Sin's pleasure are short lived

Genesis 39:6-20

I had some set backs in my life, but I’ve never gone from the head of the heap to prison dungarees.  I’ve also not been called handsome in form and appearance, as young Joseph is in verse six of this chapter.  God is all over Joseph and his master puts him in charge of all he has with one exception, his wife.  It would be easy for a man so young to become prideful and full of himself, but Joseph is a man of integrity.

All was well till the wife of Potiphar began to desire sex with him, and anytime her husband was not home she would come and say, “Lie with me.”  Picking up the story in verse eight, “But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.  He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

Joseph is just a young man, but what understanding he has of who he is, and that sin brings pleasure for only a moment, that a man reaps what he sows, and sex outside of the marriage bed is forbidden by God.  Joseph had a relationship with God, he knew that God was his protector and provider, and he would not let lust destroy the fellowship he knew with God.

Now that only made Potiphar’s wife want him more, and many men have fallen for a woman like Potiphar’s wife.  King Solomon many years later gave this account of such a woman; “Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life.” (Proverbs 6:25-26)

You may ask, how did Joseph’s integrity work for him?  The answer is, it cost him everything and he was put in the king’s prison.  Potiphar’s wife grabbed his garment on a day when he was in the house working and all the other men were somewhere else; in his haste to get out of there, he left his outer garment and she claimed rape.  It must have been a low moment for Joseph, but he is still in fellowship with his God.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice