We’re going to take our Bibles and turn to Genesis 40. Genesis 40, and we’re continuing on in our series of studies in the life of Joseph. A series we have entitled, Severe Mercy. And we are following his footsteps from the pit to the prison to the palace. And we’re seeing God’s sovereignty worked out in the life of Joseph. And we’re reminding ourselves that our worst day may be the harbinger of good things to come. And we’re coming tonight to look at him kind of mired in the circumstances that are unfolding in his life. And we’re going to be struck by his perseverance. Tonight’s message is entitled, Finding the Heart To Go On, and we’re going to read all of chapter 40. And we’ll then begin to expound both chapter 40. And we’ll actually back into chapter 39, “And it came to pass after these things.”
Let’s just pause. What things? That is after the slander leveled against Joseph by Potiphar’s wife, which landed him in prison according to verse 20. Then, Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in the prison. “And it came to pass after these things, that the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker, so he put them into custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined.” What a stroke of luck. What a coincidence. No, what a providence. Something is unfolding here at God’s behest.
Verse four, “And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them so that they were in custody for a while. Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt who were confined in the prison had a dream, both of them. Each man’s dream in one night and each man’s dream with its own interpretation. And Joseph came into them in the morning and looked at them and saw that they were sad. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in the custody of his Lord’s house saying, ‘Why do you look so sad today?’ And they said to him, ‘We each have had a dream and there is no interpreter of it.’ So Joseph said to them, ‘Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me please.'”
“Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph and said to him, ‘Behold, in my dream of vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches. It was as though it budded, it blossoms, shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. Then, Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.’ And Joseph said to him, ‘This is the interpretation of it. The three branches are three days. Now within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner when you were his butler. But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me, make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. For indeed, I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews and I also have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon.'”
“When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, ‘I also was in my dream, and there were three white baskets on my head. In the uppermost basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket of my head.’ So Joseph answered and said, ‘This is the interpretation of it. The three baskets are three days. Within three days, Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh from you.’ Now it came to pass 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 butler and of the chief baker among his servants. Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hands. But he hanged the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph but forgot him.”
Trust that God will bless his word to us tonight. When William Carey, who later became known as the Father of Modern Missions set out to touch India for Christ, he had no idea of the hoops he would have to jump through and the hurdles he would have to jump over to get there and to stay there for the sake of the gospel. In fact, to catalog the indifference of the church of his day, the opposition of the British government and the discouragement of friends and family along the way is to leave one standing back in amazement at this man’s persevering faith. And high in the world, he ever came to advance the gospel in India, given the opposition and given the obstacles. Yet William Carey kept finding the heart to go on despite the hoops and despite the hurdles. In fact, let me just paint then some of the background. Let me talk of some of the hoops and some of the hurdles.
As a young Christian, Carey became burdened about sharing the gospel with the world. In fact, in 1792 he wrote a track or a small booklet advocating that the gospel needed to be taken to different nations of the world, that the gospel needed to be taken to foreign fields. And he reasoned, that was the case because of the great commission. He was encouraged by the recent history of Moravian missionaries who had indeed shared the gospel many at the cost of their own lives. He also was challenged by the fact that British commercial enterprise was reaching across the world. And he thought to himself, “If men are willing to push further and further from the homeland for temporal profits, how much more should the church of Jesus Christ launch out in global missions?” But his enthusiasm met with criticism.
In fact, in one meeting where he shared that, a gentleman stood up and called him a miserable enthusiast, and told him that if God was going to see if the elect could see of them without William Carey’s help. And that was because the churches among whom Carey moved and ministered were bound by hyper-Calvinism, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty that had fallen into non-biblical fatalism. But Carey pushed on. He won hearts. And under his vision, the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen was formed in England around 1793. William Carey and another member the name of John Thomas committed to go to India as the first missionaries for that society, but the opposition continued.
His father thought he was nuts and his wife didn’t sign on to the mission. In fact, she decided she would stay back in England and let her husband go on by himself. If those hoops and hurdles weren’t enough as William Carey set out from England, he found himself censored by the East Indian Company, a British commercial enterprise that warned any ship leaving the ports of Britain that if Carey was on board, they would revoke their license for commerce. And when Carey was already on the ship going down the coast of England, when that word got to the captain, the boat docked again, and they kept Carey off the boat. But in God’s good providence during that time of delay and certain disappointment, his wife signed on to the mission.
And in fact he says of that time, “The sense of duty is so strong as to overpower all other considerations. I cannot turn back. All I can say in this affair is that however mysterious the leadings of providence are, I have no doubt that they have been superintended by an infinitely wise God.” God’s delays are not God’s denials. I often say that. And so, Carey moves on this time with his wife and with John Thomas. And they buy passage on a Danish ship that takes them to Calcutta in India. He arrives there, and the British authorities are still on his heels, and basically kick him out of Calcutta. He travels 40 miles outside the city. He buys a property in a Danish territory. He got a bargain. And the reason he got a bargain was because taggers had already eaten in the last six weeks, 26 people in that very place.
But undeterred, William Carey presses on to establish a witness for Jesus Christ in India. The problems didn’t stop there. His fellow missionary gets distracted in a lucrative medical business. And Carey’s, for some time, left by himself. None of this takes into account that it will take seven years to see one convert. So many years into the mission where he has done a lot of hard translation work, his warehouse with many manuscripts and translation tools burns down. Here’s a man who had to go through so many hoops and so many hurdles. In fact of that time, those early days when Thomas neglects him, the British have turned their back on him, he’s living in a dangerous place with a wife who’s now beginning to have second thoughts about why she ever signed on in the first place against her better judgment.
William Carey says this, “I am in a strange land alone, no Christian friend, a large family and nothing to supply their needs. Now all my friends are, but one. I rejoice however that he is an all-sufficient one and can supply all my wants, spiritual and temporal. But why is my soul disquieted within me? When I first left England, my hope of the conversion of the heathen was very strong, but among so many obstacles it will die away unless upheld by God. Nothing to exercise it, but plenty to obstruct it. Long delays and few opportunities. No earthly thing to depend on or earthly comfort except food and raiment. Well, I have God and his word is sure.” This man’s persevering faith. This man’s unstoppable spirit is an encouragement and an education for us tonight.
He finds the heart to go on when most people would pack their bags and go home. And I want us to turn towards the text of the passage that we’ve read tonight because we find another man by the name of Joseph who seems to be a kindred spirit to William Carey and other saints who express and exhibit this unstoppable spirit. William Carey was animated by the doctrine of God’s providence, by the assurance of God’s presence despite the evidence to the contrary. He was bound by a sense of calling. He rested on the sure promises of God’s word, and not which animated William Carey. We’re going to see tonight animates Joseph. We’re going to find a young man whose unmoved because he’s comforted by an unshakable confidence in God’s presence, and God’s providence, and God’s promise.
As we come into the context of Genesis 40, Joseph has suffered three strikes, but he hasn’t walked. He’s already faced the rejection of his brothers, the slander of Potiphar’s wife. And in our context, he’s going to come face to face with the ingratitude of the butler. He’s going to tell the butler you’re going to be released and he says, “Hey, when you’re released, would you advocate for me? Don’t forget me.” We get to the end of the chapter, and we read and the butler forgot him. It was just one thing after another. When it rained in Joseph’s life, it poured. It was one sorrow upon another sorrow to borrow Paul’s language in his letter to the Philippians. And yet what is striking about this passage is that Joseph finds the heart to go on. He doesn’t resign from life. He’s knocked down, but he’s not knocked out, to borrow the words of Paul in 2nd Corinthians 4:8.
And he reminds us that the true measure of a man is what it takes to stop him. In fact, there’s a beautiful image and metaphor painted for us by Joseph’s father, Jacob, who will eventually come down to Egypt. And as he reflects on God’s goodness and he looks over his life towards the end of his life, he runs down the list of names of his sons in Genesis 49, and tells us a little bit about them, their characteristics, their commitments. And in Genesis 49:22 we read, this is what Jacob says of Joseph. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well. His branches run over the wall.” Joseph was this indomitable man of God, this unstoppable spirit whose branches run over the wall. Whatever obstacle he faced, he overcame. Every hoop, he jumped through. Every hurdle, he jumped over.
And we have certainly going to learn something from Joseph tonight because life and circumstances will conspire to tempt us to give up and give in, to turn back, to throw the towel in, to tender our resignation from life, from marriage, from ministry. You and I will face a downturn in the circumstances of life, and we’ll be tempted to call it quits. But Joseph’s going to help us find the heart to go on. We’re going to learn some things about him that will help us to persevere, to endure, to run the race, to keep the faith. I like the story of the Sunday school teacher who’s speaking to the kids about Jonah. And after giving the lesson on Jonah, the missing missionary, and telling them the tale of the whale, the story that the Sunday school teacher asked the kids, “Well, what’s the main point of the story of Jonah?”
And the little boy puts his hand up and says, “You can’t keep a good man down.” And I’m not sure that’s the point of Jonah’s story, but it is a good thought in and of itself. And when it comes to the saints of God, we shouldn’t be kept down. We should find the heart to go on, and keep going on until death calls or Jesus comes. As I look at this passage in the surrounding context, three things. I think Joseph walked conscious of God’s presence. I think Joseph worked conscious of God’s providence. And I think Joseph waited conscious of God’s good promise. And let’s unpack that. Let’s unravel that. Joseph walked conscious of God’s presence. We’re going back into chapter 39 here because that sets us up for chapter 40. Chapter 40 in verse one, “And it came to pass after these things.” So let’s get our bearings in the text.
And what we’re going to see first of all is that the narrator, the biblical storyteller, is at pains to point out that Yahweh’s presence was with Joseph at the most precarious moments in his life. Although deserted by his brothers and although at a distance from his family, he hadn’t been deserted by God. And he was certainly not at a distance from God’s goodness and God’s mercy. Like salt in seawater, this text is saturated with the presence of God in the life and in the challenges that Joseph faces. Go back into chapter 39. We read in verse two as Joseph arrives in Egypt and is sold into slavery into Potiphar’s house, “And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man.” Look at verse three, “And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.” Then we’ve got the tale of Potiphar’s wife’s attempted seduction of Joseph.
He retains his integrity, he maintains his purity, he stands slandered, and he loses some of the ground he has gained. But we read in verse 20, “Then Joseph’s master took him.” Chapter 39, “Put him in the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” Look at verse 23, “The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper.” Joseph may have crossed an international border, but he hadn’t left God’s jurisdiction. He may have been confined to a prison cell or a prison block according to chapter 40 and verse three. But in reality, he was living in the wide open spaces of the presence of God.
And the biblical narrator wants us to be conscious of what, to some degree, Joseph was conscious of. He walked conscious of God’s presence. Joseph was a God-besotted man. In fact, you’ll see this throughout his life. If we go back in the last week’s sermon when he’s propositioned by Potiphar’s wife, what does he say? “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” He was God-conscious. He was God-centered. When he’s thrown in prison here in chapter 40, and he encounters the butler and the baker, and they talk about the dreams, again what does he say? “Do not interpretations belong to God?” When he meets with his brothers later on and is revealed to them, he’ll say in chapter 45, “God sent me ahead of you. It was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” When God blesses them with two sons in chapter 48, Ephraim and Manasseh. We read in chapter 48 verse nine, “They are the sons God has given me here.”
In fact, his last words are in Genesis 50, “I’m about to die, but God will surely come to your aid and take you up of this land.” And Joseph was a man who walked conscious of God’s presence always. He always embraced and he always enjoyed a sense and a confidence in God’s presence, in the promotions, the demotions, and the emotions of life. Because you’ll see in chapter 39 and chapter 40, this roller coaster that he goes through. It’s kind of three steps forward, one step back. But he never loses his hold on God and he never loses his faith in the fact that God’s got a hold of him. He’s conscious of the fact that God is with him, and that makes all the difference. When you and I are up against opposition or obstacles, you and I can weather the storm. Our lives can still be fruitful and our branches can go over the wall.
If you and I live God-centered, God-conscious lives, we live in the good of that. We draw our hope from that. We gain strength from that. In fact, if we go back to that Genesis 49 in verse 22 comment by Jacob, here’s what we read. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well. His branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shout at him, and hated him.” Basically, you know Joseph lived under a hail of bullets. If it wasn’t raining, it was pouring. But look what it says in verse 24, “But his bough remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.” That’s a beautiful image. I remember many years we went to speak at a BMA camp up in Northern California a couple of years in a row, Bible Memorization Association camps. And typical with camps, there was all sorts of things to do. The girls were pretty small.
And one afternoon we went and did some archery. And have you ever been with kids and have to do archery? No, pulling the string back’s not an easy thing for a youngster. And then I remember kind of wrapping myself around the girls. And as they put their hand on the bow and pulled the string, I put my hand over their hand and we pulled it together. And that’s the image. Joseph’s in a battle and he’s being attacked. And as he fights back, not with hatred, but with love. It is God who is enabling him. God is wrapping Joseph up in his presence enabling Joseph to persevere, to retain his hope, to keep going in the right direction. And just get that down. If you’re going to find the heart to go on, you’re going to have to keep a hold of the fact that God is with you.
Jesus said, “I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.” And Joseph was conscious of that even when the circumstances, if you put them together, didn’t argue that well for God’s presence or God’s blessing. But we don’t walk by sight, do we? We don’t read the tea leaves. We don’t try and divine God’s blessing by looking at circumstances. God is with us, whatever’s happening to us. And if you’re conscious of that, if you lay hold of that, you’ll be the last man standing. You’ll be able to suffer all the setbacks that William Carey faced in India and you’ll certainly be able to take the next step against the headwinds of adversity as in the case of Joseph. Someone has said that God’s center is everywhere and God’s circumference is nowhere. So wherever you are, God is there.
A couple of years back I had the privilege of preaching at the grave of one of the Covenanters in Scotland in Cumnock and Ayrshire. The Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians who defied the king of England, who claimed headship over the church. And these Protestant Presbyterians had come to the conclusion that neither was the Pope of Rome the head of the church or the King of England. And they were hounded and they were hunted across the hills and the heather of Scotland. And Scottish churches have what’s known as conventicles. And every so often they’ll have a service right by the grave site of a Covenanter. And it was my privilege on a particular day to preach there. In fact, I preached a message on The Letter to the church at Smyrna on suffering and being faithful unto death.
But as you read something of the history of the Covenanters, you’ll read that as they took to the hills, and the heather of Scotland and the killing fields of Ayrshire, chased by the government troops, they would often say to each other, “Where there is two, there’s three, where there is three, there’s four, where there is four, there’s five.” They walked conscious of God’s presence. And then, we could leave it there. But let me just quickly digress to at least also highlight a life that’s marked by a conscious awareness of God’s presence. I think a life marked by an awareness of God’s presence is a life marked by hope and a life marked by honor. If you and I are conscious of God’s presence and live in the light of that and in the good of that, it will increase our hope and it will increase our honor.
Let me try and prove that from the text. When a man walks with God and is conscious of the fact that God walks with him, his dreams never die and his hopes never evaporate. And that’s implicit in the fact we’ll just make reference of it, that here in chapter 40, the butler and the baker look pretty sullen and pretty sad one particular morning. Their faces are tripping them, and Joseph notices this, and he goes up and think, “Guys, what’s going on?” “Well, you know what? We both dreamed dreams in the same night, and we think each have their own interpretation.” Now, let me pause. At that point, you could make an argument. At this point Joseph’s going to go, “Let me tell you about dreams. Okay? Don’t put a lot of store in dreams. I had a dream that people were going to serve me. Hey, you see where I’m at? I’m serving others. I’m in a prison. I can tell you a thing or two about dreams.”
Is that what Joseph said? No. Amazingly he says, “You know what, guys? When it comes to dreams, God is the interpreter of dreams. Now, tell me them.” And then, God gives Joseph the ability to interpret those dreams as he will give him the ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, where this is all going by the way. But I think that’s striking. He hadn’t lost hope. He hadn’t given up on his own dreams. Here he was serving, but he hadn’t given up on the thought that God has promised that someday his family would serve him. I think a man who walks conscious of God, a woman who is God-besotted, God-centered, God-conscious is a man or a woman who’s buoyant, who doesn’t allow themselves readily to get down in the dumps, who doesn’t paint everything black, and look everything through a gray hue. No, there’s a certain brightness to them, even in the most difficult times.
There’s a certain expectancy, a certain buoyancy. That’s what ought to mark the Christian. That’s what ought to mark the child of God who is conscious of God’s company. And if your hope has died, it’s because your faith is sick. What does Peter say in 1st Peter 1:3, isn’t it? “That we have been born again unto a living hope through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.” So how long ought a Christian to have hope? As long as Jesus lives. And according to book of Hebrews, he was raised in the power of an endless life. And the Christian ought to be endlessly hopeful, endlessly expectant. I’m not talking about some kind of Cheshire smile that’s unreal. I’m not talking about the fact that you won’t face pain, you won’t cry, you won’t be broken, and won’t be tempted to be despairing or for a moment be in the grip of a sense of hopelessness. That’s not what I’m saying.
I think Joseph had to struggle through all of those things. But I tell you what, he struggled through and he found the heart to go on because he was conscious of God’s presence. And when a man knows that God is with him and God is for him, his hope will increase. Second thing, although I was going to tell you a story about Martin Luther. In the midst of the Reformation when things were piling on top of him, Luther becomes rather despondent and despairing to a point that one particular day, his wife, Katharine, who’d run away from a nunnery and escaped in a barrel of smelly fish. She dresses in black one particularly, and walks about the house as if she’s in mourning, and Luther kind of gets upset with her. He says, “What in the world are you doing? Who has died?” Katharine, Luther’s wife said, “God.”
He says, “Don’t be silly, woman.” She says, “Well, Martin, you’ve been going around acting and responding as if God is dead.” And some of us indeed would give that impression, wouldn’t we? God forgive us and we’re all capable of that and we’ve all fallen there, but we need to embolden our faith with the words of Psalm 27 verse 13 where David says, “I would’ve fainted unless I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Do you believe to see? Joseph did. He didn’t give up on the dream, didn’t give up on that God-given perspective and promise yet to be fulfilled in his life. It not only increased his hope, it increased his honor. A life marked by the presence of God will be noticed by others. Others will not feel to see it and acknowledge it. They will enjoy the overspill of your walk with God. And that’s clear.
I mean, go back to chapter 39 in verse two, “And the Lord was with Joseph; and he was a successful man and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.” And look at this, “And his master, Potiphar, saw that the Lord was with him.” Ah, we can’t be sure how he measured that, but I think it was just something about this guy’s character, his indomitable spirit, the way he carried himself and acted. This guy was a cut above the rest. And he also noticed that Joseph brought blessing on prosperity to his house. And that’s repeated again by the way later on, right? The Lord was with Joseph, verse 21, showed him mercy and he 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 who were in the prison, whatever they did, and it was his doing. And the keeper of prison didn’t look into anything. He trusted Joseph explicitly.
Wouldn’t you like an employee like that? Wouldn’t you like your boss to think of you like that? They don’t need to look over their shoulder and wonder if you’re on the clock doing what you ought to be doing. By the way, I’m going to give you a thought here that some commentators argue and I have some sympathy towards. Do you know who the keeper of the prison may have been? Potiphar himself. Let me put it another way. The keeper of the prison may have been under Potiphar, because we read here that the two prisoners that joined Joseph in chapter 40 are put into the custody of the captain of the guard in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. Did you notice how Potiphar is described back in verse one? And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard. It may be. We don’t need to make a doctrine or argue a theology from this.
But if it’s true, here’s what’s interesting. That means that Joseph won Potiphar’s favor twice. He did double duty. And there may be reason to believe that because I remember what I said last week when the whole seduction thing. I mean, if Potiphar really believed that Joseph tried to rape his wife, you can bet your bottom dollar, he had not only cut off his toes, his ears, he would cut off his head, but he didn’t, inferring what? One, suspicion on the part of Potiphar towards his wife. And two, he had been so convinced by Joseph’s integrity he had trouble swallowing this whole idea. But the point is this, Joseph was a man of honor. Joseph living a God-centered, God-conscious life attracted the compliments and the confidence of others, and that’s refreshing, that’s challenging, and it should speak to us.
What do we read of the Lord Jesus in Luke 2:52? “And he grew in favor with God and with man.” If you’ve got God’s favor, you’ll have man’s favor, unless it’s a hard-boiled sinner who wouldn’t know goodness if it hit them in the face. But I found, in many circumstances, even the world recognizes Christian character when it sees it. It was my privilege to live on a street in Saugus, Santa Clarita for a number of years. And at the bottom of our street was Bouquet Canyon Elementary School, where our girls went to. You know now that I’m a trustee and a board member at Masters Seminary and College, and I find that another joy and a great privilege to be part of training up a new generation of foot soldiers for ministry and to train up a generation of young people who are going to be salt and light in the culture.
I remember engaging in a conversation with the principal, the headmaster of Bouquet Canyon School many years ago. And with me, I was at the seminary at the time, wasn’t a trustee. But she was telling me how she had a number of young girls from Masters College who were doing their credentialing work at the school. And she just went on to extol these girls in terms of their dress, their punctuality, the students loved them, that the parents enjoyed them. I still remember the phrase and she said to me, she says, “Philip, send me as many as you can.” You see, when a man or a woman or a young person walks conscious of God’s presence, others will be conscious of God’s presence in them. You want to know if you’re truly walking in the presence of God? Do you have hope? And are you gaining the admiration of those around you?
Proverbs 16:7 tells us what? Tells us, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, even his enemies will be at peace with him.” Second thought here. Here’s the second thought. He worked conscious of God’s providence. He worked conscious of God’s providence. Now, we know that Joseph understood more looking back than he did going forward. Okay, that’s a given. He makes his greatest statements about God’s providence towards the end looking back. Genesis 45, “God sent me ahead. Guys, don’t worry what you meant for evil God meant for good,” Genesis 50. And so, I don’t want to import too much to the text. But again, given the thought that he was still buoyant in faith and in hope, he still believed that God’s dreams and designs for him would yet be fulfilled. I have to believe that Joseph continued, not only to walk conscious of God’s presence, but he worked conscious of God’s providence.
He had to believe that, you know what? His life was still going somewhere. Remember we said last week. He wasn’t about to throw it away in sexual sin. He wanted God’s blessing. And in faith he kept hold of the hope that God would still bless him. And that whatever was going on in his life, it would get him somewhere and it would add up to something. And again, I’ve got to be careful of eisegesis more than exegesis. But the text tells us, doesn’t it? That these prisoners were put into the place, verse three, where Joseph was confined. I mean, high coincidental and high accidental is that. This is the butler and the baker, and Joseph sees something in it. By the very fact he says to the butler, “See when you get restored? If you get Pharaoh’s ear, can you tell him about a young boy from the Hebrew people who’s here by an act of injustice?” I think he was, to a degree, to whatever extent, conscious of God’s providence.
And I think you and I need to be conscious of this, as we read the text. Look at verse one, “And it came to pass after these things that the butler and the baker of the King of Egypt offended their lord.” And the King of Egypt became angry, and we read that they were put into the prison where Joseph was. Don’t read that as a secularist. Don’t read that as a humanist with an atheistic world view. And it came to pass. Who was bringing it to pass? God. That’s how you’ve got to read that. All that comes to pass passes through God’s hand. And either he directly plans it or he indirectly permits it. History is his story, and our days have meaning, and history has purpose. And there’s providence here, not coincidence, providence. That the butler and the baker would be put into the very place where Joseph was confined. You And I want to lay hold of that truth. What a great truth.
It’ll give us the heart to go on. Nothing, I tell you this, nothing sustains the Christian like the doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty. Jerry Bridges says, God’s providence is his constant care for and his absolute rule over all his creation for his own glory and the good of his people.” The implication is what? That every moment of our lives is stuffed with promise and every difficulty has design. And again, I don’t want to put words in Joseph’s mouth, but maybe he had some kind of inkling that there was something going on here he could leverage. I mean, this is no small thing. He’s now talking to people who, at one point, had the direct ear of the Pharaoh himself. That’s a big deal. The doctrine of God’s providence begins to work itself out here in Joseph’s circumstances.
Now to whatever degree he was conscious of that, I want to see two things quickly about that, because I think Joseph found some comfort and some security in the doctrine of God’s providence. Someone has said that the doctrine of providence is like the suspension system on your car. It helps you ride out the potholes and the bumps on life’s road. And there’s two things I’m going to deal with them quickly and the last point I’m going to deal with very quickly. He worked to relieve others and he worked to release himself. I think these are interesting in the light of God’s providence. If a man understands God’s providence, he understands that even the worst of circumstances, God’s taking care of him. And if he’s conscious of the fact that God is taking care of him, he won’t be so selfish or small-hearted that in the midst of his own troubles, he won’t take care of others. And that’s what’s interesting here.
You know what? Hey, you’ve got your dreams. I’ve got my dreams. You’ve got your problems. I’ve got my problems. Is that how Joseph dealt with this? No. Hey, tell me what your dreams were all about. And then, Joseph goes on to interpret those dreams, and those dreams come true exactly as Joseph spoke. And again, here we see him channeling his pain and being creative and purposeful in the midst of very difficult circumstances. He’s finding the heart to go on, so much so that he’s not just lost in himself. He’s got such a confidence in God’s presence and such a hope in God’s sovereign care for him, he can lift himself out of his own problems and minister to others. And that’s a great challenge, and that ought to mark the lives of those marked by the presence of God. But here’s the thing too. This is a thought we don’t want to miss.
The favor that Joseph shows the butler and the baker, the interest he takes in them will come back to bless him. Now, not immediately because the butler will forget him. But we do read later on in chapter 41 that the butler remembers his fault on a particular day, the day that God had planned. And that’s our message next week, God’s perfect timing. But write this down, I’ll read it for you. Here’s what Proverbs 11 says, Proverbs 11. This is an interesting passage. Proverbs 11 and verses 24 and 25. I think you’ll get the drift of what I’m saying here. “There is one who scatters yet increases more, and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. But the generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also,” what? “Be watered himself.” The basic idea, it’s a bit like the Ecclesiastes one, “Cast your bread upon the water, and return to you.”
It’s an analogy of ships going out. If you send enough ships down the channel right into the open sea, some of them will get shipwrecked. Some of them won’t come home, but some of them will. Just your bread upon the water. It’s just a kind of wisdom insight. But this is even more profound if you’re willing to water others, others will turn around and water you. And here and under the sovereign care of God, Joseph shows some care towards others, and it will come back to bless him. Why would a Christian go out of his way to help others when he’s drowning himself? Because he can act in faith supported by a belief in the providence of God. I’ll give you a great illustration of this. At the board meeting just a few weeks ago, John MacArthur told us of how he was doing. He had had a knee replacement. He’d been out of the pulpit for a number of weeks.
And he said he was kind of having withdrawal symptoms from preaching. And so after four weeks, he couldn’t stand it anymore. And he went back into the pulpit even when the people said, “Hey, take some more time off.” And he said, “You know what? If you don’t need me, I need you.” He went back into the pulpit. And after the service, two physiotherapists come up and said, “Pastor, we don’t like the way you’re walking. Four weeks into this, you should be walking better and your knee should be moving with greater freedom. You know what? We would like ourselves to make you a special project.” Ditch whoever you’re working with, and we’ll take care.” And these were two physiotherapists who were very high in their own field. And John went on in the gory details to tell us they’re very good, but they’re also task masters.
And they were pushing him in ways, and bringing pain on him to a degree he hadn’t felt. But here’s the interesting thing, he said a week after that, and he told it at the elders meeting, one of the elders said, “John, one of those girls is Gretchen. Do you not remember Gretchen?” She says, “Pastor, years ago, she had gone through as a single woman a series of messages on homemaking and she felt convicted that you know what? She didn’t want to be a career woman, but she did want to meet a man and settle down and live out God’s good purposes for her. And in a Q&A session at the church one Sunday night, she asked you, she was in the middle of her PhD at UCLA, should she bail out and settle down?” And John says, “I don’t remember that.” She says, “Well, let me tell you what you told her, Pastor.”
That night so many years ago, you said to Gretchen, “You finish your education because you’ll never know how God will use it.” Exactly. You water others, and they will turn around and water you. What a challenge. Under the sovereign curve of God, Joseph works to relieve others. And secondly, he works to release himself, which is interesting. Very quick point here. We don’t want to miss it. In the middle of all this, to whatever degree he was conscious of God’s sovereign care of him, and I think he was conscious of it to some degree, and he held onto the belief of it. At least when he hears the dream and he knows the butler is going to get released and restored to his place of prominence with Pharaoh, we read in verses 14, “But remember me when it is well with you and please show kindness to me, make mention of me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. For indeed, I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews and I’ve done nothing deserve to be in this dungeon.”
And the simple point is this, as we talk about God’s providence, I think we must see in this. No competition between God’s sovereign actions and Joseph’s human reactions. I think sometimes we preach the doctrine of God’s sovereignty to a point of unbiblical fatalism, where we see that our responsibility is kind of canceled out, but that’s not true. We don’t find that both in the presentation of the gospel. And we don’t find it here in the working of Joseph. In a rare moment of self-defense, Joseph seeks to leverage this moment to his own advantage. He seeks to improve his condition by himself and as much as he can, humanly speaking. I don’t think this is an act of distrust, do you? I certainly don’t think it’s a man acting as if he doesn’t believe in God’s sovereignty. But there are some who have tried to infer this as, this is a moment of weakness on Joseph’s part.
It is a rare moment of self-defense. And now, he begins to kind of manipulate the circumstances. I just think that’s folly. I don’t see any kind of competition between God’s sovereign actions and our human reactions any more than when Paul lets those who beat him in Acts 16 know that they had beaten a Roman citizen, which was forbidden. Paul uses his rights to leverage something for the good of the gospel. What about Mordecai saying to Esther, “You know what? You need to use your political leverage to protect the people of God.” What about that verse back in Nehemiah 4:9? You remember it. When they’re threatened, and we read that the people of God prayed, and they posted guards on the wall. In fact, I remember using that verse to a young policeman I was working with in Northern Ireland who came from a Plymouth Brethren background. He was always uneasy about the fact as a police officer, he had to carry a firearm, and he did.
He submitted to that and he carried his firearm when he was on duty, but he always left it in the station when he was off duty. And the fact was in Northern Ireland, you were more likely to be killed off duty than on duty. And I took him to that verse and I said, “You’re nuts. God has given you a responsibility. He’s not only given you a heart to trust him, he’s given you a mind to reason with. And buddy, you need to start using your brains.” Cromwell said to his own troops, didn’t he? “Trust God and keep your powder dry.” And we see here this beautiful blending of God’s sovereign action, but Joseph’s human reactions living out his life in a responsible manner. Time’s gone. Here’s the last thought because this is a thought we’ll pick up next week, so I’ll just make a passing comment.
He waited conscious of God’s promise, waited conscious of God’s promise. And we’ll see next week, God’s perfect timing and all of that. But we know that the butler gets released, right? Verse 23, but what do we read? Did he remember Joseph? No, he forgot them and he forgot them for how long? Two years. Look at verse one of chapter 41, “Then it came to pass at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream.” And as he goes on about the dream and nobody can interpret and unlock the mystery of it, the butler goes, “Hey, there’s a young Hebrew down in the prison. He interpreted my dream two years ago.” Now, here’s what you got to do. You got to do the math. According to Genesis 41:46, Joseph gets released into Pharaoh’s presence when he’s 30. If you go back to Genesis 37 in verse two, he has his dream with his brother and his father when he’s 17, which provokes their jealousy, which leads to his being sold into slavery.
So how we apportion it? But from the moment he’s in Potiphar’s house to his time in Potipar’s house in the prison, and then in the Pharaoh’s presence is 13 years. We know that by this stage when the butler leaves him and he’s got a hope that maybe, maybe God will use this incident to bring his case to Pharaoh’s attention. We know he’s been waiting 11 years for the dream to show some kind of fulfillment. But here’s the deal, as I say, we’ll pick this up next week. When he is released, he’s released with a God focus. Joseph doesn’t become bitter, even when he has to wait, even because of another setback. He still finds the heart to go on because he believes in the promises of God, that God give him a promise. And he has now found heart and hope in the fact that, you know what? God has helped him interpret the butler’s dream and the baker’s dream, which has come true exactly.
So he hasn’t made a mistake. He hasn’t misread the providence and the promise of God. His dream hopefully will also come to fruition. And when he comes into Pharaoh’s presence, and Pharaoh tells us his dreams again, Joseph says in chapter 41 in verse 16, “Hey, only God can interpret this.” He’s still got a God-centered, God-conscious focus. Joseph was held by and held to the belief in the promise of God. You know what it says in 1st Kings 8 in verse 56? Solomon is blessing the temple. And we read there that he says to the people of God that, “Not one good word of his promise has failed.” It’s a beautiful verse. One of my favorites, “Not one good word of his promise has failed or fallen to the ground.” My friend, heaven and earth will pass away before one jot or one tittle of God’s word is erased or fails to come, to complete fulfillment.
I do believe that every promise in God’s word has been fulfilled or will be fulfilled, although I do believe that there are certain promises that won’t be fulfilled to me because they weren’t promised to me. They were promised to someone else for another time, but that leaves plenty of promises still. And those promises that are still for me today as a New Testament, New Covenant Christian living in the church, those promises are great. And according to Peter, they’re exceeding. And God is not slack concerning his promise. How do you find the heart to go on? By believing that God keeps his promises, that God is working all things together for good, and that God is with you. And God is for you even when things are against you. Whatever others mean for harm, God can turn it to good. Keep a hold of his promise.
Don’t allow yourself to get locked away in Doubting Castle. Remember how Bunyan pictures Pilgrim there locked in Doubting Castle, the Giant of Despair running around threatening him. And all of a sudden, in a moment of realization, Pilgrim puts his hand into his pocket, and he brings out what? The key of promise. And he turns the lock, and he gets out of the Dungeon of Despair. And that’s Bunyan’s beautiful way of reminding us that you can unlock your heart and release the despair and the doubts through the key of the promises of God. Not one good word of His promise will ever fail us. Let’s pray, and then we’ll pray some more. Lord, we thank you for this reminder tonight, this word of encouragement and education to find the heart to go on. Lord, we thank you for the lessons that Joseph teaches us.
The true measure of a man is what it takes to stop him. And we are amazed at how Joseph doesn’t become a prisoner to bitterness, doesn’t live in the past. He takes the next step in your providence and he keeps embracing the promise of something better yet to come. And though God, we remind ourselves tonight that faith is things hoped for and things not yet seen. Lord, help us to walk by faith and not by sight. Help us to release ourselves from Doubting Castle and the Dungeon of Despair by holding onto the keys of your promise. Lord, we thank you for reminding us again that whatever comes to pass passes through you. And though, God, may we be God-besotted, God-conscious people, and may others see it, benefit from it, and may it lead us to embrace the future that you have promised for us. We ask and pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.