Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2531
“By the Almighty, who shall bless you with blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under.” Genesis 49:25.
You must have noticed, when reading Jacob’s prophecies concerning his sons, that the good old man, when he came to talk about Joseph, suddenly seemed to be freer of speech than while he was addressing any of the others. The dying flame of life within him appeared to burn up more brightly at the sight of the son of his old age, the darling of his heart. The blessing which Jacob pronounced upon Joseph was infinite in extent—he seemed to ransack Heaven and earth in order to express the desire of his soul—and what he knew as a Prophet to be the purpose of God.
It is observable, here, and it is to be noted in a great many other places, that God’s richest blessing often falls upon those who have been the most tried. This boundless benediction is to come upon “the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brothers” through their jealousy, ill-will and malice. All this blessing is for the one whom the archers sorely grieved, at whom they shot and whom they desperately wounded. So have you and I observed, Beloved, that as our tribulations abound, so our consolations abound by Christ Jesus. It seems as if it were necessary for a life which is to win the highest blessing, that it should be greatly checkered with affliction. You must go down if you are to rise up! You must carry heavy ballast if you are safely to bear full sails. It has been so, in the experiences of many of us, till we have come to this conclusion—in days of joy we tremble for all the good which the Lord has made to pass before us—but in days of trial we rejoice because we are expectant of a greater weight of glory and of the peaceable fruits of righteousness which will, by-and-by, be ours through our troubles!
I think all of us who are wise would be willing to take the blessing of Joseph. We might not like to be with him as he was despised by his brothers. We might not care to be put into the pit with him. We might not wish to be cast into prison with him. But we may be well content to take the bitters with the sweets, for, when Joseph came to the sweets, they were exceedingly sweet, indeed!
Remember, too, that Joseph was not only a specimen of a tried saint, but also of a separated saint. There are some of God’s people who are so surrounded by adversaries that they have to go to Heaven very much alone. It is preferable to go with Mr. Great-Heart, the women and children and old Father Honest and Mr. Valiant-for-Truth—and all the good company who make up the Church of God on pilgrimage. But sometimes there is a pilgrim who has to pursue his journey all by himself. It is somewhat of a loss for him, for he misses many of the blessings of Christian communion—but God has a way of making up for all His people’s losses if they are but faithful to Him. So Joseph, though he had not fellowship with his brothers, found better fellowship in his God and he was greatly the gainer! Am I at this moment addressing a tried child of God who is compelled to pursue his way very much in solitude? Then, I pray you, ask the Lord to give you the blessings of the text—the blessings that shall be over your head. “Blessings of Heaven above.” And the blessings that shall be under your feet—“blessings of the deep that lies under.”
Moreover, to complete the description of Joseph, I notice that he was not only tried and separated, but he was very severely tempted. I need not do more than just allude to his temptation in the house of Potiphar. For so young a man, how well he behaved! How gloriously he showed that he truly feared God! And I believe that any of us who are exposed to unusual temptation, if we only have Grace enough to resist it, are on the road to a far larger blessing than the untempted can expect. The Lord tries us in different ways and when we come forth out of the furnace as gold seven times purified, then there is some honorable use to which that gold is to be put! Are you tempted just now, dear Friend? Is it something very pleasant to the flesh, but very deadly to the spirit? Escape for your life and in that act of escape, you will have opened a window through which the sunshine shall come upon you in an altogether unexpected manner! Perhaps not at the moment, for Joseph had to go to prison and to lie there for a long while, but, before long, you shall see that fidelity to conscience and to the Truth of God will certainly bring its own reward. These preliminary remarks are suggested by the surroundings of our text which show that the blessing came upon the tried, the separated and the tempted Joseph.
“I do not understand,” says one, “how trials and blessings go together.” Perhaps you do not, but there are many old women here who do—and there are many of us whom you would, perhaps, set down as being very ignorant—who perfectly understand it. You see, experience teaches. There are many who will criticize some of the sentences of Ralph Er-skine in his Believer’s Riddle, and say that these things are contradictory. Just so, but faith has to credit contradictions. If you do not know that the spiritual life is a profound paradox, you do not know anything at all. The way of a serpent on the rock, or of a ship in the sea, is a mere trifle compared with the way of spiritual life in the soul of man! To understand yourself, you must understand the mystery of the two natures and of the daily inward conflict between them—the carnal mind that never can be reconciled to God and that heavenly mind that cannot sin because it is born of God—both of which co-exist in the Believer. They cause him often to be like Paul, in whom there was the company of two armies, crying, one moment, “O wretched man that I am!” and saying in the same breath, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our