"The Telltale Heart" Genesis 42 Pastor Allan Wooters, D.Min.

Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions we know. Edgar Allen Poe famously related this truth in his masterpiece, The Telltale Heart. A murderer couldn’t sleep because he kept hearing the beating heart of his victim whose remains, he had hidden under the floorboards of the house. But he wasn’t hearing the victim’s heart, of course; he was hearing his own heart, pounding in his chest, reverberating through his skull. It was his guilt which haunted him, and it led to the revelation that he was the murderer. I am using that title for this message because it so perfectly fits the experience of Joseph’s brothers.  

In Genesis 42 we find that the famine predicted by Joseph has come to pass with a vengeance. The entire region surrounding Egypt has been affected. People are in anguish and Joseph’s family are no exception. Jacob tells his sons to go to Egypt to buy grain and off they go. What the men didn’t know was that they were about to come face-to-face with their worst nightmare. They would meet Joseph the brother they had betrayed and sold into slavery. The men came and just as Joseph had dreamed many years earlier, they bow to him. But they don’t recognize him. Read vs.7 – 11. The saga of Joseph takes a powerful turn, but it is only the beginning. Joseph insists they are spies. In their defense they have the gall to say they were “honest men.” How utterly ironic. Joseph proceeds to engage in various moves not to get vengeance but to test his brothers who still had no clue they were dealing with their own flesh and blood. Joseph confines them to prison for three days. Then he comes to them with a deal, vs.18 – 27. You can’t miss the weight of guilt which has emerged from the shadows of their past. Their telltale hearts are beating loudly! But it gets worse. They open their sacks of grain and find all of their money. Now it appears they had stolen the grain! Note this in vs.26 – 28.   

Their question in v.28 is a good one. “What is this that God has done to us?” Was God, along with Joseph, being vengeful? No! These men needed to be confronted with their guilt. They needed an awakened conscience. They needed to admit what they had done to Joseph, their father and others even though it was many years ago. They needed to repent. This isn’t vengeance because God or Joseph could have ended their lives easily and had their revenge. God and Joseph don’t want blood, they desire change. And there is a glimmer of hope concerning this needed change. Their comment about what God had done to them is the first time these men mention God. They are showing signs of understanding that what they had done to Joseph and others was foremost a series of sins against God. It was really grace in action that we are seeing in this chapter. It’s what John Newton wrote: “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear!” Their guilt – their telltale hearts – were leading them to the exact place they needed to be so they could be set free from the bondage of guilt. And how our culture, including some within the Christian faith, need to understand the value of guilt. When understood biblically, various facts about guilt come to light. One such fact is that guilt is not our enemy.  

Guilt is Not Our Enemy 

Society hates guilt. Some churches do as well insisting that we should as Christians be all about love and acceptance since they say, “God is love.” So, they avoid sermons which would make anyone feel uncomfortable meaning guilt-producing. Now, God is love but part of the role of God’s Spirit is said to be that He will “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). Jesus said that! To “convict” is to make one what? Guilty! Love and guilt then, are not opposed. They gloriously complement each other. Indeed, God’s love demands the use of guilt. Sinners must be made aware of their sins and since all of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard of righteousness, then all of us will feel guilty on a regular basis. Guilt is therefore good. But many fail to see this. For some folks I have encountered, guilt is a bad thing. Plus, if anyone makes you feel guilty then they are bad. They are narrow-minded or “haters.”  

But here’s the thing. Denying guilt doesn’t make it go away. Our culture’s answer to this is not to advise someone turn to God for forgiveness. Rather society has progressively taken more and more actions to redefine sin or do away with the idea of sin. What once was a sin is now seen as acceptable and something to applauded. I could give you a list of such things, starting with the last Sunday’s Superbowl half-time show but I bet you can come up with some on your own.

However, this denial approach doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t see people being any happier, more well-adjusted, and peaceful than in the past. Do you? Apparently, just denying guilt or redefining sin isn’t working and it never will. And this leads to another point. It is that guilt must be handled appropriately.  

Guilt Must be Handled Appropriately 

Now first, to appropriately handle guilt we need to distinguish between real and imagined guilt. It’s true that some of the guilt we experience isn’t of God. For example, some people use guilt to try to get others to do what they want. Some churches do the same. Sue and I suffered under a pastor like that. Every message left you thinking you were just bad; that nothing you could do would be acceptable to God. Sin was so emphasized that grace and forgiveness are afterthoughts at best. This is not real guilt.  

What then is real guilt? Real guilt is when we have violated God’s will as it is revealed in Scripture. When we lie, cheat, steal, use people, are willing to do about anything for a dollar, you should feel guilty. But if someone tries to get you to do something and manipulates you with saying, “If you care about me you will do this,” that isn’t real guilt. That kind of guilt you can dismiss recognizing that you are being played. But true, God-defined guilt you can’t dismiss. You can try to “stab it with your steely knife,” as the song says, “but you just can’t kill the beast” and you never will. Some try to get around good guilt by insisting they’re a good person.

Joseph’s brothers took this approach. When they first met Joseph and were accused of being spies, they said they were “honest men” (v.11). In fact, this vow that they are honest men flows through the chapter (vs.18, 31, 33). Given the trail of lies which have followed them for decades this is irony of the highest order. Or, maybe they were trying to cover up their sin with affirmations of self-defined honesty. They had not been good to Joseph or their father. They had lied over and over. But what if they were largely honest men? What if, in their business dealings and with their wives, children, and friends, they were mostly truthful in what they said? Would that atone for their sins? No! It didn’t matter at all. Guilt has seized them, and they cannot put their good deeds on one side of the scale of justice and their guilt on the other and come out with their guilt being banished from their minds. God’s moral order doesn’t work like that. Their goodness, like our goodness, does not cancel out our guilt. So, what does answer the need? Jesus does! Our guilt should always drive us to Christ.  

Our Guilt Should Always Drive Us to Christ 

The incredible fact is that God in His incomparable love dealt once-and-for-all with our guilt on the cross. When Jesus died, He died in part as a sacrifice for our sins. That means our sins can be forgiven. And if our sins are forgiven, what does that imply for our sense of guilt? It too can be banished! Guilt was created by God so that we would turn to Him for forgiveness.  

For example, Jesus used guilt on numerous occasions. In John 4, when a woman told Jesus she didn’t have a husband, He said, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly” (v.18). Her sin was exposed, and it drove her to find forgiveness. She is in heaven today because Jesus made her feel guilty! That’s love in action, right?  

But some are so hardened that even a strong sense of true guilt doesn’t help. I’m thinking of the account in the book of Acts where Paul is on trial for his faith. While in prison, he is permitted to defend himself before a powerful Roman ruler named Felix. In Acts 24 we find that Paul shared his faith in Jesus with Felix. The Bible says that Paul “was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come.” Then we read, “Felix became frightened and said, ‘Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you’ (vs.24 – 25). He never did confess his guilt and thus died in his sins.  

Two individuals, Felix and the woman at the well, were confronted with their sins. One finds forgiveness the other does not. But what about you? What does it take practically to deal with your guilt through Christ? The answers come from the experience I read about involving a university counselor. This man said over his years working with college student he faced many difficult disciplinary decisions. He said, “I’ve dealt with everything you can imagine… You name it, I’ve seen it.” From this he said he has learned two things. One is that everyone lies, and they lie all the time. Two, you can’t help a liar. You can help anyone struggling with any sort of sin as long as they tell the truth. The situation is made more difficult in that when caught the typical person confesses as little as possible. But one sign of true repentance and sorrow is when the student would tell you something you didn’t already know. If you already knew A + B + C, but the person adds D + E + F, you know their repentance is deeper than just “I’m sorry I got caught.” And so, it is with dealing with guilt. As long as we lie to ourselves that our sin isn’t that big of a deal, that everybody is doing it, or that someone is a hater because they challenge you about it, then such lies will assure that one’s guilt will only grow. But if you tell yourself the truth, listen to what God says and admit He is right and your actions were wrong, now you’re on the road to freedom. Be honest with God and finally silence that telltale heart.  

For Further Reading 

The Vanishing Conscience, John MacArthur