We have Joseph in Egypt.
All the right ingredients are there for sin.
He is around 17 years old.
His hormones are peaking.
Potiphar's wife is beautiful.
She has him alone in the house.
No one would ever know.
You know those things that maybe some of
you do when you're alone in the house
and no one sees.
And you know, Joseph again would have had
an excuse.
Just imagine this kid describing his life, his
troubles, his woes to a psychiatrist.
Imagine him telling about, you know, a psychiatrist,
now tell me about your mom.
Well, there were four moms in our family.
Well, I mean the one your dad was
married to.
Well, he had four wives.
Great big dysfunctional family.
First thing I remember is my Uncle Laban
chasing us, trying to kill us, and running,
and my mother hiding and stealing the family
gods from my Uncle Laban.
And my father settling with Laban, thinking we
were going to die and then being afraid
all night because we had a big hairy
uncle who was coming and we were thinking
he was going to kill us.
And my dad was sending us ahead with
the animals and dividing us into companies so
that if he killed everybody in one company,
the other company could flee.
Imagine a little kid with his eyes wide
open at night hearing these stories of Uncle
Harry, you know.
And then coming to Shechem and there my
sister Dinah was raped.
And my two older brothers, Simeon and Levi,
went and slaughtered an entire town, tricked them
into circumcising themselves, blasphemous thing.
And then slaughtered them all.
And then the Canaanites were pursuing us.
And my father was afraid and was yelling
at the family and said that we were
now stinking in the nostrils of the Canaanites.
And we were fleeing to Bethel, hoping God
would keep us safe.
And on the way, Deborah, my nursemaid, died
on the side of the road.
And then from there, my mother, Rachel, in
travail, screaming, giving birth to my brother, Benjamin,
hemorrhaged and died in front of my eyes
on the side of the road.
And we finally came to Hebron and settled.
My older brother still involved with idolatry, worshiping
other gods, hating my guts, throwing me into
a pit, selling me to the Ishmaelites.
I came to Egypt and they put me
on the auction block and sold me as
a slave.
People were bidding on me.
And here I am in Potiphar's house and
I do my best.
And now his wife is chasing me.
By now the psychiatrist would have jumped out
the window.
You know, this is a kid with excuses,
you know.
I mean, we have somebody like this in
the church that sins and we sit around
with the pastoral staff and say, well, you
know, they really have a lot of baggage.
I mean, they're really struggling.
You know, look at Joseph.
I mean, he doesn't have a New Testament.
He doesn't have a church that he goes
to on Sundays and Wednesdays.
He doesn't have all of the benefit that
we have.
And yet he says, how can I do
this great evil and sin against Potiphar and
sin against God?
It is a great evil because it's a
sin against the human beings that are involved
whose lives are attached to this.
And it is a sin against God.
And he takes away all of our excuses.
For every single guy in this church that
comes to me and says, oh, lust is
such a struggle and I keep falling, I
can produce hundreds of single guys who are
committed to Jesus, who are not compromising.
For every husband or wife that comes in
here griping about their partner, I can produce
families that have cancer.
There's tremendous suffering that are faithful to Jesus,
that are enduring.
For every selfish, self-centered, sinning believer, we
can produce, thank God, hundreds and hundreds that
are committed to Jesus, enduring their hardship.
We have no excuses.
It is great evil, sexual sin.
It is a sin against God.
And it is a sin against the human
beings that are involved.
Joseph said, how can I do this great
wickedness, verse 9, and sin against God?
It came to pass as she spake to
Joseph day by day, she was trying to
wear him down, that he hearkened not unto
her to lie with her, and notice this,
not even to be with her in the
house.
Now, let me tell you something.
Here's the clue.
If you have a problem with alcohol, don't
go into the bar.
I mean, just kind of think about this.
Work it out in your mind.
You know, if you have a problem with
pornography, do not go into the magazine store
or, you know, just don't go there.
If you have a problem with a particular
thing, don't put yourself in the environment.
In fact, if you think you don't have
a problem, then definitely don't put yourself in
the environment, because the Bible says, take heed
when you think you stand, lest you fall.
Joseph wasn't even putting himself in the environment
even to lie with her or to be
with her.
But it came to pass about this time
that Joseph went into the house, probably looked
around, see if she was there, to do
his business, and there was none of the
men of the house there within.
No doubt she had sent them all out.
And she caught him by his garment, saying,
lie with me.
And he left his garment in her hand
and fled and got him out of there.
That is good advice.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is
run.
You know, sometimes if you think, because here's
the problem.
Sometimes if we play with sin in our
heart, what we do is we rehearse it
and we rehearse it and we rehearse it.
And the idolatry is already there.
And all of a sudden we find ourselves
in this situation.
We really don't have to think.
All we do is act out what we've
been rehearsing in our minds.
Someone has gotten you angry and you're bitter
at them, and you think, if I ever
get that guy alone, you know, and in
your mind you think, ah, boom, ah, two
left hooks, you know, on the ground, I'll
jump on them, you know.
And you rehearse it, rehearse it, rehearse it.
And then when you get in the confrontation,
you don't have to do much thinking because
you've already rehearsed it over and over again.
And it was sin then.
Sometimes the best thing to do is turn
around and run.
Put one foot in front of the other.
The Bible says, flee youthful lusts without leaving
a forwarding address.
And that's what Joseph does.
He gets himself out of there.
But it came to pass when she saw
that he had left his garment in her
hand and had fled forth, that she called
unto the men of the house and spake
unto them, saying, See, he, now she's speaking
a part of her husband in a very
derogatory sense.
So we get an idea of how much
she respects him and how she treats him.
He hath brought in a Hebrew, a Hebrew,
the Egyptians detested shepherds, a Hebrew unto us
to mock us.
He came into me to lie with me,
and I cried with a loud voice.
And it came to pass when he heard
that I lifted up my voice and cried
that he left his garment with me, and
he fled and got him out of here.
You know, this is an interesting hell hath
no fury like a woman's scorn.
She is mad.
She has tried to seduce him and seduce
him and seduce him and seduce him.
Finally, she thinks she's got him.
She's got the setup.
The guys are out of the house.
She grabs him by that little Egyptian skirt
they used to wear, and Joseph is out
of the skirt, and she's there holding this
little thing in his hand.
I don't know what he had on, but
he is out of there.
And she's angry.
Nobody turns me off like that.
And it came to pass when he heard
that I lifted up my voice, Joseph, verse
15, she says, heard me screaming, that he
left his garment with me and fled and
got him out of here.
And she laid up his garment by her
until his Lord, till Potiphar came home.
And she spake unto him according to these
words, saying, The Hebrew servant which thou hast
brought unto us came in unto me to
mock me.
And it came to pass as I lifted
up my voice and cried, that he left
his garment with me and fled out.
And it came to pass when his master
heard the words of his wife, which she
spake unto him, saying, After this manner did
thy servant to me, that his wrath was
kindled.
Now, it doesn't tell us against who.
I get the feeling that he may be
mad at his wife, mad at the situation.
He is the head executioner, and if you
try to rape the head executioner's wife, you
normally end up with your head cut off.
But he will take Joseph and put him
in the king's prison, not a regular dungeon.
And Joseph ends up being the head running
everything that is there.
And when the chief baker and the butler
are brought from Pharaoh, it says the captain
of the guard, look down in verse 4,
in the next chapter, chapter 40, see where
it says the captain of the guard charged
Joseph with them?
We'll look back in 39 verse 1.
Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar,
an officer of Pharaoh's notice, and captain of
the guard.
So the captain of the guard that gives
Joseph a place of responsibility in prison is
Potiphar.
And I think Potiphar realized the way his
wife was.
I don't think this was a surprise to
him.
If you've got a partner that is unfaithful
and being unfaithful, you know it in your
heart.
I mean, the sad thing is we'll see
couples, and they know it, but because they
want to think the best, they overlook some
earmark of infidelity.
And then it goes a little further, and
then they overlook, and then they overlook.
And finally when it erupts and it comes
into the light, usually the innocent party says,
I feel so stupid all along.
You know, I saw this, and I saw
that, but I was giving them the benefit
of the doubt.
I think Potiphar knew his wife well.
I think he was angry at the entire
situation because he lost the best servant he
had ever had, and God, it says, was
blessing his house and his field because of
Joseph.
So his wrath is kindled, and Joseph's master
took him and put him into the prison,
a place, notice, where the king's prisoners were
bound, and he was there in the prison.
But notice, but the Lord was with Joseph
and showed him mercy.
I'd be thinking by now, enough mercy already,
you know, and gave him favor in the
sight of the keeper of the prison.
And the keeper of the prison committed to
Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were with
him in the prison, and whatsoever they did
there, he was the doer of it.
The keeper of the prison looked not to
anything that was under his hand, because the
Lord was with Joseph, with him, and that
which he did, Joseph did, the Lord made
it to prosper.
So Joseph now finds himself in the exact
same situation he was in Potiphar's house.
There he was faithful, Potiphar saw the Lord
was blessing him, and Potiphar knew nothing that
was in his hand.
He committed everything to Joseph, except the food
that he did eat.
Now we have the keeper of the guard
of the prison doing exactly the same thing.
He trusts Joseph, he sees the Lord is
with him, and once again he's committed everything
to Joseph.
But Joseph now, you know, is going to
face a dilemma, because before, when he was
sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites and
brought down to Egypt and sold on the
auction block, he found himself a slave in
Potiphar's house, and in that circumstance he could
look to his ten older brothers and say,
those guys are louses, you know, they really
stabbed me in the back, they sold me,
you know, and just say, you know, Lord,
are you getting those?
What about when I get out?
Lord, you know, I get back to my
dad, and you know, they probably made up
some story.
He doesn't know what they said.
They probably made up some story and told
my dad, and you know, Lord, you know,
but now, because he serves the Lord and
does what's right, he now is thrown into
prison for doing what's right, not for doing
what's wrong, for doing what's right.
And now in this circumstance, he can no
longer say, it was my brother's fault.
Now he has to look to heaven and
say, Lord, this is your fault.
I did what was right.
I refused sexual sin, and she was beautiful,
Lord, and she chased me day after day
after day after day, and I fled out
of the situation, and Lord, now I get
thrown in prison?
It's unfair, isn't it?
And I think there are times that we
struggle with this concept of unfair, because we
have this general consensus, this general philosophy, and
I think it's generally a good way to
live, that if we do what's right and
we serve God, that we will be blessed,
and that evil people, people who do what's
wrong, will suffer the consequences.
But when life throws us a curveball, and
we do what's right and we serve God,
and then we end up suffering for it,
then we're sitting around thinking, this is not
fair, and we want to take God to
the courthouse in the sky called fairness, and
we're going to bring him before the bench,
and we're going to accuse him before the
judge there, and say, this is not fair.
God is a fair God, but he's doing
in my life what is not fair, and
somebody needs to talk to him about it.
Because of that, I am in prison.
And again, all of us are prisoners.
Before we were saved, we were prisoners to
darkness, to Satan, and to the world, to
emptiness.
We thought we were making up our own
mind, that we were open-minded individuals, that
we were making our own choices, not realizing
that everything that was handed to us was
handed to us on the menu.
Maybe we had five choices, but we didn't
make up the menu.
You can be like this, you can be
in the rap music, you can be in
alternative music, you can be in this music,
you can do this, you can do that,
you can take this drug, this drug, or
that drug, you can go to clubs, you
can do this, you can do that, you
can wear these clothes, you can wear these
clothes, you can like sports, you can do
this.
We were eating off the menu.
The styles were being set for us by
outside forces, the morals were being set for
us by outside forces.
We were prisoners of the world and of
the emptiness that is there and of the
futility of it.
So it's much better now to be the
prisoners of Christ, prisoners of His grace and
of His love, prisoners of His sovereignty and
His plan for our life, even if we
don't understand it all the time, than it
was to be prisoners of Satan and of
the world.
Paul, remember again, saying that in Ephesians 3
.1 and Ephesians 4.1 and 1 Timothy
chapter 1 around verse 8, that he was
the prisoner of Christ.
He didn't consider himself ever the prisoner of
Rome, ever.
He considered Rome his prisoner.
Paul thought that all of Rome was chained
to his hand.
He said, this is great, they can't get
away from me.
I have a captive audience.
I preach the gospel to guards every six
hours.
They bring in a new guy and I
share Christ with them and he can't get
away from me.
It's a preacher's dream.
And his perspective of life was Rome is
chained to me and can't get away.
I'm the prisoner of Christ, not the prisoner
of Rome.
And the Philippians, he says, don't worry about
me.
I'm here in Caesar's palace.
I'm in his household.
And some are preaching the gospel out of
contention, some out of strife, some out of
sincerity.
Why do I care as long as the
gospel gets preached?
And as he signs off again in Philippians,
he says, the saints here in Philippi greet
you, or the saints here in Rome greet
you, especially those of Caesar's household, the new
converts here, right in the palace.
The guards that have been chained to me,
the people here in the palace, they greet
you.
Joseph somehow, and I'm not sure how, as
I study his life and it's a joy
for me to come back and to, you
know, spend less time maybe with the commentaries,
just more time sitting with scripture, looking at
this man's life, how remarkable that he endures
this seemingly great injustice, where probably many people
say, well, this is what I get for
serving God?
Forget it.
Why should I ever care about serving God?
This is what I get.
I say no to a beautiful woman, I
get thrown in prison for something I didn't
do.
Forget it.
There's none of that with him.
Remarkably, even in prison, he is faithful.
He is faithful to meet his responsibilities.
They notice that God is with him, that
he's a good steward, and they give him
responsibility there.
Came to pass after these things, chapter 40,
that the butler of the king of Egypt,
now this is the cup bearer.
This is a guy who was close to
Pharaoh because he would taste all of the
wine, and let me say this, it was
primarily beer in Egypt, he would taste all
of the beer and food that Pharaoh would
eat.
And Pharaoh would let him taste first to
see if it was poison.
If he fell over dead, then Pharaoh knew
he shouldn't eat it.
So when you have a guy that lays
his life on the line for you a
couple times a day, your meals, you get
close to this guy.
We have uncovered hieroglyphics from Egypt of a
professor in the University of Egypt who says,
my students are good for nothing.
All they do is carouse and drink beer.
So things haven't changed.
They could have been written this week.
Of course, and then they had brewmasters, it
was warm, there was no ice or anything,
but this cup bearer was involved in that.
Somehow he may have been a brewmaster, he
was the one who tasted the food before
Pharaoh ate.
And his baker, the one who was cooking
in the palace, they had offended their lord,
the king of Egypt.
There's some offense.
One of them, evidently something's going on, somebody's
told Pharaoh there's some kind of a clandestine
operation here, there's some kind of a scheme
to take your life, we're not sure who's
involved, so he throws them both into prison.
Pharaoh was wroth against the two of his
officers, against the chief of the butlers, that
is his cup bearer, and against the chief
of the bakers.
He put them inward into the house of
the captain of the guard into the prison,
the place where Joseph was bound.
And the captain of the guard, that's Potiphar,
charged Joseph with them, very important prisoners, political
prisoners.
And Joseph served them and they continued a
season inward in the prison.
And they dreamed a dream, both of them,
each man his dream in one night, each
man according to the interpretation of his dream,
the butler and the baker, the king of
Egypt, which were bound in the prison.
And Joseph came in unto them in the
morning and looked upon them, and behold, they
were sad.
And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with
him inward in his lord's house, saying, why
do you look so sad today?
Now this is a strange question to ask
people in prison, by the way.
But why do you look so sad today?
You know, Joseph saying, don't be filled with
self-pity, we're prisoners.
I don't know, this guy's pretty remarkable.
They said to him, well, we have dreamed
a dream, and there's no interpreter.
I mean, Joseph could have said, poor babies,
you mean you're bummed out because you dreamed
a dream and nobody can interpret.
Let me tell you my story.
You think you got reason to be depressed?
Listen to this.
No, he doesn't do any of that.
We did dream the dream, there's nobody to
interpret it.
Joseph says to them, do not interpretations belong
to God, not to astrologers or to God.
Tell me them, I pray you.
Now Joseph could have said dreams, forget it.
The last time I interpreted dreams, I got
sold by my brother, that's why I'm in
Egypt, I got involved with dreams.
Don't talk to me about dreams, I don't
hear nothing about dreams.
Isn't it remarkable that his relationship with God
is current?
Somehow, remarkably, again, he's prayed up, somehow remarkably
he is trusting God.
And I believe, by the way, Joseph is
struggling.
I believe there's bitterness.
I believe there's bitterness in the circumstance.
I don't believe he's bitter at God, but
I do believe he's feeling the bitterness of
the circumstance because he hasn't seen his father
now for 7, 8, 10 years, we don't
know how long.
And by the way, now as he interprets
these dreams, he's right up against 13 years
since he's been sold and carried away from
Canaan.
13 years, now he's wondering, is my dad
still alive?
Are my brothers still alive?
Who's still alive back home?
Imagine, imagine, I have four kids and a
wife that I love with all my heart.
I can't imagine governments changing and someone coming
and just taking me away and locking me
in a dungeon.
And 13 years never seeing to them, never
calling, never talking to them.
13 years wondering, are they grown?
You know, Joanna would be 31 years old.
Mikey would be 28 years old.
My kids, what are they like?
Are they alive?
Have they died in all of this too?
What is going on?
You have to imagine that is a bitter,
bitter circumstance.
And it says that he was the son
of his father's old age.
He loved Jacob.
13 years.
And I believe he's a little downhearted.
And now these two men come with these
dreams.
Joseph says, tell me the dreams.
Interpretations belong to God.
And the chief butler told his dream that
Joseph said to him, in my dream, behold,
a vine was before me.
In the vine there were three branches.
And it was as though it budded and
her blossoms shot forth and the clusters thereof
brought forth ripe grapes.
And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand.
And I took the grapes and I pressed
them into Pharaoh's cup and I gave the
cup into Pharaoh's hand.
And Joseph said unto him, well, this is
the interpretation of that God chose him.
The three branches are three days.
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up
thine head and restore thee to thy place
and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his
hand after the former manner when thou wast
a butler.
But think on me when it shall be
well with thee and show kindness, I pray
thee, unto me and make mention of me
unto Pharaoh and bring me out of this
house.
I think it's literally whole.
Bring me out of this holy dungeon.
Bring me out of this place.
For indeed, I was stolen away out of
the land of the Hebrews.
And here also have I done nothing that
they should put me in the dungeon.
Now notice this.
In verse 15 he doesn't say anything about
his lousy brothers.
He just says I was stolen away out
of the land of the Hebrews.
He doesn't bad mouth his brothers.
And here also have I done nothing that
they should put me in the dungeon.
He doesn't bad mouth Potiphar's wife.
It's remarkable that Joseph is still kind of
in awe looking at the circumstances saying, okay,
Lord, why did you let this happen to
me?
Why is this happening?
Recognizing God's sovereignty.
It's not his brother's fault now that he
is in this second imprisonment as it were.
When the chief baker saw that the interpretation
was good, he said to Joseph, I was
in my dream also.
Behold, I had three white basses on my
head.
Now this is what's happening.
They believed in Egypt that if someone had
the power to interpret a dream that he
was then in charge of or had the
power over that interpretation becoming a reality in
your life.
And because he heard Joseph interpret the cupbearer's
dream and it was a good interpretation, now
the baker says, oh, this guy is saying
good stuff.
So he says, well, let me tell you
my dream too.
You can give me the interpretation of it.
So he said, I had three white baskets
on my head.
And the uppermost basket, there was all kinds
of baked foods for Pharaoh.
And the birds did eat them out of
the basket that was on my head.
And Joseph answered and said, well, this is
the interpretation of your dream.
The three baskets again are three days.
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up
thy head, notice he adds, from off thee,
and shall hang thee on a tree, and
the birds shall eat thy flesh.
Thanks.
You know, he could have said, oh, this
is great news for you too, but remember
to get me out of here.
I mean, he doesn't, he's not trying to
please man even at this point in time.
God's given him the interpretation.
He doesn't twist it.
He doesn't maneuver it.
There's no manipulation with this kid.
He just tells him the truth.
He speaks it right out.
Tells him.
He's going to hang you on a tree,
and the birds are going to eat your
flesh from off of thee.
Now, we don't know what this guy did
to Pharaoh.
Maybe he made him a Caesar salad.
We're not sure what he did.
I'm going to tell him here.
Some of you will take a while.
You get that.
And it came to pass that the third
day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made
a feast unto all his servants, and he
lifted up the head of the chief butler,
his cup bearer, and of the chief baker.
The idea is he brings them up out
of prison among his servants.
Evidently, he lets them eat first at the
feast.
And he restored the chief butler unto his
butlership again, and he gave the cup into
Pharaoh's hand.
Just unbelievable.
Just as Joseph had said.
But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph
had interpreted to them.
And then, incredibly, yet did not the chief
butler remember Joseph, but forgot him.
Now, you know, I look at this, and
I think, let me read it.
Why don't you turn to Psalm 105.
You study the life of Joseph.
This is an important part of it.
Psalm 105.
To the right.
Only the table of contents is to the
left.
Psalm 105, verse 16, speaking of Joseph, it
says that God called for a famine upon
the land.
He broke the entire staff of bread.
Notice, he sent a man before them, even
Joseph, who was sold as a servant, as
a slave.
This is a 13-year trip, at least.
You know, it doesn't say that his brothers
hijacked him and sold him as a slave.
It says God sent Joseph before them into
Egypt.
And it's going to say to preserve life.
You know, doesn't God have a different perspective
on things than we do?
Gee, God, thanks for sending me here.
You know, I think of Paul, when he
finally got back to Jerusalem, and he preached
there, and a riot started.
And he's in the prison, and he's depressed
that night, and it says Jesus comes and
appears to him and stands with him.
And it says, Paul, don't sweat it.
You gave a great testimony.
And Paul says, I started a riot, you
know.
He's depressed, thought he blew his opportunity.
He said, no, you gave a good testimony.
Cheer up.
And now I'm sending you to Rome.
Man, you know, we have mission trips this
summer to Ireland.
How would you feel if Jesus spoke to
your heart and said, I'm sending you to
Rome?
You'd imagine Swiss Air, the Hilton in Rome.
God's sending me to Rome.
You know, the Bible says Paul went through
a Eurocliden.
That's a big storm.
He goes into a hurricane in the Mediterranean.
He gets shipwrecked.
This is God sending him to Rome.
Swimming to an island, floating on boards, getting
there, oh, God is sending me to Rome,
freezing.
He goes up by the fire to get
warm, and a snake jumps out of the
fire and bites his hand.
Ah, this is God sending me to Rome,
you know.
Well, this was God sending Joseph to Egypt.
God's just got a different perspective of what
happens along the way.
He sent a man before them, even Joseph,
who was sold as a servant.
Now notice, whose feet they hurt with fetters.
The Septuagint translates this, whose feet they humbled
with fetters.
Even, and he was laid in iron.
If you have a note in your column
there, it says his soul came into iron.
I like the old English prayer book because
it says that he put iron into his
soul.
You know, the beautiful, the picture that we're
getting, developing here is that God is fast
at work on the man because God had
showed him this dream initially, that his twelve
brothers and his father bowing down before him,
gave him the twelve shocks of grain, and
then the sun and the moon and the
stars.
But there's a difference between the man that
God tells will have others do obeisance to
him, and the man that's finally ready to
have people do obeisance to him.
There's a big difference between David, who's anointed
to be king of Israel, and when David
finally is the anointed king of Israel.
Years and years of preparation.
And Joseph now is humbled in fetters, iron
put into his soul, until the time that
his word came.
Now, this is the interpretation of Joseph's dream.
The word that God had spoken to him.
That's the way the grammar is.
Until the time that the word that came
to Joseph became a reality, it says, the
word of the Lord tried him.
That's a word that means to fuse metal,
to refine it, or to purge it, to
put it into the kiln.
Until the time that, remember this vision that
God had given to Joseph, and put it
in his heart.
Until the time that that became a reality,
that word of God, it says, refined him
and tried him.
Because here was Joseph in the prison thinking,
how does this relate?
In Potiphar's house, how does this relate?
God, you showed me this, you have this
wonderful plan for my life, and I didn't
ask for it.
And here I saw my brothers bowing down
before me.
You showed me, I thought it was the
place of the firstborn.
I didn't understand what it was, but Lord,
there was something there.
Something drew my heart to heaven.
Something drew my heart to the divine purposes
of your power that surround me.
And Lord, how does all of this fit
into this?
Now here I am in prison.
And it says, until that word came, or
became a reality, that that word was trying
him and refining him.
The king sent and loosed him, even the
ruler of the people, and let him go
free.
He made him lord over his house, and
ruler over all his substance, to bind his
princes at his pleasure, and to teach his
servants wisdom.
So Joseph now in this circumstance, we read
it here in Genesis, but we're told in
the Psalms that he was being humbled, that
his feet were hurt with fetters, that there
was a very difficult point in all of
this.
But that the truth was that God had
sent him.
The truth was that he was not his
brother's prisoner, or Potiphar's prisoner, or he wasn't
a prisoner in this prison house in Egypt.
He was God's prisoner.
Like Paul was God's prisoner.
Like John was God's prisoner on Patmos.
And like Daniel was God's prisoner carried away
to Babylon.
And like Ezekiel was God's prisoner by the
river Chebar in Babylon.
And like David was God's prisoner fleeing from
Saul all those years.
And like Elijah was God's prisoner sitting by
the brook Kareth and being fed by the
ravens.
And like Moses was God's prisoner for forty
years on the backside of the desert.
The divine hand of God was upon him
refining him, turning him into the man that
would be able to fulfill the vision that
God gave to him.
And I think we need to understand, and
again, God's sovereignty never removes our responsibility.
You know both of them are in the
Bible.
If you take a position, you've left God
something.
But it's wonderful when we're in difficulty and
we don't understand what God is doing, to
fall back and realize God is sovereign.
All of this is under his control.
And that he does love me and he
does care for me.
You know as we read through again the
Gospel, Jesus, Father I came to do thy
will.
Well, we read through there and Judas is
the one who betrays him into the hand
of the rulers.
Jesus when he prays in Gethsemane, he says
Father let this cup pass that you're giving
to me.
On the human side, Judas betrayed him.
On the divine side, it was a cup
the Father was giving to him.
It was the priests and the scribes and
Pilate that gave him up to be crucified.
Acts chapter 2 says it was by the
predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God that he
was offered.
And yes, there were injustices by Joseph's brother,
by Potiphar's wife, all of that is true,
but it tells us here it was God
that sent him.
And I think we have to remember that
if you are in prison and we are
all in prison to something, an injury that
took place in our hearts as we were
a child, sexually abused or alcoholic parents or
we're in prison to cancer now or to
illness or to a divorce or to a
depression or despondency.
We are all prisoners of one thing or
another as it were, but you can do
one of two things.
You can either realize in that situation that
Jesus is still Lord.
He has not fallen off the throne because
of the difficulty of our circumstance.
So we can either be His prisoner in
the circumstance or we can be the prisoner
of the circumstance and be bitter for the
rest of our lives and be wrangling and
if God loves me, why is this happening?
The idea is all of us, all of
us are charged to take up our cross
and follow Christ.
That means execution.
Paul said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live.
Not yet I, not yet I, but Christ
lives in me.
In the life that I now live in
the flesh, I live in the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself to
me.
Paul said, I don't have my life.
My life is not my own.
He says you're not your own, you're bought
with a price.
If you've given your life up, who cares
what's happening to you?
If your life is hidden Christ with God
and you've given your life up and it's
blood bought, I'm blood bought, I'm not my
own, and if you've relinquished everything to him,
then you're his prisoner.
But what better place to be than the
prisoner of Jesus?
Prisoner of his love and prisoner of his
power and prisoner of his forgiveness and his
sovereignty.
Prisoner of his shepherding care.
Prisoner of his ability to see the future
and to work on your behalf and to
console and to lead you or be prisoner
of all the injustices in life.
Joseph now is in this situation where he's
looking around thinking, I can't believe this.
This Chief Butler interpreted his dream for him.
Where is he?
But I believe that there's another dynamic taking
place and that's this.
Look, Joseph back in chapter 37, remember he
had those visions.
And I think God touched his heart and
God really put something supernatural into him that
was keeping him.
I think probably about this time when he's
in prison and he's getting a little bit
depressed, lo and behold, here comes the cupbearer
of Pharaoh and his chief cook and they
come to Joseph and say, we've had these
two dreams.
Can you interpret them?
God gives Joseph the interpretation of the dreams.
Joseph sees before his eyes those dreams come
to pass just the way God told him
they would.
And then Joseph is reminded, Lord, if you
have brought these two dreams to pass exactly
the way you told me they would come
to pass, certainly you will bring to pass
the two dreams you gave to me those
many years ago exactly as you told me
they would be fulfilled.
I think there was a great encouragement in
one sense at this time for Joseph.
I think it probably troubled him that he
could tell the chief cook and the chief
butler what would happen to them in the
next three days and he didn't know what
would happen in the next three days in
his own life.
God wasn't telling him what would happen next
week in his life.
But he had a vision.
He had something in his heart.
And yet it says now the chief butler
didn't remember Joseph, he forgot him.
And it came to pass at the end
of two full years.
Now imagine this.
The guy gets let out of prison.
Joseph is thinking this is it.
Made friends with the cupbearer.
He's restored.
He's next to Pharaoh.
And every time he hears the prison door
go ehhh, this is it.
I am out of here.
Say goodbye to me.
I'm out of here.
I'm getting out of here.
The cupbearer, he's my buddy.
I interpreted his dream.
He's next to Pharaoh.
He's telling Pharaoh, you're not going to see
me tomorrow.
I'm not going to be here.
This must have gone on day after day
after day.
Two years.
I'm sure these were the hardest two years
that Joseph experienced.
Because it's bad enough when somebody who doesn't
like you does something to you, but when
you help someone and then they forget about
you, that really causes a hajjadah.
Let me tell you something.
If Joseph had been released from prison right
after this butler got out, you know he'd
have gone home to Canaan.
And the famine would have come and destroyed
the known world.
And there would be no Israel.
There would be no tribe of Judah.
There would be no Messiah.
There would be no church.
There would be no Calvary Chapel in Philadelphia.
I think that God caused the butler to
forget Joseph.
Now you need to cook that around in
your head a little bit.
Because if you're mad at somebody in your
life who's forgotten about you, you need to
realize there is the outside chance that God
made them forget about you.
They may be walking around thinking, you know,
I feel like I'm forgetting something.
I don't know what it is.
Maybe God has just kind of zapped those
cells that you were in there in the
memory bank because he's wanting you alone a
little longer.
Maybe he's doing something in your life.
And that person, though they had good intention,
when they said, hey, anytime you need me,
just let me know.
Thanks for doing this.
I owe you one.
And you're thinking you owe me three.
And then they leave and they're gone.
They don't get no calls.
And you're thinking, I can't believe this.
There is the possibility that God has caused
them to forget about you.
Because by waiting two years, first of all,
Joseph knows it isn't by his political conniving
that he's getting released.
God wants his hands off of this completely.
It's not by his maneuvering that he will
get out of prison.
It's not because he's asked a favor.
It's because God in his time is raising
up a man to save the known world.
And because Joseph is raised up, Israel is
preserved.
And because Israel is preserved, Judah, the tribe,
continues.
And because the tribe continues, the Messiah is
born.
And because the Messiah is born, we're here
this evening.
I'm glad God waited two years.
Joseph wasn't happy.
I'm glad.
You know, and let me tell you something.
We think that God, you know, we get
in a situation, and I don't know where
you are this evening.
Maybe you think he's forgotten about you.
Maybe you think you get to the place
where God doesn't forget about anybody, but you
are the exception to the rule.
I know it says in the Bible, you
know, he never leaves a verse of Exodus,
but he wrote that before I was born.
You know, I know, we get those feelings.
No, wherever we are, and I was reminded
of this story.
I'm going to read this to you.
And it just is a reminder to me
that God will reach us wherever we are.
I read it in the morning services.
Some of you heard it.
Chuck Missler, by the way, got a hold
of this letter from a ministry called Compass
Direct.
It was written by a dying prisoner in
the Chinese Logai prison system.
The letter was written to this man's mother,
but he refused to mail it because he
thought the censors would tear it up.
So he gave it to a friend of
his who was a prisoner who had four
more years to serve, and at the end
of those four years, they didn't release that
prisoner.
So he gave it to a guard that
he had become friendly with.
The guard gave it to a friend of
his that was a soldier that came past
the prison.
The soldier carried the letter to Tibet and
gave it to his mother, and his mother
got it to the mother of the prisoner
who wrote it five years after it was
written and three years after the prisoner died.
This is the letter.
O my mother, my dear mother, I have
not been a good son.
I have brought disgrace upon you and all
the family.
I hope that you can forgive me.
I am dying.
You brought me up to be a good
boy.
You gave me food, love, and affection.
What did I do to repay you?
I painted an anti-government slogan on the
wall, and I got life imprisonment.
Life imprisonment when my life was only eighteen
years old.
You raised me for more than this, and
I am sorry.
And now your son is thirty-one.
He will not live past thirty-three.
I have cancer of the intestines, and my
jailers will not pay for an operation.
Now, instead of working underground in the mine,
I mined a tiny storage shed full of
rusty tins and tools.
I fetch them all day long.
No one comes near, but at least I
can look out over the desert and watch
the shifting of the sands.
For eight years I never saw sunlight.
I was taken from the barracks through a
tunnel into the mine.
A room and a corridor and a shaft
were all the world that I had.
And now my world is bigger, but it
is coming to an end.
There is no hope.
And so I have sat on my stool
and thought for many hours.
I have cried many tears, mostly for the
things that I never did and can never
do.
I have never kissed a woman.
I have never some other woman much as
owned a toothbrush.
I have never received a paycheck, never ate
a gourmet meal, never built a kite for
an excited child.
Above all that, I never said how much
I owed you, never said how sorry I
am to grieve you until now.
Boys are not meant to bring their mothers
such sorrow, otherwise no one would have them.
I have come to two conclusions.
One is this, that this is not the
only world there is.
I cannot believe that I went through the
miracle of birth to live a life like
this and to die a death like this.
I believe that there is another world where
there is a table that I can choose
to sit at and I can sip the
finest wines and I can eat until my
heart is content.
I can make friends with whomsoever I please
and I can speak without fear and not
be marched off when the half-hour gong
is sounded.
And I also believe there is someone there
who is also here who sits at the
head of that table.
A fellow prisoner told me of such a
one who said, ìMy yoke is easy and
my burden is light.
I do not know all that that means.
All I can say is that when I
heard the words I felt a great relief
that my death was not the end of
my life.î So my dying charge to
you, Mother, is to find out who spoke
those words so that we may dine together
again with him.
There is nobody outside of Godís reach.
There is nobody who is outside the ministry
of a spirit in whatever prison we may
be in.
There is no human life that he uses
or takes for granted.
I think of Golda Meir and how God
raised her up to be part of the
reestablishment of the nation of Israel.
In the meantime there was a doctor in
Europe, a famous neurologist who was in a
bad car accident.
He got amnesia, lost his practice, lost his
mind for a time and somewhere in the
process he became a born-again Christian and
God began to restore his mind and his
practice, Dr. Larry Samuels.
He was called to the bedside of Golda
Meir before she died and shared Jesus Christ
with her.
At her funeral, Menachem Begin and Dr. Larry
Samuels stood by her coffin.
I hope he writes a book someday.
He has been asked and he said, ìI
wonít say yet what you want me to
say, but let me say this.î She
had a dramatic spiritual experience before she died.
God is faithful.
There are times when certainly we donít know
what heís doing.
Letís end in Job chapter 23.
Itís to the right.
Itís a passage that you should know.
We shared it this morning.
Job chapter 23, ìAnd Job answered and said,
ìEven today is my complaint bitter.î I
think Jobís complaint was bitter.
I donít think he was bitter at God,
but I think it was a bitter circumstance.
ìMy stroke is heavier than my groaning.
Oh, that I knew where I might find
him, that I might come even to his
throne, his seat.
I would order my cause before him and
fill my mouth with arguments, with reasonings.
I would know the words which he would
answer me and understand what he would say
unto me.
Will he plead against me with his great
power?
No, but he would put strength in me.
There the righteous might dispute with him.
So should I be delivered forever from my
judge.
Behold, I go forward, but he is not
there, backward, but I cannot perceive him.
On the left hand, where he doth work,
but I cannot behold him.
He hideth himself on the right hand, and
I cannot see him, but he knoweth the
way that I take.
And when he hath tried me, I shall
come forth as gold.
My foot hath held his steps, his way
have I kept and not declined.
Neither have I gone back from the commandment
of his lips.
I have esteemed the words of his mouth
more than my necessary food.
But he is in one mind, the idea
is, he is the one who chooses.
And who can turn him?
And what his soul desires, even that he
does.
Interesting.
For he performeth the thing that is appointed
for me.
And many such things are with him.
Job says, you know, I don't understand what
he's doing right now.
I've kind of lost track of him.
It's hard for me to reconcile his goodness
and his love with the pain that's in
my life.
I move forward, and I don't sense him
there.
I move backward.
I don't sense his presence.
I don't perceive him.
I see his work happening on my left
hand, but him I can't find, and on
my right hand.
And yet I can't discover his presence.
I'm in this quandary.
And yet I know that when I am
tried, I'll come forth as gold.
I've kept his word.
I haven't turned away from his ordinances, esteemed
the words of his mouth more than my
necessary food.
He's the one who decides.
No one can turn him from that.
And I know that he is keeping me
in the way that is appointed for me.
Many such things are with him.
Isn't it remarkable?
Though we may not perceive him, though we
might not understand, Job says, I know he's
in front of me.
I know he's alongside me.
I know he's behind me.
But I also know that he will keep
me.
Yes, right now I don't understand what he's
doing.
But I know that he loves me.
And I'm falling back on what I do
know.
And I know there's an appointed way for
me.
And I know that I'm never in prison,
because I'm always on that journey.
I'm never trapped.
I'm always moving.
I'm always on a path.
I encourage you tonight, whatever your heartache is,
he hasn't forgotten you.
Men may forget you.
God cannot forget.
I am thankful that he can choose not
to remember.
That's much different than forgetting.
Because he has chosen to remember our sins
and our iniquities no more.
He never forgets us.
But he has chosen never to remember our
sins and iniquities again.
So he sets his affection on us fully.
He sees us in Christ.
Justified, sanctified, glorified, finished.
And he never forsakes us.
He never leaves us.
It is the great difficulty on our end
sometimes to harmonize why a God of love
would allow some of the difficulties that are
in our lives to come.
And no doubt there will be some unanswered
questions in all of our lives.
That is the purpose of faith.
The greatest unanswered question is why would he
ever give his son for us?
That's the greatest unanswered question.
Why would he ever set his love upon
us?
All other unanswered questions are lesser.
But there will be those no doubt that
we bear, that we carry, because he gives
us strength, because we believe.