Well, I'm glad to be here, finally.
I am sure I owe to the leaders
of this conference and to you people in
this congregation a profound apology for the terrible
mistake I made.
It's the first mistake I think I ever
made in my life, but somehow I got
my calendar all mixed up, and last Saturday
evening when I thought, in fact I just
said to my wife, what a day this
has been.
It was nice.
I had nothing special on.
It was rotten weather outside, so we stayed
in and just enjoyed it.
And I said, this is a nice way
to get ready for the Lord's Day.
And then all of a sudden the telephone
bell rang.
And on the other end of the line
was our brother Erickson, and he made the
announcement that I was due here the next
morning.
I was in New Jersey at that time.
Well, I was stunned, I can assure you.
Absolutely stunned.
And I'm sorry.
I don't know whether it's worse to be
where you ought to be, or to be
where you're not supposed to be.
On one occasion I got into a church,
well not very long ago, and this time
it wasn't really my fault.
I sat down in the meeting, and pretty
soon a brother tapped me on the shoulder,
and he said, are you just visiting, or
did you come here to speak?
I said, I think I'm supposed to speak,
but do you have a special speaker?
He said, yes.
I said, put him on.
I'll enjoy him.
So I don't know which is the worst
thing, but I apologize indeed for all the
mix-up.
We had to leave a missionary conference on
our campus.
We have some, I think, 30 missionary agencies
and groups with their representatives challenging the students
on campus today and throughout the rest of
this week to consider God's plan and purpose
for their lives.
And I had to really sneak out.
They don't know I'm here.
They won't find it out until tomorrow morning.
And then I'm too far away to do
anything about it.
But at any rate, it's great to be
here, and I appreciate your prayers for us.
We don't understand always some of the events
that take place in our lives, little things,
sometimes big things, sometimes potentially dangerous, sometimes really
just mere peccadilloes that don't matter very much.
They're just irritants, but the whole bundle of
life is made up that way.
And when we were all set, ready to
go to the airport yesterday morning, bags packed,
all set, in just a little while they'd
be calling for us, take us to the
airport, all of a sudden I heard a
terrible noise.
And when I looked down to the foot
of the stairs, there lay my wife on
the floor.
She had fallen the entire distance from the
second floor to the first.
And when I rushed down, she made the
first announcement, I can't move.
I can't move.
And I immediately imagined the worst possible scenario,
that maybe she was paralyzed.
And in one awful moment, you try to
put all those pieces together, and you try
to write the future out when you have
no business to do that.
God has the future in his hands, and
he knows what he's doing for sure.
And we found that out.
But you know, so of course we had
to postpone coming yesterday, but today I gave
her the choice.
I said, would you like to stay home
and I'll go alone?
No way.
After all, she has solid Plymouth Brethren stock.
And add to that British stubbornness.
You know, put the two together, it makes
a marvelous combination of things.
And so she said, no way, I'm going
with you.
So I'm very grateful that she's here tonight.
I thank you for praying for her.
Hasn't been too pleasant a day, but hour
by hour we believe the Lord is working
on our behalf there.
And I appreciate our brother Woodhouse speaking in
my assigned spots here.
I was thinking as I sat here on
the platform, when I was a young student
in seminary, I was ordained eventually in a
little Baptist church way down the southern part
of the state in New Jersey, in the
salt marshes down there.
Really quite swampy area.
Backwoodsy kind of a situation.
This was a small little Baptist church, but
even then they were fighting the battle against
the encroaching modernism, we called it then the
liberalism, in the American Baptist Convention.
And so we had a great, well they
said it was great, ordination service.
There were 90 men present, and they were
evenly divided between liberals and fundamentalists.
And I was the victim in between, you
see.
I was the guy who was being ordained,
so they had a lot of fun working
me over and had a chance to get
at one another.
But I preached in that little church for
a while, and back in the country, farther
back, there was a small, very small, Negro
church.
And once a year, we were invited from
the, what they called the big white church,
to come for a service.
And it was an interesting service, I can
assure you.
It lasted a long time.
If I ever wanted to get my people
to stop criticizing me for being so long
-winded, I always invited them all to come
to that service, because it sometimes lasted four,
five, six hours.
They're those that are tired and quit.
And the second reason I think they had
us there was they always took a good,
big, fat offering, and these white folks came
very generously.
And that was the first time I got
interested, or introduced to the practice that the
offering isn't big enough, you just take another
one, until you keep, and if you have
to, you get a third one until you've
got enough money in there to satisfy you.
And this brother, he always had at least
two offerings.
But I shall never forget how he introduced
me.
And he said something like this, Brethren, we
have had preachers of the highest rank, and
we have had preachers of the lowest rank,
but this and the rankest preacher we have
ever had in this church.
There's a great way to get started.
Rankest preacher.
Well, I hope I don't qualify for that
title this week.
I can imagine that that must have been
a very emotional meeting that occurred in Pharaoh's
palace when Joseph's brethren, who by now knew
who their brother was, and their conscience was
stricken as they remembered what they had done
to him earlier in his life, when they
realized that now, all of a sudden, they
were candidates for vengeance.
Their father has died, and let me let
the Bible tell the story the way it
does.
It says that when Joseph's brethren saw that
their father was dead, they said, Joseph will
peradventure hate us.
And he certainly had a lot of cause
for doing that.
Hate them.
And he will certainly requite us all the
evil which we did unto him.
And that's sound logic.
They knew they were right in that.
So they sent a messenger to Joseph saying,
My father did command before he died.
Now, you know, I believe in the inspiration
of the Bible, but I think some people
told lies, and those lies are recorded in
the Bible, too, just as faithfully as truths
are recorded in the Bible.
And I think these fellows were lying.
And they were working Joseph over a little
bit by saying, this is what our father
said on his deathbed.
How are you going to prove that he
did or didn't?
His father was dead.
It was their word, and their word only.
But it's just too pat, too nice to
satisfy me.
Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive, I
pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren
and their sin.
For they did unto thee evil, and now
we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the
servants of the God of thy father.
Please forgive us.
We're sorry.
And don't forget your father commanded that you
do this when he was dying.
And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
And his brethren also went and fell down
before his face, and they said, Behold, we
be thy servants.
And Joseph said to them, What a blessed
word it was.
Fear not.
Don't be afraid.
You think that I'm going to reach vengeance.
I'm going to get even with you.
You can dismiss that from your mind once
and for all.
Don't be afraid.
For am I in the place of God?
But as for you, you thought evil against
me.
But God meant it unto good to bring
to pass as it is this day to
save much people alive.
Now therefore, fear ye not.
I will nourish you and your little ones.
And he comforted them and spake kindly unto
them.
I'm impressed by Joseph's reaction and interpretation of
what had happened to him in the past.
And there is a comment from the Psalms
that is most illuminating on this whole situation.
The psalmist wrote in the 105th Psalm these
words.
He sent a man before them.
He's reciting a little bit of Israel's history,
and he chooses this episode.
He sent a man before them, even Joseph,
who was sold for a servant whose feet
they hurt with fetters.
He was laid in iron until the time
that his word came.
The word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him, even the
ruler of the people, and let him go
free.
Now, hidden in our authorized version of the
Bible is a meaning that rises out of
the Hebrew word that was used by the
psalmist that I think sheds a little more
light on what happened to Joseph in his
prison experience.
It says that he was laid in iron
until the time that God's word came.
The word of the Lord tried him.
And in the Hebrew, it is the word
refined him.
The word of the Lord refined him.
And I'd like to bring before you this
evening two or three, maybe, snapshots of this
man, Joseph.
His life is full of suggestions and full
of typology and symbolism.
He's a great, outstanding type of our Savior,
the Lord Jesus.
But I select just one or two snapshots
of Joseph's life to show you what happened
to him.
The psalmist said that the word of the
Lord came to Joseph when he was in
prison, and it, our authorized version says, tried
him.
Hebrew says, refined him.
Now, first of all, the very first little
picture I want you to see is Joseph
at home when he was a young boy,
certainly needing refinement.
You know, he enjoyed a special distinction.
He was especially beloved of his father.
And his father didn't disguise this in any
way.
He had a lot of brothers.
If you're raised in a large family, that
can be a blessing, and it can be
another kind of a thing, too.
And he had some brothers who didn't like
this special favor that was shown to their
brother Joseph.
And I have a feeling, when you read
the divine record, that Joseph himself must have
contributed to a feeling of superiority and pride
among his own brethren, added to which he
was always dreaming about his greatness.
You remember the dreams he told.
And they must have rubbed his brothers the
wrong way.
This kid, this kid brother of ours, he
comes along and he says, he's going to
be number one, and we're going to be
under him.
He's going to be on top.
We're going to be underneath.
And so, as Joseph recites his dreams to
his brothers, he certainly contributed to the feelings
of superiority that he must have exhibited.
He was a spoiled brat, really.
Really, he was that.
I don't know whether, you know, how many
children you have in your family.
If you only have one, maybe you can
be forgiven for spoiling them.
But if you have more than one, you
can't always afford to spoil them, because you've
got to divide what you've got between them.
Well, if you were an older child, do
you ever remember complaining to your parents, do
you know that you let him get away
with what you never let me get away
with?
Eh?
You used to give it to me, let
me tell you, and I did half what
he did, or she did.
Just because they're so young, maybe they're your
special favorite, you let them get away with
murder.
And we have four boys in our family.
We don't have any girls.
We decided that maybe the best thing to
do is choose your own girls.
You can go out there and pick out
what you want.
But with boys, you take them as they
come.
Now, our youngest, I guess he was spoiled.
I'm sure he is.
What?
His.
Both.
And I remember one Christmas morning.
Our other kids were all gathered around, and
they already had plunged into the Christmas gifts
and toys, and they were having a wonderful
time.
And this little guy, I guess he was
maybe only, what, six or seven.
My wife could verify this at the time.
And he had a coat, a night coat,
you know.
And it was many colors, a lot of
colors.
And as he came down the stairs to
get his present, we overheard one of his
brothers say, Hi, Joey.
How are you?
Joey.
Now, you have to know your Bible to
know the significance of that.
From their point of view, he was Joseph,
a little brat.
Look at him.
He is spoiled beyond belief.
Well, I think Joseph was that way, too.
And he needed some refinement before he could
fulfill the purpose that God had in mind
for him.
And that refinement was a costly process, as
the word reveals.
And so, our first little glimpse of Joseph
is in his home, needing some special refinement
of personality.
Now, the rest of the story of how
he got to where he was, and how
he finally wound up in prison, I must
leave to you.
You know it well.
But I'd like you to think about him
when he was in prison.
What was happening to him?
It was a long way down from the
high and exalted position he had enjoyed.
Now, he's a prisoner.
He had had prosperity, unbelievable prosperity.
The word of God says, whatever he put
his hand to, God blessed him in it.
And he was a prosperous man.
All of a sudden, he finds himself in
prison.
His feet are bound with iron chains.
And he's in need now of some real
inward spiritual going over by God.
He must have asked himself a hundred times
over, why has this happened to me?
Maybe I'm speaking tonight to some of you
who are in a time of your life
when you've experienced unusual difficulties and trials.
I can't imagine, as I look out over
this audience and see how much snow there
is on the roof, and how many shingles
are missing.
And this audience, this crowd, have gone through
all kinds of experiences in life, and I
cannot for a single moment imagine that you
haven't gone through deep waters from time to
time.
And there may be in your mind a
question.
You say, have I a right to question
God?
Some people think that it's wrong for doubts
to rise in a Christian's heart.
I'm not so sure that I agree with
that.
We're human.
And it's very easy for us to doubt
that God is really mindful of us, particularly
when we're going through a time of discouragement,
despondency, despair.
And we have to recognize that this may
be a refining process.
Maybe God is putting you to the test,
especially at this time, or maybe it's happened
only recently.
George Whitefield, the English evangelist, once wrote this,
and I quote him.
He says, I remember some years ago I
went into a glass house, and standing very
attentively, I saw several masses of burning glass
of various forms.
The workman took a piece of glass and
put it into one furnace, then he put
it into a second, and also into a
third.
And I said to him, why do you
put this glass through so many fires?
He answered, oh sir, the first was not
hot enough, nor the second, and therefore we
put it into a third, and that will
make it transparent.
And so sometimes God has to put us
through a series, a succession of trials.
Not merely one, but a succession of trials
too.
That which is human in us often asks
the Lord to relieve us from the discomfort
we're experiencing in the time of testing, or
change the circumstances round about us.
It takes a high degree of spirituality to
say, Lord, I'm not asking you to change
anything.
I'm not asking you even to deliver me
from this trial through which I'm passing.
If this is where you have put me,
by your sovereign choice, I'm content to be
here, and I want you to fulfill what
you have in your mind and heart in
my life.
Whatever it costs, I say it takes a
high degree of spirituality and maturity to come
to that point and make that kind of
judgment.
We had a ladies' prayer meeting one time.
Well, a lot of times, but I mean
this one particular time.
My wife came home and said, what do
you think one of the ladies in our
church prayed for today?
I have many ideas.
She said, Lord, at this moment, right now,
by faith I claim it, right now, at
this very moment, let everybody in the world
be healed.
Let everybody in the world be delivered from
pain.
Let everybody in the world, the whole world,
be happy.
Can you imagine praying like that?
Well, she did, but she didn't know what
she was asking.
That's an impossible request.
God couldn't fulfill that.
That's not what he has in mind and
purpose even for the whole human race.
But we want to be delivered from our
trial and our testing.
We're accustomed, you know, friends, to thinking that
the purifying and refining work is accomplished by
trials.
Now that's, of course, partly true.
Peter writes it, Now for a season you
are in heaviness through manifold testing, that the
trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be
tried with fire, might be found unto praise
and honor and glory at the appearing of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is true that trials, testings, troubles, heartaches,
disappointments, have a refining effect in the life
of a believer in Christ.
But the lesson that comes to us out
of Joseph's life and experience is this.
The psalmist said it was the word that
refined him, the word of God.
The psalmist seems to have ignored his troubles
as if they didn't matter.
I'm sure he didn't think of that, but
nonetheless he didn't emphasize that.
He says the word of the Lord came
to him and tried him or refined him.
I think that what we have to understand
is this.
It is trial interpreted by God's word that
alone proves beneficial to us.
That's it.
How do I interpret what I'm experiencing now
from the word of God?
What does it have to say about this
trouble I'm in, this distress I'm experiencing?
Let the word do its work, not merely
the trial itself, the difficulty.
And that's what Joseph had to learn.
And in that prison cell, he was indeed
being refined.
And when he talks to his brethren later
on, he says, you know, you meant it
unto evil.
I know that.
You had evil thoughts against me.
But God meant it unto good.
Ah, there's God's meaning.
What is the meaning of God in your
life right now?
What is it he is trying to do
through whatever you're experiencing?
Sometimes God's meanings are mysterious.
From palace to prison cell.
Why?
Well, because of God's meanings behind all the
sufferings and the humiliations of this experience was
the divine purpose in Joseph's life.
God was preparing him for a lofty position.
And he needed desperately to be refined.
Otherwise, he might not be able to cope
with that lofty position that he was eventually
to fulfill.
Do you know that very few of us
are able to cope with success?
Certainly a lot of us cannot cope with
wealth.
Somebody once said it takes a steady hand
to hold a full cup.
If that's the case, when it comes to
money, the Lord kept mine very, very shallow.
I don't have much water in the cup.
But it does indeed take a steady hand
to hold a full cup.
And sometimes when God wants to prepare one
of his own for a position of power
or influence or so he can reach out
and become a great blessing to so many
people, it takes a lot of preparation.
That little word, until, hints at the timing
of God in our trials.
The refining word of God comes to us
in his own time and in his own
manner.
You could rise here and testify and say,
yeah, that's true.
I've experienced that.
A few years ago, I wasn't feeling so
good.
I went to a doctor down in Boca
Raton.
I should have known better.
It costs more to go to a doctor
in Boca Raton than it does anywhere else.
But I went to see a doctor.
You know, how do you react when the
doctor looks at you and says, I don't
like what I see?
I said, what do you see?
He said, I don't like what I see.
I said, neither do I since you told
me.
What's the matter?
Oh, he says, I just don't like it.
So then he suggested some tests.
And finally, he said, I fear that, well,
first of all, you're going to have to
have major surgery.
And he did his best to prepare me
for it by saying he thought I had
cancer of the stomach.
So I went under the surgeon's knife with
that feeling that maybe this was it.
Maybe I would not come out.
And while the operation was successful, I developed
an infection that nearly took my life.
As close as I've ever been to death,
I guess, I was in that hospital.
And weeks and weeks went by.
And the worst of it was it was
over the holiday time, Christmas time.
What a terrible time to be in the
hospital and be ill when everybody else seems
to be so happy and having a marvelous
time.
And here you are.
And here I was.
They had me and they had tubes and
all kinds of stuff sticking in me all
over the place, bottles and tubes and whatever.
I was wired up for space.
And so it came to Christmas Eve.
And I thought that in a hospital on
Christmas Eve, it would be a happy place.
All the nurses would come in singing Christmas
carols.
There would be a lot of fun.
They all went home.
They wanted to get out of there.
It was the dullest, drabbest, quietest place you
can imagine.
And there I was, Christmas Eve.
And my family had gone.
And here I am lying in this bed,
all wired up.
So I said to myself, Lord, you have
totally forgotten me.
Did you know that my room number is
807?
It's the 8th floor, Lord, in case you
got the wrong floor.
It's the 8th floor, not the 7th.
807.
You've forgotten all about me.
Here I am.
And when you start feeling sorry for yourself
like that, I guess you're crying, pal.
You're nearly drowning in your tears.
You see, you're so sorry for yourself.
It's pathetic.
And I was sorry for myself.
And I lay there and I said to
myself, I'm going to look out that window.
And I want to see what the rest
of the world looks like and imagine all
the fun they're having.
And here I am in this miserable spot
where I am.
So I try to get out of bed.
Man, did I get tangled up.
I got a leg stuck somewhere and I
got the bottle fell off the thing.
And then there was another tube that I
pulled out.
And first thing I know, I'm all tangled
up here.
But I said, I don't care.
I'm going to get to that window.
So I got to the window.
And I stood there looking out.
And I could imagine all the fun and
the joy and the gladness that everybody was
experiencing.
And here I am.
God's forgotten all about me.
Now I try to get back in bed
before the nurse came.
And that was an operation of itself.
I couldn't get things back where they belonged.
I pushed the button and she came and
she gave it to me.
Boy, she really lectured me.
And that made me feel worse.
So I lay there.
It was a tough experience for me.
But you know, the word of the Lord
came to me.
And I feel to this very hour that
that word was a refining word.
And here's what the Lord said through His
word.
From the page of this book.
God said this.
Because thou shalt forget thy misery.
Isn't that nice to start that way?
Because thou shalt forget thy misery and remember
it as water that shall pass away.
Thine age shall be clearer than the noonday.
Thou shalt shine forth.
Thou shalt be as the morning.
And thou shalt be secure because there is
hope.
Yea, thou shalt dig about thee and thou
shalt take thy rest in safety.
Also thou shalt lie down and none shall
make thee afraid.
Yea, many shall make suit unto thee.
And I said, thank you God for that.
That's beautiful.
Now could I please have one night's rest
here?
I haven't had too many.
They gave me all this stuff.
And I had nightmares.
They're incredible nightmares.
If you know anything about the city of
Boca Raton, you know we have bridges across
the intercoastal canal.
Half a dozen bridges or so.
And in my dreams on my bed, they
came to, whoever they is, they came to
me and they gave me about six sticks
of dynamite and they said you can't ride
it in a car.
You can't ride on a bicycle.
You can't get a motorcycle.
You got to walk.
And you got four hours between now and
sunrise to blow up every one of those
bridges.
And the rest of the night I was
running like mad trying to get from bridge
to bridge to blow it up.
The next night was even worse.
We have the big Boca Raton Hotel there
with a high tower and it's painted pink.
And whoever they were, they said your job
tonight is to paint that tower.
And I got one paintbrush and one bucket
of pink paint and I had to paint
that whole tower before the sun rose the
next morning.
I tell you, you wake up tired.
So I said, Lord, if you mean it,
thou shall lie down and none shall make
thee afraid.
Amen, and shall make suit unto thee.
Please do it.
And God did.
And His Word came to me in the
midst of my trouble and my trial and
I feel that Word refined in me.
It took out a lot of the dross.
It subtracted much of the miserable complaint that
I was giving myself to and instead brought
me to that peaceful resignation to His plan
and His purpose so that I could say,
my life is yours.
You can do anything you want with it.
Fulfill your purpose through it, Lord.
Well, in Joseph's case, he found that the
meanings of God were mysterious.
But God's meanings are always merciful.
Genesis 39, 21 says, That's
right.
The Lord showed him mercy even in the
midst of his trials, his troubles.
What is it that you've been going through
lately?
Loneliness?
Fear of the future?
Is God able?
Of course you say you believe He is.
Well, have you submitted yourself the trial and
the Word working together to refine you so
that you will indeed have a faith that
has been tried by the fire and is
more precious than gold that purishes?
Well, that was his purpose in Joseph's life.
Now, sometimes the meanings of God allow the
malevolent.
You meant it unto evil.
You hated me.
You sold me to Midianite merchantmen as a
slave.
They sold me to Pharaoh as a slave.
I've known what it is to be debased,
to be nothing.
But back of all of that, God meant
it unto good.
Have you ever noticed when Paul is writing
to the Romans in the great eighth chapter
of that book, he says, Who?
Who?
Who shall condemn us?
Eh?
You see, behind every what, there's a who.
Every evil thing that is designed against the
believer comes from an adversary, and that's Satan.
But we have victory over him.
We need not fear him, indeed.
Now, God's meanings are ultimately master-planned.
It's wonderful to know that, that God has
a plan for your life and mine, and
He's working that plan out.
Just today, as we were at the airport,
a fine-looking black man took my bag,
and they said, Would you like a wheelchair
for Mrs. Anderson?
I said, Sure, why not?
Boy, it's wonderful.
You know what?
They treat you better when you're sitting in
a wheelchair.
They even let you on first.
They treat you fine.
So anyway, we got this wheelchair, and he
said, What's the matter with your lady?
I said, Well, she fell, and she broke
her collarbone.
Well, he said, That's the way life is.
He said, It's all in the ticket.
I said, Yeah, that's true, except for one
thing.
I said, You know, the good book says,
God works all things together for good to
those who love Him, and to those who
are called according to His purpose.
Did you ever read that?
Read it.
Man, I believe it.
I believe it with all my heart, he
said.
And I'll tell you one more thing.
He said, They can't convince me that we
ain't living in the end times.
This is real.
We're coming down to the end, and soon
the Lord is coming.
I said, You're a believer.
He said, Yes, I am.
We had a wonderful time together, he and
I.
There was a tie that bound us together
as we thought about the ways of God,
plotting, planning every detail of our lives.
In the early days in Pittsburgh, I understand
even before they built the bridges across the
three rivers there in Pittsburgh, one of the
first bridges that was built was designed by
a very able and competent architect and engineer,
and when they started the construction on the
bridge, something happened, and he fell and broke
his back, and he was taken to the
hospital, and there he was put in a
cast from neck all the way down, and
he spent weeks and weeks and weeks in
that hospital while the bones that were broken
mended and were healed.
And one day they came to him shortly
after he was released, and they said, Did
you know that the bridge that you designed
and that you started, did you know that
that bridge is to be opened today?
They're going to dedicate it.
Would you like to be there and see
it?
Would he ever?
Of course.
But he said, Will you do me a
favor?
I don't want to be on the bridge.
Just put me in a little boat somewhere
and take me out in the middle of
the stream, and if you can anchor it
there, do it, and let me see the
bridge from down there on the river's face.
And so they did.
Turned the motor off eventually and let the
boat drift where he could see that whole
span from those massive supports and the cables
and all the rest of it.
And the only noise they heard aboard that
little boat was the lapping of the water
against the sides of the boat.
And in the moment after getting control of
his emotions, he said, You know, it's just
like the plan, isn't it?
It's exactly like the plan.
Beloved friends, I hope that when we face
our Lord Jesus Christ and we can see
the whole sweep of the life we've lived
here from the moment he saved us until
he called us to himself, I hope that
he'll be able to say, My child, your
life was just like I planned it.
It's according to the plan.
No deviation, no drastic change.
I fulfilled my plan and my purpose in
your life.
It's just like the plan.
We want that, don't we, above everything else.
And so Joseph finds that his life was
refined when he was in that terrible prison
cell.
And when he was going through this time
of deep distress, the Lord was working in
his life and the word of God came
to him.
It not only healed him, but it acted
like a refining process that produced the strong
character that he needed so desperately later on
as he became the ruler of all of
Egypt and held the lives of the whole
populace of that nation really in the palm
of his hand.
And so I guess when we close the
divine album, picture album, we look at just
a couple little snapshots of Joseph's life, I
would like to say two or three things
by way of exhortation.
First, don't forget God's word.
Don't forget it.
Don't lose sight of God's promises to you
in the book.
Live in the word.
Let the word speak to you.
And interpret every experience of your life by
the teachings you find in the word of
God.
It'll keep you from error.
It'll keep you from hasty decision.
It'll keep you, the word will, from laying
blame upon God for whatever you are experiencing.
So, don't forget God's word.
My second exhortation is this.
Don't pray for the heat to be turned
down or turned off.
Don't do that.
It's easy to do that.
It's natural to do it.
Lord, deliver me from this experience.
Lord, I can't take anymore.
Turn down the heat.
It's too hot for me here.
Change the circumstances, God, because I cannot stand
anymore.
Don't pray like that.
Pray for grace, an addition of grace to
enable you to endure so that at the
end of it all, He will be glorified
and you'll be satisfied that your life has
counted for something for Him.
And then, my third exhortation is this.
Don't run away from the circumstances where the
Lord has put you.
Whatever those circumstances may be, adverse as they
may be, don't run away from them.
Accept them as from Him.
Am I calling for impossibilities here?
I recognize that maybe I am.
But in the light of what God promises
in His Word, that His grace is sufficient
for us, I don't believe that we're calling
for that which is impossible.
And our world, in its desperate plight tonight,
needs to see examples in the flesh of
men and women who have conquered and are
conquering because of the sustaining grace of God.
I heard about a man who had lost,
he thought, everything.
His business had collapsed.
His family had turned against him.
His wife became ill and eventually the illness
took her away.
And there he was, penniless, sort of friendless,
lonely.
And he was wandering down the street one
day and he saw some workmen.
They were building a church.
It looked like it was going to be
quite an imposing sort of a building.
And it was a brick church, stone church.
And there was a man over here, a
stone mason on the side, and he was
working away at a fairly large piece of
stone, chipping it very carefully, cutting it apparently
to design.
And so this poor suffering man said to
the workmen, What are you doing?
Oh, he said, Look, look way up there
at the top.
You see near the belfry?
See there's a little opening there.
It's triangular in shape.
This stone goes there.
The man said, But nobody will ever see
it.
He said, I can't help that.
He said, My job is to prepare it
down here so it'll fit up there.
And you know, God is preparing us down
here so we'll fit in up there.
And we mustn't wince at the sharp edge
of the chisel or the hard blows of
the hammer, but instead yield to him in
the firm confidence that his word is trying
us and refining us in order that we
might bring more glory to his precious name.
Let's pray.
Blessed Lord, as we look back at the
wake of our lives, we don't understand what
the future holds.
We can't predict where the ship will sail,
but we look at the wake and we
see how faithful thou hast been to us,
how thou hast kept thine own promises and
thy word to us.
And when life became difficult, and when we
trembled, yes, even maybe rebelled against the pressure
of thy hand upon us, even in those
moments thou wert refining us.
Purifying us.
Yes, sanctifying us.
In order that we might one day be
to the total praise and honor and glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that day
when we see him face to face.
And so tonight, as we sit here in
this house of God, some of us have
had some hard experiences in our lives.
We've lost loved ones.
Maybe some of us have unconverted family members
who break our hearts because of their rejection
of thy love and thy grace and thy
mercy.
Some of us may have been experiencing physical
weakness.
Whatever it is, whatever it is, like Joseph
in his prison experience, remind us again that
though the enemy meant it unto evil, God
meant it unto good.
And so help us to interpret thy meanings
in the light of thy plans for each
of our lives.
And give us that grace that is needed
not merely to cope, but to conquer in
the midst of all of life's pressures.
Hear us, we pray, for we ask it
in the matchless, wondrous name of our risen
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.