Facing our past - got a guilty conscience?

The scholars and commentaries tell us that from the time that Joseph's brothers sold him to the caravan as a slave, till the time that they saw him again as the prime minister of Egypt, was about twenty years. We know the Word says he was a boy of seventeen when they betrayed him, and then he was Pharaoh's second-in-command when he was thirty. We see that the seven good years have passed, and now we are getting into the famine years.

Would y'all do me a favor, and read two chapters this week? Thanks! Let's read Genesis 42 and 43 for this week of study!
Twenty years is a very long time for humans, right? In twenty years, you can get married and have kids; you can become wealthy and build an empire; you can be famous; you can do all kinds of cool stuff. You know what you can't do in twenty years?
Think on it.
What you can't do is to erase a guilty conscience. It's not like a VHS tape (oh, I AM old, aren't I?) or a CD or a computer drive or a phone. You can erase those and wipe 'em clean.
But a conscience?
That's a different thing altogether.
It's when our heart senses that we've done wrong. And everyone has one.
Unbelievers as well as believers.
Doesn't matter if you are educated or not, or if you're religious or not; doesn't matter where you are born, or where you are living.....If you are a human being, you have a conscience. God put it there. By design.
Most of the time, a conscience is a good thing. It can keep you out of trouble. But it's not infallible, like when we are saved and the Holy Spirit lives within us. I heard someone say that our conscience is like a traffic signal --  you can "run the red" if you want to, but you still know you've done something wrong!
But there's something we need to know about our consciences. It's possible, over a long period of time, to almost turn it off. If we go long enough and try hard enough, we can vanquish the voice of our conscience. We will no longer feel those pangs of guilt. What once seemed very wrong, won't feel so bad after that. Did it used to keep us awake at night? Did we blush with shame, or feel our heart almost stop with the guilt we felt? Those will hardly ever happen anymore, when our conscience is seared. Those bad deeds or thoughts will hardly ever enter our mind....

Joseph's brothers may have thought that the passage of time would remove their guilt, too. They'd not heard from him, or heard of him since they'd sold him to the Midianites. It had been quite some time now since they watched as the caravan pulled him away in chains - a slave on his way to Egypt. They probably assumed he was dead. Most slaves didn't have a very long lifespan. If their consciences bothered them from time to time, they had learned to think about something else. If they saw the sorrow on Jacob's face, they would quickly change the subject and talk about something else....how the flocks needed to be moved, or how many calves had been born. They'd learned to hide it. To cover it up.
They only spoke to Jacob occasionally about Joseph, and always in the past tense. They probably never spoke to each other about it, at all.
But Joseph isn't dead.
God made certain of that. In fact, hundreds of miles from them, in a sequence of events that is so fantastic it rivals a fairy tale, Joseph has risen to become the prime minister of Egypt. In a story that is so amazing no one could have dreamed it up, he has become the second more powerful man in the world of their time.
These brothers have no clue. But they will find out soon.
And God will awaken those guilty consciences. They will learn much about retribution. About possible revenge. About "payback."
They will learn, as we sometimes do today, that one can never go back to live in the past. And we can never change it. But sooner or later, we have to face it.
Probably some of the most-quoted Bible verses are those that talk about retribution. There's this one:

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. (Exodus 21:23-24)

And this one:

“But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23)

And this one, too:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)

It's almost time for the brothers to "reap" what they have sowed....
It's been nine years since the Pharaoh elevated Joseph to his position of authority - becoming second-in-command to the mightiest leader of the time. The seven years of plenty were indeed very plentiful. Now there is a vast and horrific famine gripping all the lands of the Middle East. Back in Canaan, Jacob hears that there is food in Egypt.
Please join me in re-reading Genesis 42 - 43 so that we can study this week. In your mind's eye, as you read, picture these brothers sent by Jacob, standing before Joseph. Joseph is attired in grand Egyptian garb, and speaks to them through an interpreter. They have no idea who he is.
But soon they will have to face their past.
They will have to face up to what they have done.
Stay tuned....this week is a blessing-packed study!