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Genesis 40
September 7, 2004
Reading through the
Bible in one Year: Joel
Weekly Memory Verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17
Good Evening Brothers
and Sisters,
Daily Reminder, pray
for the "Forty days of purpose" that is coming up on September 25th at 9pm
each evening. I am going to a meeting on this tonight, I am looking forward
to the weekly meetings at Starbucks with many of you.
Genesis 40:1-23 (NASB95)
1 Then it came about after these things, the cupbearer and the
baker for the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. 2
Pharaoh was furious with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and
the chief baker. 3 So he put them in confinement in the house of
the captain of the bodyguard, in the jail, the same place where
Joseph was imprisoned. 4 The captain of the bodyguard put Joseph
in charge of them, and he took care of them; and they were in confinement
for some time. 5 Then the cupbearer and the baker for the king of
Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man
with his own dream and each dream with its own
interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning and
observed them, behold, they were dejected. 7 He asked Pharaoh’s
officials who were with him in confinement in his master’s house, “Why are
your faces so sad today?” 8 Then they said to him, “We have had a
dream and there is no one to interpret it.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do
not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me, please.” 9
So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In
my dream, behold, there was a vine in front of me; 10 and
on the vine were three branches. And as it was budding, its blossoms
came out, and its clusters produced ripe grapes. 11 “Now
Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; so I took the grapes and squeezed them into
Pharaoh’s cup, and I put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.” 12 Then
Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: the three branches
are three days; 13 within three more days Pharaoh will lift up
your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh’s cup
into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer.
14 “Only keep me in mind when it goes well with you, and please
do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house.
15 “For I was in fact kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and
even here I have done nothing that they should have put me into the
dungeon.” 16 When the chief baker saw that he had interpreted
favorably, he said to Joseph, “I also saw in my dream, and behold,
there were three baskets of white bread on my head; 17 and in
the top basket there were some of all sorts of baked food for
Pharaoh, and the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
18 Then Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the
three baskets are three days; 19 within three more days Pharaoh
will lift up your head from you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds
will eat your flesh off you.” 20 Thus it came about on the third
day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his
servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of
the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief
cupbearer to his office, and he put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand; 22
but he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had interpreted to them.
23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot
him.[1]
Joseph was thrown in
prison for not going to bed with Potiphar’s wife. His imprisonment was
unjust and unfounded. Can you imagine how this worked away at his
conscience as he rotted in prison? Then consider the fact that God had
raised him up to a position of authority in the prison, he may have been
questioning in his mind if he was being teased by God and if this sham of
authority was all there was ever going to be in life. Think about how the
Joseph had the dreams which caused him to be sold into slavery by his
brothers. All of his apparent dreams turned out to be nothing up to this
point.
Joseph demonstrates
two interesting characteristics that I see right off the top. First he
still had an undying faith in God. He believed that God ultimately held the
interpretation for dreams, and was not bashful to point that out to complete
strangers. The second thing that jumps out to me is that Joseph
demonstrated an impatience in waiting for God to do his work and started
sowing seeds with these two men to remember him when they got out of
prison. Notice though, Joseph believed in the interpretation that God had
given him, he asked the chief cup bearer to remember him, but said nothing
to the baker.
The cupbearer may have
intended to pass the word along to Pharaoh, but consider his position for a
moment. He had just gotten out of prison for some unknown crime involving
serving the King. The time of his pardon was not a time where he would want
to speak up to the King and say "by the way there is a Hebrew in jail that
is innocent". Everyone in jail is innocent, he would have been a fool to
have mentioned Joseph. It may have landed him back in jail, or even caused
him to join the baker at the gallows. He was wise to keep his mouth shut
just for self preservation. The scripture says that he forgot, I think that
there is a point where people want to forget the dark areas of their lives
and to move on.
What did this do to
Joseph? He had given glory to God, and had interpreted dreams by the
inspiration of God that was a far reach. Imagine taking such a stand on
dreams, and boldly proclaiming what both dreams meant without worrying about
any recourse on his predictions. He took a stand on the dreams, and boldly
stated that they would be fulfilled within three days! Not much room for
error there, and consider that his credibility was certainly at stake. The
only thing that Joseph had in life was his credibility, if that were
destroyed, could he have maintained a position of authority over the
prisoners? Joseph risked everything that he had earned in prison up to this
point by making the interpretation of the dreams.
God fulfilled the
dreams just as Joseph had predicted that they would be fulfilled. This did
one thing for certain to Joseph, it verified to him that God still was
working through him and that he was not forgotten by God. A divine message
was sent to Joseph through this ordeal letting him know that he was
certainly in a place where God wanted him, otherwise God may have been
silent when Joseph made the bold statement that his God interprets dreams
and to tell Joseph about the dreams. Just as God had given him dreams in
his youth, God was still speaking through him. It was a touch of God, where
God touched Joseph with the reassurance that he was right in the center of
God's will.
My question in all of
this is when we get into a time where things do not seem to be going the way
that we feel God has directed us, do we lose trust in God? Does our faith
continue regardless the circumstances in our lives, or are we hooked to the
circumstances in viewing God in our lives? This story is for all of us, we
don't need to be hooked to the circumstances, our God is always faithful,
even when we seem to be getting treated wrongly for our actions. God
chooses times in our lives to be silent and to allow us to go through hard
times, our choice is to either keep Him first, or to lose our faith in Him.
Joseph demonstrated for us that we are to keep the faith regardless of our
circumstances. God is always faithful, therefore we should determine to be
faithful to God regardless what things appear to be in our lives.
I am going to close
here. If you have differing opinions on this chapter, be sure to write in.
Father, as we consider
Your faithfulness to us when things look bad, keep our eyes fixed intently
upon You, and give us the hope that we can cling to. I ask that each one of
us will take this lesson to know that we are not bound by circumstances, but
by Your divine will in our lives.
In Him,
Joe Turner.
[1]
New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The
Lockman Foundation.
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