The Vision (10.31.25): How shall we clear ourselves?

 

Image: Fall path, North Garden, Virginia, October 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 44.

And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants (Genesis 44:16a).

Genesis 44 continues the ongoing record of how the Lord worked out reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers.

Here are at least two things we might consider in this chapter as practical applications:

First, we might consider that reconciliation, both vertical and horizontal, often takes a slow and circuitous route.

It might stretch over a long time, even over many years, before all things are resolved.

Are there men with whom we need to be reconciled, especially ones who share with us a like precious faith in Christ?

How might the Lord be working even now to overcome sinful resentments, hurts, and ill feelings to bring about a glorious reconciliation?

Might we join in praying and even working toward such ends?

Second, we can meditate on what I have called the “evangelical” statements shot through this chapter.

Consider v. 4: “Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good?”

Has God done good to you and you have answered with evil?

Has some fellow man, or fellow believer, done good to us, and we have answered with evil?

If we have been confronted with some unresolved and festering sin in our lives, might we answer with the realization that Judah did when he said in v. 16: “What shall we say…?” “What shall we speak?” And especially, “how shall we clear ourselves?”

Have we thought, as did Joseph’s brothers, that we could hide or harbor in our hearts sinful thoughts and deeds which God did not know about? Joseph’s brothers did.

This is a theme that appears in several Psalms.

In Psalm 10:11 we read that the wicked man “said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.”

Likewise in Psalm 94:7 it says that the “workers of iniquity” (v. 4) say, “the LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”

Would we confess as Judah does in v. 16, “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants.”?

A.W. Pink said of this passage, “There could be no communion of heart until full confession of guilt had been made. And this is the goal God has in view” (Gleanings in Genesis, 404).

Once we come to such a realization will we then say to the Lord Jesus Christ as Judah did to Joseph in v. 18: “Oh my Lord… let not thine anger burn against thy servant.”?

The man whose conscience has been awakened to his own sinful life and his own guilty conscience apart from Christ realizes that he cannot clear himself. His only hope is to look to Christ and live.

We hear evangelical echoes of that theme even in this OT account of Joseph. May the Lord use and apply these words to us, by the power if his Spirit, even today.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle