Nov. 14, 1999 Genesis 41:1-40
Making a prisoner into a prince
INTRODUCTION
I know that many of you men in the church today are beside yourselves because hunting season is here. I know that you are looking to be successful at providing food for your family and maybe even a rack for your wall. As a warning to you, I’m going to begin this morning by telling a true hunting story. A hunter was out in the woods when he met a bear. Tired of having hunters come after him every year, the bear finally had enough and raced up to the hunter. He grabbed the hunter’s gun so that he could not shoot it, got up right in his face and said, “What do you want?” When the hunter finally regained his breath, he said, “I want a fur coat.” To that the bear answered, “That’s a fair request for the cold winters that we have hear. I, on the other hand, want a full belly. Let’s see if we can’t come to some kind of compromise where both of us will get what we want.” Half an hour later, the bear got up and ambled away. On the ground lay the hunter’s gun which was all that was left of him. When you think about it, both were successful in receiving what they wanted. The bear got a full stomach, and the hunter got a fur coat. Success does not always come the way that we want it to.
Joseph, whose life we have been examining for the past several weeks, probably could easily identify with that story. There were many times that he felt like he was facing down a bear of a problem, and it seemed like every time, the bear always won. The first bear that he faced was the jealousy and hatred of his brothers. Their attitude toward him, which he helped to bring out, resulted in some time spent down at the bottom of a pit. Then, when he made out of the pit, it was only for him to be sold as a slave to an officer in Egypt. After Joseph had been in Egypt for a while, it looked like he was getting ready to get out of the belly of that bear only to be falsely accused and thrown into prison. There in prison, Joseph saw yet another opportunity to get out of the bear’s belly by helping someone else to get out. But that didn’t work either. So the last time that we saw Joseph, he was still serving in prison wondering what God was doing in his life- wondering what purpose there could be for all the sufferings that he was enduring.
Have you ever been there? You’re standing toe to toe, face to face, bad-breath to bad-breath with a bear, and it looks like you’re about to be swallowed up. You’ve got no where to run. You’ve already tried running, and when you couldn’t run anymore because you were exhausted and out of breath, your bear was still there. Only now, he was hungrier than ever. You’re trapped. You’re a prisoner to your problem. How do you react to that situation? May I suggest that you react with excitement and anticipation? What we may not recognize in that situation and what Joseph did not understand when he faced that kind of trial was that when a bear of a problem makes you a prisoner, God is preparing you to serve as a prince.
Let’s take a look at how God took Joseph from being a prisoner in the king’s dungeon and turned him into a prince in the king’s palace.
1. A prince is prepared when the opportunity comes. (vs. 1-14)
{Give synopsis of events that occurred – king’s dreams, none of the king’s men could interpret the dream, butler’s recollection of his promise}
After the butler had been reminded of his oversight, the king sent men into the prison to go get Joseph. Joseph looked and smelled like a wreck after having spent so much time in prison. They had to shake him out of bed, shave his beard, bathe him and give him some new clothes before he was presentable enough to come before Pharaoh. I know how Joseph must have felt on that day – probably about the same way that I felt on a cold winter morning last spring. It was somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning. Tammy gave me a shove and said, “I think that there is someone at the door”. I sat up in bed and listened and sure enough, someone was knocking at the door. And then I looked at the clock and realized that I had overslept. That was the day of Ernie’s bypass surgery, and the people knocking at the door were Ernie and family, and they were waiting to take me to the hospital with them. I threw on my robe, went down to the door, and told them to give me 5 minutes. Then I rushed back upstairs, threw on some wrinkled clothes, brushed my teeth, kissed Tammy, and headed out the door. I, unlike Joseph, didn’t even take time to shave. But unlike Joseph too, the fault was mine for not being prepared. I knew what time the opportunity was coming, but I failed to turn on the alarm clock. Joseph didn’t have that advantage. He had no idea when the opportunity would come. But when it did come, he was prepared.
But you counter, “How can you say that Joseph was prepared? He had to be shaved, clothed and cleaned up before he could go before the king. He doesn’t look very prepared to me.” But that’s because your looking on the outward appearance when I’m talking about the preparation of the heart. When the opportunity came for Joseph to be called into Pharaoh’s service, Joseph received no warning. He didn’t have time to study up on books about dream interpretation. He didn’t have time to get his spirit right with the Lord and repent of his sins. He didn’t have time to restore a relationship with the Lord that he had allowed to fall into disrepair. He didn’t have time for any of those. He didn’t need time for any of those either, because all of those had already been taken care of. Every day, and at any time, Joseph kept himself ready for whatever task God would give him for that day.
1 Pet 3:15 says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” You and I never know when an opportunity to be used by God is going to come our way. In our household, a little bit of fear or apprehension shoots through me every time that the phone rings. You never know who is going to be on the other end of that line and what emergency they are facing. This is especially true when the phone rings late at night. One night, the phone rang at 3:30 in the morning. I knew that someone had to have had a heart attack or been in an accident. By the time that I got to the phone, my heart was racing. It turned out to be a wrong number. Most of the time, when God chooses to use us, it is not in our time table, and we don’t have time to get spiritually prepared. When the Jehovah’s Witness or the Mormon knocks on your door, you don’t have time to figure out what you believe or to find Bible verses to challenge what they are saying. You better already have those issues settled in your heart. When a co-worker comes to you and tells you about problems that they are having in their marriage and wants you to tell them what the Bible says about it or wants you to pray with them, you can’t say, “Hold that thought for just a minute” while you go to the phone, call up your spouse and ask for their forgiveness for the those angry words that you said that morning. You’ve got to keep your heart right before the Lord at all times because you never know when God is going to send someone your way. I think that that is part of what Paul was talking about when he said in I Thes. 5:17, “Pray without ceasing”. Keep the lines of communication between you and God open at all times. Never let anything come between you and Him that will prevent Him from using you the way that He could.
Joseph had a lot that he could have allowed to get between him and God. Do you know how long it had been between the time that Joseph had interpreted the butler’s dream and this time that he was getting ready to stand before Pharaoh? It had been 2 years! For two years, Joseph had been rotting in prison, waiting for the butler to honor his promise to mention Joseph before Pharaoh. How would you have reacted if you had been in Joseph’s situation? Anger, bitterness, unforgiveness? Joseph could have said, “You Egyptians have used me and mistreated me ever since I came here. Why in the world should I help you now that you see that I can be of value to you? And you, Mr. Butler, why in the world should I make you look like the hero when up until today, you couldn’t even remember my name?” Joseph could have reacted like that, but then God could not have used him in the miraculous way that he did.
Let me ask you something – when you entered this place today, did you come prepared for God to speak to you or use you? Did you come prepared to worship God? Tomorrow morning, will you be prepared when God sends someone your way that you can shine light to? If you are keeping anger, bitterness, or unforgiveness in your heart, then you are not prepared to worship God or to be used by Him. (Eph 4:26,31-32 “Be angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.) Whether or not you think your anger against someone is justified, you have no right to hold onto that anger longer than 24 hours. The Bible is very clear that we must let go of our anger quickly. If we do not, verse 27 of that passage says that we will give a foothold to the devil where he can start to build a stronghold in us. Joseph was prepared to be used by God because his heart was right with God. Is yours? I would challenge you to examine yourself right now. Look around this room; make your way up and down each aisle with your eyes, and ask yourself, “Is my heart right with that person? Am I harboring anger, bitterness, or unforgiveness against them?” If you are, then confess and forsake it before the Father right now. Get yourself prepared for God to do something in and through you.
2. A prince knows and admits his own limitations. (vs. 15-16a)
Once Joseph was cleaned up and had changed his clothes, he was brought before Pharaoh. Up to that point, Joseph may have had no idea why he was coming before Pharaoh. He may have thought that he was finally getting that hearing before the judge to give his defense against the false charges that had been made against him. Joseph was probably quite surprised when he found out the true reason that he stood before Pharaoh. [read vs. 15] Now all the cards were on the table, and it was Joseph’s move. Everyone in the court was waiting to see how he would respond. The butler was hoping that Joseph would come through because the butler was the one who had recommended Joseph. If Joseph failed to do what the butler said he could do, then the butler would probably face the same fate that his friend the baker had faced – the gallows. The king’s wise men, the enchanters and soothsayers, were probably hoping that he wouldn’t come through. That would make them look weak and incompetent. How in the world could a Hebrew slave do something that Egyptian psychics could not? They anticipated his failure. Every eye was on Joseph.
At that moment, Joseph had a huge decision to make. An opportunity like this would not come along again. He had better make the most of it. How should he answer Pharaoh? If he answers Pharaoh that he can do it, and he performs successfully, then he would probably be rewarded in some way. He would most definitely get out of prison and would probably be made the chief of all the magicians. He had been suffering long enough. It was time for him to take matters into his own hands. But instead, Joseph answered, “I cannot do it”. A huge gasp went up in the courtyard when the words left Joseph’s mouth. No one admitted their weakness before the king! You might know in your own heart that you couldn’t do something, but you never let the king know that. The king had no use for weak people. To admit weakness was to sign your own death sentence.
Not much has changed in human society. To admit weakness is to invite the piranha to come and feast on you. We are told to be in control, to never show fear or weakness. On the inside, we might be trembling children, but on the outside, we are told to talk and act and walk as if the world revolves around us. But an amazing fact about those that God has chosen to use as His princes over the years is that they have all had this in common – they recognized that whatever they accomplished was not because of their own strength but because of the power of God flowing through them. When Peter and John stood before the lame beggar at the temple steps in Acts 3, Peter prefaced his healing of the man by proclaiming “silver and gold have I none”. Paul recognized that all that he had accomplished in planting multiple churches and winning so many people to the Lord was not because of any power of his own. He said, “I can do all things through Christ” not because of his own ability. The Lord himself said, “It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”(Zech. 4:6)
I do not have much difficulty admitting my own weakness when it comes to standing before you on Sunday mornings. I know that in myself, I have nothing worth listening to. And I know that if anything is going to happen here this morning or any Sunday morning, it will happen because God’s Spirit takes God’s Word and convicts the hearts of God’s people. It is not because of anything that I might say. But I am in good company there too. Paul said in 1 Cor. 2:4-5, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” Admitting your weakness before God is the only way to allow His power to flow through you.
If you feel like in order to make it through life, you have to always be on top of everything and put on a show of control for all the world to see, you put yourself in a dangerous position. In the lessons of life academy, the mother whale taught her daughter whale this valuable lesson – those who swim to the top and blow their own horn are the ones who get harpooned. We don’t have to be strong in order to make it through life and be successful. We just have to have ourselves plugged into the right power source. When we recognize how weak we are in ourselves is when we are able to reach out to the one who has no limit to His power. (2 Cor 12:9 NKJV) And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Let me ask you this; when January 1, 2000 hits and the YTK bug has wiped out all the power, would you rather have a stack of batteries or a nuclear reactor? You don’t have to wait until Jan. 1 to have a crisis of power. You are in a crisis of power every day of your life. You can rely on yourself – a small battery – for power, or you can rely on God – the nuclear reactor for power. Which would be the smarter choice? (Isa 40:29 NKJV) He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.(Jer 32:17 NKJV) ’Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. (Jer 51:15 NKJV) He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, And stretched out the heaven by His understanding.
3. A prince knows and proclaims the power of God in a hostile environment. (vs. 16b)
Joseph knew where he received his power from, and he wasn’t afraid to let it be known to anyone that was listening. The setting where Joseph was and the people that he was speaking to were not exactly friendly to the idea of a God that they had never heard of. A God that was different than the many gods that they already worshipped and a God that was now claiming to do something that their gods seemed unable to do. How could this Hebrew and his God do something that the trained magicians and wise men of Egypt could not do with the help of all their gods? Joseph had lived in Egypt long enough to know that proclaiming allegiance to a different God especially before the king of Egypt was not something that was going to be received well. But Joseph had lived long enough in the presence of God to know that the only way that Pharaoh was going to find relief from his present problem was to acknowledge and recognize the power of God.
Joseph is not alone in the Bible as far as those who proclaimed the power of God in a hostile environment. When the armies of Israel were surrounded by their enemy and were being challenged by a giant of a foe named Goliath, one young boy stood before Goliath and said these words: "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands." (1 Sam. 17:45-47) In the book of Daniel, three young Hebrews refused to bow down to and worship an image that the king had made even though the failure to do so promised a death sentence. Because of their bold stand for God, the power of God was displayed to a people who would have listened in no other way. Hundreds of years later, soon after the death of Jesus, Peter and John were brought before the religious leaders to testify as to how they were able to provide healing for a lame man. (Acts 4:7,10) “And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, "By what power or by what name have you done this?" . . . It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.” At least a part of the reason that God sets us in antagonistic situations like these men and women faced is so that we can show God’s power to the very people who need most to see it. Moses was one that God sent to a Pharaoh who came many years after Joseph’s Pharaoh. God sent Moses to a situation that was even more antagonistic against God than Joseph’s was. But God did this for a purpose, and he shared that purpose with Moses in Ex. 9:16. "But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. As much as God enjoys the praises of His people within the confines of the church, He also desires that we show His power and glory out among the people’s of the earth in order that they might be drawn to Him.
How is it that Joseph and these others that I have mentioned were able to know God’s power and be bold enough to proclaim it in dangerous situations? Just before David went to battle with Goliath, he had a conference meeting between he and Saul, the king of Israel. Saul asked David why in the world he thought that he would be able to defeat someone so big as Goliath. David answered, “When the bear or the lion came and got one of the sheep that I cared for, I would chase after that animal, kill it and rescue the sheep. The same God that delivered the bear and the lion into my hands will deliver this giant into my hands as well.” The reason that David and these others could be so bold is that they had seen God manifest His power in other situations. The fact that God had carried them through smaller struggles increased their faith to the point that when the big test came, they were able to trust that the same God would continue to carry them through.
What have you seen God do in your life? What has He carried you through? How has He displayed His power? When you look back and see all that God has done, it should create thankfulness – that’s why we have Thanksgiving Day – but it should also create boldness. A boldness that enables you to believe God when it looks like everything is stacked against you, and a boldness that enables you to speak for God when the prevailing wind says that it would be wiser and safer just to keep your mouth shut. When we recognize what God has done in the past and what He has the power and desire to do now, we can speak up without fear or shame regardless of what our circumstances may be. Paul said in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” Joseph had seen God work so much in his life in the past years even though it looked like that there was no hope that he knew that God could work now too, and so he boldly proclaimed the power of God as the only thing that could accomplish what man’s power could not do.
4. A prince recognizes when God is working, and he takes advantage of it. (vs. 17-24)
Pharaoh must have accepted Joseph’s answer to his inquiry concerning Joseph’s ability to interpret his dreams because he began to recount his dreams to Joseph. As Joseph listened to Pharaoh tell his dreams, there must have been a certain level of excitement that grew within him. He knew that God was obviously doing something in Pharaoh’s life. And that meant that He was doing something in the life of all of Egypt too, for nothing could happen in the king’s heart without it affecting everyone under his command. Joseph saw three things going on here that tipped him off to the fact that God was working.
- God was speaking to Pharaoh
In the time of Joseph, there was no Bible. In fact, there were no written revelations from God at all. The only means that people had for them to hear a word from the Lord was for Him to communicate it to them through dreams, angels and the spoken word. When Joseph heard Pharaoh’s dreams, he immediately knew that the dreams were a revelation from God to Pharaoh. God was trying to get Pharaoh’s attention.
Today, we have much more than they did to tell us the revelation of God. We have His Word, the Bible. God uses the circumstances of life to get our attention, and then He uses His Word to communicate His revelation to us. God is speaking to people all around us every day. That’s why we have to be constantly watching so that we will be aware of it when it happens and that we will not let it pass us by.
- Pharaoh was responding
Look back at verse 8 and see how Pharaoh first responded to the dreams when they came. It says that he was “troubled”. His spirit was messed up. He was at unrest. He couldn’t dismiss the dreams as being a result of the Chinese food that he had eaten the night before. He knew that they carried a message and that he could not ignore that message.
Many hundreds of years later, an Ethiopian official was on his way back home from Jerusalem. He too had received a revelation from the Lord. This time though, it was in written form. He was reading from the book of Isaiah, but he couldn’t understand the signifigance of what he was reading just as Pharaoh could not understand the signifigance of the dreams he dreamed. He was troubled. So God sent Phillip to help him to understand what he was reading just as God sent Joseph to help Joseph to Pharaoh to give him understanding.
In my neighborhood, over a span of a couple of months, I had two different families communicate to me the need for a Bible study. That doesn’t just happen unless God is trying to get some people’s attention. So we established a Bible study in our home. When God troubles people’s hearts, and they respond to that troubling, then you had better listen and be available to answer whatever call God is giving.
- Pharaoh found out that men could not answer his needs
The first place that Pharaoh went to find the answer to his needs was to men. He went to his magicians. There’s nothing unusual about that. Often when God creates a situation in our life that causes us to see some type of need, the first place that we look to find the satisfaction of that need is to men. We look to mankind to find the satisfaction of our need for companionship, and signifigance, and hope and joy, when men can provide none of those. Pharaoh had already tried men’s answer and discovered that men didn’t have what he was looking for.
God is going to send people like that into your life too - people to whom He is speaking, people who are troubled and “just want someone to talk to”, people who recognize that their buddies that they normally hang around with just don’t seem to have the answers for the problems that they face. And for some reason they are drawn to you. When that kind of situation happens to you, recognize it for what it is. God is speaking to that person, and you have been placed in his life to help him understand what God is saying and what he is supposed to do in response to what God is saying.
INVITATION
Everyone in this room fits into one of the other of the two main characters in our study today. You are either a troubled soul to whom God is speaking, or you are a weak messenger who God wants to use. When I walk into this church each Sunday morning, I am excited and living in anticipation. The reason for that is because I know that man’s natural tendency is for him to stay in bed on Sunday morning or go to the mall or do anything but be in church. If someone is here, it is because God is doing or has done something in their life. God doesn’t bring people into this place without intending to speak to them or give them the understanding of what He has already said.
Maybe you are like Pharaoh. God has been speaking to you, trying to get your attention. Maybe you didn’t recognize it as God speaking to you. All that you know is that you’ve got this unrest within you that you just can’t seem to get rid of no matter what you try. That’s why God brought you to this place so that we could explain to you what God is saying and what you are supposed to do about it. God is saying this to you; “I love you in spite of who or what you are. Your sins are creating that unrest in you, and you need to come to me to receive forgiveness from your sins. The only way that you are going to find peace is by turning your whole life over to me.”
Maybe you are supposed to be a messenger like Joseph. But you are being prevented from it because you are not prepared. You’ve let anger, bitterness and unforgiveness cloud your vision so that you couldn’t even recognize a working of God in someone’s life if God hit you over the head with it. Maybe your pride is getting in the way. You’re trying to do things your own way rather than admitting and living in your weakness before God. Or maybe you’re not willing to step out and risk an answer for God because you have not experienced and do not know the power of God. Let go of your anger and your pride, and draw upon the power of God.
Joseph went from being a prisoner to being a prince in a day. Your life can be completely changed just as quickly if you will turn it over to God and let him do whatever he wants. Allow God to set you free from your prison walls and make you a prince in His kingdom.
