TEMPTATION

Genesis 39:1-20
August 19, 2007
Bob Bonner

On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Presbyterian minister and theologian was executed by the Nazis for his Christian resistance to their regime. He was only 39. Yet by that time he had authored many classics loved by believers today, some of which were written while in prison. One of his shorter works, only fifty or so pages, is a little booklet entitled Temptation. According to one writer, “Bonhoeffer has left us with the single most descriptive explanation of temptation anywhere outside of the Bible.” Bonhoeffer writes, “In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh. All at once a secret, smouldering fire is kindled. The flesh burns and is in flames. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money, or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature. Joy in God is in course of being extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; the only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.... The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us.... It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.”

There has never been a person born, who has not been tested by temptation. And except for Jesus Christ, there has not been one of us who has not yielded to it at one time or another and suffered the consequences for it. Temptation is inevitable and one cannot escape it. Yet for the most part we can live victoriously over it if we choose to learn from those who have gone before us, and we choose to apply the principles that led them to overcome victoriously rather than to succumb to temptation.

This morning as we come to Genesis 39, we are about to witness one of the most heroic biblical examples of an individual who resisted temptation on all fronts. He resisted sensual temptation; he resisted the temptation to be bitter and resentful; he resisted the temptation to be arrogant or proud about his position. In the end he is the picture of a man of integrity, one who was hardworking, loyal, pure and faithful to the calling of his God.

As mentioned in our previous message, beginning with Genesis 39-41, the focus of this dramatic family saga of Jacob and his sons now shifts from Judah to Joseph. In these next three chapters we will witness how Joseph stands in stark contrast to his older brother Judah, who was featured in Genesis 38. Judah was driven by his passion for wealth and his physical desires. He had turned his back on God. Joseph on the other hand, under distressful conditions never turns his back on God. If anything Joseph, during these years, grabs a hold of God as though his life depends on it...which it did. What’s literarily interesting about these two contrasts in character is that they both cover the same 22-year period in these brothers’ lives. In chapter 38 we see Judah’s rise to prominence through immoral means. In chapters 39-41, Joseph rises to prominence through righteous means. Both Judah and Joseph end up marrying non-Hebrew wives; Judah by choice, Joseph by cultural demand. By the end of chapter 38, Judah’s righteous second wife, Tamar, bears him two children. By the end of chapter 40, Joseph’s wife has also borne him two children.

As we bear down in our study of Joseph’s life in these chapters to come, keep in mind the major adjustments that Joseph was forced to make. In addition, don’t forget that he was only 17 years old when faced with these challenges. Almost overnight, Joseph went from living in a rural shepherd’s culture, surrounded by unsophisticated people and living in a home where he had been the pride and joy of his mother and the favorite child of a doting, aging father...to a slave sold to hardened men like a cheap piece of merchandise. Suddenly, he is now thrown into a highly sophisticated society, surrounded by wealth, education and loose women. It’s almost like a good church kid from Selma being suddenly thrust on to one of the liberal college campuses of the Pac-10, where wine, women and song are the order of the day. Allow me to repeat it, Joseph is only 17 when this takes place. He is full of vim and vigor. And as we will soon read, he had not been zapped with an ugly stick! He was a hunk!

Two more quick observations taken from chapter 39. In the rest of the 49 chapters of Genesis, God’s most personal name, “Yahweh” is mentioned only 8 times. In this one chapter, it is mentioned 9 times, and five of those before verse 6. The importance of the number of times God’s personal name is used is that it stresses the crucial role of the providence of this personal God in Joseph’s life. The Spirit of God is signaling us to grasp that it is God’s desire to be as personal and real with each of us as He is with Joseph. He will make Himself available to any who seek Him.

It’s also interesting that in these upcoming chapters we have no record of God visiting Joseph in person as He had done with Joseph’s great grandfather, Abraham, or his father Jacob. Hence, like us, what Joseph knew of “Yahweh” had been taught to him by his father and possibly his grandfather.

A second brief observation from this chapter is the use of the word “everything” or “all.” It is repeated five times in these verses underscoring God’s unrestrained presence with Joseph, and that God is behind Joseph’s success.

Let’s begin reading about Joseph’s impressive rise to manager over all that Potipher possessed, verse 1, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there.”

Twice in Genesis, Potiphar is identified as “captain of the body guard” and later, as the “chief of executioners.” Having had a successful military career, Potiphar had risen in power to oversee the execution of criminals. He had the power to determine who lived and died. Bottom line, Potiphar was nobody to fool around with. Yet Joseph adjusted quickly to his new environment and flourished under Potiphar. Why? We are told in the next verses, 2-6.

“The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. Now his master saw that the Lord was with him [Joseph] and how the Lord caused all that he [Joseph] did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge. It came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the Lord’s blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field. So he left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate”, which was a figure of speech referring to Potiphar’s private affairs.

We are not told what Joseph’s first duties were. Undoubtedly, he would be assigned the most menial tasks and be under constant supervision and surveillance. What was observed was that Joseph did things well, he was a cooperative slave and not rebellious. He was intelligent, hardworking, diligent and a highly motivated young man. As a result, he becomes Potiphar’s executive assistant, supervising all the other servants and employees, handling public relations, overseeing finances, administering agricultural interests and other business activities. Never before had Potiphar seen his people as motivated and his corps so productive.

But Joseph’s abilities to manage people and his possession of good business practices were not the sole cause for his winning Potiphar’s trust. Three times in this passage, we are told that “the Lord was with Joseph.” We are specifically told that Potiphar knew about Joseph’s God and Joseph’s religious convictions. Most importantly, Potiphar believed that Joseph was so successful at managing his estate because of Yahweh’s blessing and guiding Joseph. 

However, isn’t it interesting that we read nothing about Potiphar ever worshiping or thanking God for His blessings on his life? It reminds me of what we read in Hebrew 4:1-6, about many Jews during the first century church heard the gospel, saw the workings of God among them, enjoyed the blessings of hanging around the Christians, but they never put their trust in Christ. As a youth pastor, I witnessed high school kids who would join us for activities and even Bible studies because they enjoyed hanging with us, but they never committed their lives to Christ. Or, adults who religiously come to church, enjoy the worship and the instruction from the Word, but personally, they do not commit their lives to the Lordship of Christ. This is nothing new, for so it was with Potiphar.

At this point in Joseph’s new-found life everything is coming up roses. But as anyone who has had experience with roses knows, one must be wary of the thorns. So it is with success. Success is a very thorny business. When we are most successful is when we are often most vulnerable to failure. 

For instance: right after Elijah’s successful victory over the prophets of Baal, Elijah became vulnerable to depression and complaining to God. In the New Testament, we read that shortly after Christ praised Peter for his declaration of faith that Jesus was the Messiah, in Matthew 16:13-20, that Peter became vulnerable to arrogance and in the very next paragraph, verses 21-28. In those verses we find arrogant Peter rebuking Jesus for making plans to head to Jerusalem to be crucified. In turn, Christ harshly rebuked him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!”

In like manner, Joseph’s successes found him vulnerable to attack and temptation. Mind you, Joseph doesn’t do anything wrong in the rest of this chapter. In fact, he does everything right, yet still, he becomes the irresistible servant to Potiphar’s wife.

Look with me at the second half of verse 6, “Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused...”

This description of Joseph being “handsome in form and appearance” is unique of a male in Scripture. It is used of only three other men in Scripture: Saul, David, Absalom. It is placed here to explain the devious behavior of Potiphar’s wife. By the way, Egyptologists and archaeologists alike verify that ancient Egyptian women were among the first to consider themselves “liberated.”

The Hebrew scholar, Dr. Bruce Waltke states that the meaning of the expression “looked with desire” literally means to look at with lustful desire. In other words, over time, Potiphar’s wife’s thoughts became fantasies then desires which drove her to make a move on Joseph.  She persistently worked him, as verse 10 will later reveal, but as we will also see, to no avail.

As verse 8 clearly declares, Joseph “adamantly refused her advances.” How could he do that? How could he be that strong in light of this situation? Remember what we have here: a young, virile, single and good looking man, that was obviously a rising star. Set in an environment of negative examples of immorality which were normal in this pagan culture.

The answer to how Joseph could refuse her advances is revealed in the following verses. Joseph’s ability to refuse her rests in a two-fold loyalty: Joseph was loyal to his earthly master, Potiphar and he was loyal to his eternal Master, “Yahweh.”

Both with reasoning and with a desire for a pure conscience, Joseph,, disregards Potiphar’s wife’s advances and tells her, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her.”

All of Joseph’s noble reasons for resisting her only intensified her determination to take him down, to fulfill her selfish lustful desires of conquest. Which simply proves that if you are living under the illusion that somehow temptation once resisted, will suddenly vanish, think again. Or to put it in the form of a principle: A momentary victory in a battle of temptation does not determine the outcome of the war.

Joseph was not naive. He had probably observed many women like Potiphar’s wife in Egypt. He knew the danger they were to his health. Hence, he made sure that he spent very little time around her, according to the end of v. 10. He avoided her like the plague.

But even then, he wasn’t safe around this determined woman. “Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside.” I take that to mean that Joseph was set up. He probably would not have entered the house if he had known that none of the servants were there, otherwise, why would Moses make it a point to tell us that Joseph avoided her in verse 9? It wouldn’t surprise me if Potiphar’s wife made sure that the servants were not there. With the trap set, we read, “She caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me!’”  Waltke clarifies that word, “caught” by explaining that it is a word that describes an act of violence. She reached out and forcibly grabbed Joseph. “And he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside [fled to the street].”

Whenever the New Testament speaks to the subject of temptation, it does not suggest that one try to reason with temptation or claim Bible promises or even to think about it. It tells us “to run, flee!!!” Get out of the situation! For he who hesitates in the midst of temptation is lost.

Joseph did everything right, but he still got in trouble. “When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household and said to them, ‘See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.’”

Whether or not Potiphar’s wife actually screamed, we are not told. But I’m sure that if she did scream, it was a scream of rage, not the scream of one being assaulted.

“So she left his garment beside her until his master came home. Then she spoke to him with these words, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make sport of me; and as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside. Now when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, ‘This is what your slave did to me,’ his anger burned.”

Against whom did Potiphar’s anger burn? The statement is deliberately ambiguous. Was he angry at Joseph or at his own wife? Was he angry with her because now he would have to at the very least put Joseph away, which in turn would rob him of a man who was making him wealthy? I believe the answer is revealed in the next verse. It tells us, “So Joseph’s master [that is Potiphar, the chief executioner] took him and put him [to death? No, but ] into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail.”

Attempted assault against a woman by a man was a capital offense in Egypt. Potiphar should have had Joseph killed if he believed Joseph was guilty. The milder punishment suggests that Potiphar does not altogether believe his wife. He probably knows her character. It appears that the only explanation for Potiphar’s anger was that he was put in a position that forced him to lose the goose that laid the golden egg, the best servant a man could ever have. All thanks to an unfaithful wife.

Thus far, Joseph has suffered gravely under the hand of injustice. We could easily take time looking at suffering at the hands of injustice, but we will save that for later because the situation has to get worse for Joseph before it gets better.

For now, let’s focus on Joseph’s remarkable success at resisting temptation. How is it that Joseph survived this immoral woman’s advances?  Whether one is facing sensual temptation, greed, bitterness, jealousy or some other form of temptation, the road to success requires the same ingredients.

The first ingredient is clearly given to us in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 10:13. There we read, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

There is a lot to this verse, but first what I want to highlight for you, is that when you are faced with any temptation, keep in mind that you are not alone. God is right there with you. God is omnipresent. He is “El Elyon” the strongest of the strong. The rest of the verse points to another of His names, “Jehovah Jireh” the personal God who provides. In this case, God is personally involved, providing us with a way of escape.

When Joseph was faced with temptation, his mind was fixed on the Lord, and all that God represents. How do I know that? Because in verse 9, he tells Potiphar’s wife about the omnipresent God who was watching and had provided a way of escape. Therefore, out of loyalty to God, he would take God’s way of escape and ignore her advances. Because Joseph was ever mindful of the Lord, he was determined not to knowingly sin against God.

Hence, the first necessary ingredient to successfully win against temptation is to keep your mind fixed on the Lord.

Second, according to verse 10, Joseph did all he could to not “be with her.” Joseph avoided her. Hence, if we want to be successful against temptation, then we should avoid or keep ourselves out of harm’s way. We are to avoid tempting stimuli of all kind. When I travel, I intentionally avoid airport shops and bookstores because of the temptations they contain. When I travel, I intentionally look for hotels that don’t have access to immoral PPV movies. When I receive new computer magazines, I intentionally throw them in the trash, because I don’t want to buy what I don’t need. But if I get tempted with a new “toy,” I could want it, which is the first step to purchasing it. So I have learned what my weak areas are and how to stay out of harm’s way concerning those areas.

Psalm 1:1 makes this point real clear. “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!”  The truly wise and happy person avoids the pathways of those who choose to ignore God. They don’t make it habit of hanging out with them, taking in their counsel and life practices. If they need information, counsel or education, they look to the next ingredient that leads to success over temptation.

The psalmist, in Psalm 1, continues his counsel to us in verses 2-3, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.” And over in Psalm 119:9-11, we find corroborating instruction in how to remain pure and to avoid temptation. It says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.”

Those who are serious about walking with God and not succumbing to temptation take seriously the study of God’s Word. They memorize its promises, principles, instructions and directions.

The Apostle Paul also encourages us in this manner. For he states in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Hence, we are not only to keep our mind on the Lord, and stay out of harm’s way, but another ingredient to successfully win over temptation is to keep your mind fixed on God’s Word.

The fourth ingredient to finding victory over temptation is to keep your mind fixed on God’s identity for your life. What do I mean by that? I mean this: The Bible teaches that if you have put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are a saint. Being a saint does not mean you are perfect. Rather, its fuller meaning is that you are handpicked, set apart for holy purposes, as a vessel to be used by God in an honorable way. That’s your identity. You are not what your past addictions claim you to be. You are not an addict, you are a saint. Therefore, believe it and live like it.

God had told Joseph, in a dream, what his identity would be, that one day he would be the leader over his family, and he believed it. His problem was that he took it to heart before God had actually wanted him to step into the position. But nonetheless, he believed what God said to be true about him, even in jail or as a slave, he had the eyes of faith to believe that God’s identity for his life was true and would one day be realized. Hence, he chose to live, think and act as who he was: a holy one, set apart by God for a unique service. He even reminded Potiphar’s wife of this as a reason for which he could not submit to her wishes. He acted in line with what God declared his identity to be: he was a man of high moral character.

Finally, in the arena of temptation, Joseph came ready to fight a continual battle, not just one skirmish with temptation.

God gave Joseph and you an identity, a calling. You are a set-apart person. Set apart to know Him, as one who continues to learn of Him and of His ways from His Word, choosing to stay out of sinful ways, ready to fight continually against the spiritual wars of temptation in various arenas of life, trusting that El Elyon will be there to provide the way of escape.

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