Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?” —Genesis 42:28
Trembling! What a gift for a seared conscience! For 20 years these men had been slinking along through life, hoping their dirty secret would never be exposed. But now, as they stopped to rest for the night, one of them opened his grain sack to feed a donkey and got the shock of his life. There lay his silver, staring him in the face.
(vs. 28) So he said to his brothers, “My money has been returned, and look, it is right in my sack!” Then their hearts sank, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”
Later, back in Canaan, the jolt reverberated as each brother opened his sack with their father, Jacob, watching. Each one saw their own silver—“evidence” that could be used against them to show that they were not “honest men”! When a truly guilty person wonders if some serious adversity may be a sign of God’s prodding them to repent, they may very well be on the right track.
When we are truly guilty but our hearts are still hardened against coming clean, then God, who sees all we have done, may roar at us through some adversity so unnerving that we cannot help trembling. If something like that happens to us, it is a sign of God’s grace, a gift leading us back to God. Our big idea today is that our Lord tests his people to confront their sins and overcome their fears. Three parts, first we see the text himself.
1. The Lord Tests His People
2. The Lord Tests His People’s Sins
3. The Lord Tests His People’s Fear
Each one of us will do well to ask ourselves honestly today, “Is there something I need to confess to God?”
WORD
READ
PRAYER
Lord, free us to see the love of others for you and to show our love too, in welcoming them for your sake. Father, we pray that you would give us grace. We need so much of it; we need an infinite store of your grace. We pray that by your grace you would lift us up from our sin and from our fears, to look instead fully to Jesus Christ in faith. To trust him for our salvation and to trust him with our lives. In his name we pray. Amen.
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