“And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.” Genesis 42:8
It may be well [this morning] to consider a kindred topic, namely, our heavenly Joseph’s knowledge of us. This was most blessedly perfect long before we had the slightest knowledge of him. “His eyes beheld our substance, yet being imperfect, and in his book all our members were written, when as yet there was none of them.”
Before we had a being in the world, we had a being in his heart. When we were enemies to him, he knew us, our misery, our madness, and our wickedness. When we wept bitterly in despairing repentance and viewed him only as a judge and a ruler, he viewed us as his brothers well beloved, and he yearned toward us from the pit of his stomach. He never mistook his chosen, but always beheld them as objects of his infinite affection. “The Lord knows those who are his,” is as true of the prodigals who are feeding swine as of the children who sit at the table.
But, alas! we knew not our royal Brother, and out of this ignorance grew a host of sins. We withheld our hearts from him and allowed him no entrance to our love. We mistrusted him and gave no credit to his words. We rebelled against him and paid him no loving homage. The Sun of Righteousness shone forth, and we could not see him. Heaven came down to earth, and earth perceived it not.
Let God be praised, those days are over with us—yet even now it is but little that we know of Jesus compared with what he knows of us. We have but begun to study him, but he knows us altogether. It is a blessed circumstance that the ignorance is not on his side, for then it would be a hopeless case for us. He will not say to us, “I never knew you,” but he will confess our names in the day of his appearing, and meanwhile will manifest himself to us as he doth not unto the world.
Adapted from Morning and Evening.
