may we, as she sought to wear him down day by day, we are told to be just the reverse with one another. Hebrews 3:13 says:

“Exhort one another daily. Don’t seduce one another daily. Exhort one another daily while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

We should exhort one another in our families and in community. Whenever we see each other, if we know we got troubles going on, we want to combat that wearing down by the serpent, the harlot, with a repeated daily exhortation to righteousness, to sanctification in the context of seduction.

Number two, she’s another picture of a fallen man. She blames Potiphar and she blames Joseph. “This guy you brought into the house. Even if I did maybe kind of want him, you brought him here.” Yeah, it’s just like Adam and Eve in their fallen state. The same thing’s being played out again. “The woman made me do it. The master made me do it.”

Joseph doesn’t do any of that. He just pleads the cause of God. It’s an awful wickedness. And he flees. He’s committed to sanctification.

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Okay. So we’ve talked about Potiphar’s house and emphasis on service. We’ve talked about Potiphar’s wife, center of the text is Joseph’s resistance of seduction. And we’ve talked about the need for sanctification in the light of seduction. That’s the application.

And then finally, Joseph is in prison. Joseph in Potiphar’s prison. And here we’re going to have submission to God as being the application point in the context of deep surgery.

Joseph—if Potiphar hears his wife out, his nostrils flare the way a good husband’s nostrils flare. God’s nostrils flare and jealousy for his bride. We should be jealous for our brides when they’re attacked by other men and we think they have been. Potiphar throws Joseph into prison.

Now, it’s real interesting. The text always—it’s just a wonderful way that the text kind of reveals these things to us. But we read in…