How Then Can I Do This Great Wickedness, And Sin Against God? - The Jesus Code
How Then Can I Do This Great Wickedness, and Sin Against God?
—Genesis 39:9
This question comes in the midst of a great moral intersection in the life of Joseph. Few people enjoyed the measurable and meteoric success of Joseph. At seventeen, he was sold to travelers by his jealous brothers. He was taken by the Ishmaelites into Egypt and sold as a slave. Then, while faithfully serving in his master’s house, his master’s wife attempted to seduce him. When Joseph refused her advances, she falsely accused him of rape, an accusation that landed Joseph in an Egyptian prison. Then, through a series of miraculous events, he was released and, by the age of thirty, Joseph was ruling as, virtually, the prime minister of Egypt, the most progressive nation on earth. It is no wonder the Bible records, “The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man” (Genesis 39:2).
Long before this series of events began to unfold, he had a dream that was recorded for us in Genesis 37. God revealed to Joseph that he would one day be the leader of a great nation and that others, including his own brothers, would bow down before him. Joseph never forgot this dream, this God-given vision. Along the way, however, Joseph would have to contend with three great enemies to success in life. One is discouragement: we have a dream about what God wants us to do, we encounter a few obstacles along the way, and discouragement keeps us from our potential. Another enemy to success is diversion: we have a dream, and something diverts us from pursuing and reaching that goal. In Joseph’s case, it was false charges made by a beautiful older woman. If we overcome the first two, then doubt will find its way into our path: we have a dream, and in a time of testing, we too often give in to doubt. Joseph faced all three of these enemies.
WHEN TEMPTED BY DISCOURAGEMENT, FACE GOD-ALLOWED DIFFICULTIES
Joseph had a dream, a goal for his life, but nothing was going right as he pursued that dream. His brothers sold him out. He was hustled out of his country into a strange land and sold as a slave. What a contrast to being his father’s favorite son, as he’d clearly been back home. And what reasons for discouragement!
People react to discouragement in various ways. Job feared his difficulties, saying, “The thing I greatly feared has come upon me” (Job 3:25). Elijah under the juniper tree frowned and prayed that he might die (1 Kings 19:4). The prodigal’s elder brother in Luke 15 fumed when difficulty came: “He was angry and would not go in” to the party (v. 28). Moses fussed about his difficulties (Exodus 5:22–23), and Jonah tried to flee from them (Jonah 1:3).
In sharp contrast, Joseph faced his difficulties head on. Whatever came his way, whether on the slave block, in his master’s house, or in prison, whenever he was tempted to get discouraged—he faithfully continued to trust God’s promises. When we are pursuing a dream, we aren’t to fear or flee obstacles that come our way; we must face them.
WHEN TEMPTED BY DIVERSION, FLEE GODLESS DESIRES
Once Joseph overcame discouragement, diversion came knocking. The master’s wife burned with lust and passion for this young Hebrew, and the timing seemed perfect for her to approach him. Think about it. The master was away from home. Nobody would know about the rendezvous. She certainly wouldn’t tell! Most would have been flattered by the attention, but when this diversion arose, Joseph got out of there. He ran the opposite direction. He fled those godless desires of the heart. Hear him saying to her, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Joseph knew that all sin is primarily against God; Joseph would not only be sinning against her husband.
Joseph was able to resist because he took a strong stand from the woman’s very first advance (Genesis 39:8). Many people succumb to immoral diversion because they don’t say no at the very first. They flirt with it for a while. Not Joseph. He fled. He didn’t try and fight it. He didn’t try and faith it. He fled. He ran.
Remember, God had given Joseph a dream, so Joseph was single-minded in his pursuit of that dream: nothing, not discouragement or diversion, would keep him from pursuing his dream.
WHEN TEMPTED BY DOUBT, FOLLOW GOD-GIVEN DREAMS
If Satan can’t get you off track with discouragement or diversion, he will next try to get you to doubt that your dream came from God in the first place.
You may know the story well. Can you imagine what must have been going through Joseph’s mind while sitting in that Egyptian jail cell when he had done nothing wrong?! He had been a loyal and faithful servant to his master, only to be rewarded with a false and trumped-up charge of attempted rape. Now he was in prison, and it seemed the guards had thrown away the key. Earlier God had told Joseph he’d be the leader of a great people, but that dream now seemed so very distant and its fulfillment so humanly impossible. Satan was bombarding Joseph with arrows of doubt: Had God really sent that dream? Or was it just some boyhood ambition?
God was testing Joseph. How do we know? David later recorded that God “sent a man before [the people]—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him” (Psalm 105:17–19). Could it be that when our own goals seem so far away and unreachable, God tests us to see if we are trusting in the living God or merely looking to Him to bless us?
So what did Joseph do? He simply kept following his God-given dream. He didn’t say a word. He trusted in his God, in spite of doubtful circumstances.
Learn from Joseph. Make sure your dream is from God, then keep following it. Abraham heard God’s voice and obeyed it. Joseph was led by his dream. We don’t put our trust in audible voices or dreams today. Why? We have something they didn’t have, the final and complete revelation of God to man: the Bible. We have a God who still speaks to us today, by His Spirit and through His Word.
Have a dream—and follow it. And when you are tempted to be discouraged, face your God-allowed difficulties. When you are tempted by diversion, flee those godless desires. And, again, when tempted to doubt, follow your God-given dream. When you do, and when that dream becomes reality, then what was said of Joseph just might be said of you: “The LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper” (Genesis 39:23).
Q & A: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” It would be a much better world if each of us asked ourselves this question when we arrive at our own temptation fork in the road, deciding which way to turn. The most tragic thing about our sin is that it is not simply against ourselves or someone else; when we sin, we sin against God. It is so serious that it necessitated Christ’s death on the cross. Face those God-allowed difficulties, flee those godless diversions, and follow your God-given dream!
