“How Can I Do this Great Wickedness against God?” (Genesis 39:9)

 How Can  I Do this Great Wickedness against God?

Sunday, March 20, 2022

This critical question is familiar to us, though when I once told the story of Joseph at American House, a sweet, little old lady asked, “Is there a book where I could read that story?” Why yes, there is a book, it’s called the Bible, and the story of Joseph is found starting in Genesis 37.

Joseph had been disabused by his brothers and sold into slavery, a strange kind of mercy, given that they initially plotted to kill him. But God’s mercy followed him into the slave market, and he landed in Potiphar’s house, where he was elevated to a position of trust: “(Potiphar) left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate” (Gen 39:6). Oh, and his wife.

It was not that Joseph pursued Potiphar’s wife. The problem was, Potiphar’s wife pursued Joseph. He respectfully put her off, saying these famous words: “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”  She caught him by the garment and then falsely accused him after he escaped. Joseph ended up in prison, and the story goes on from there.

It’s the question we should ask ourselves time and again, at all the critical times of temptation in our lives. The problem is, when our minds are clouded by passion, we operate according to our fleshly feelings instead of a “renewed mind,” and thus we don’t end of thinking and pondering the critical question, “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” 

And don’t think that this applies only to sexual temptation. It applies also when we are consumed by greed in other areas, such as the temptation to steal or falsify reports or records. It applies to the temptation to lie to make ourselves look better or “less worse.” It applies when we are filled with rage and are about to blurt out something mean and awful. “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

The critical question reminds us of another important truth, that when we sin, we certainly sin against the person that we are stealing from or lying to. But we ultimately are sinning against God. David, following his sin with Bathsheba, in which he sent Bathsheba’s wife, Uriah, to death on the battlefield, said, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.” He, and you and I, sin against the God to whom we will give an account. Let’s repeat the critical question to ourselves one more time: “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”