Joseph in Egypt.
by Howard Taylor.

Remember these are only notes so don't expect perfect grammar or even perfect spelling. Remember too that British spelling is different from American spelling.

Last time.
Began the story
1. Dreams of Greatness.
2. Father Israel's favourite.
3. Growing hostility of his brothers.
4.They put him in a pit and sell him as slave to Egypt.

Today Gen 39 and 40

Slave of Potipher - Capt of Guard in charge of prisons.
- Success and promotion in Potipher's household.
- Trustworthy, wise and hardworking.
- Potipher entrusts everything to his care.

Temptation comes through Potipher's wife.
- Attempts to seduce him.
- A long period - fails.
- Eventually turns against Joseph.
- Slanders him and P has no choice but to throw him into prison.

There too he proves trustworthy and generous.
- Jailer gives him responsibility to care for the prisoners.

Refrain: The Lord was with Joseph.

Yet he suffered from injustice, slavery, danger, slander and imprisonment.

A spectator would not have said that, rather he might say: 'God is not with Joseph or not being fair'

So many today blame God for their misfortunes.

Yet compared with others we suffer little.

The Lord was with Joseph.

Prosperity does not lead to greater awareness of God.

Awareness of God independent of our circumstances.

For many - Rich - forget God.
- And when a hard time comes, how can God be so hard on me?

Book of Revelation: 
- Babylon - Prosperity - Decadence and blasphemy.
- When hardship comes - God is cursed.
So in both prosperity and hardship God is cursed.

The Lord was with Joseph.
1. He was faithful in Potipher's house and in prison.
- Subsequent chapters - Rule Egypt.

Reminds us of Jesus's words.
- Faithful in a little, faithful in much.

How we use our talents in this life - affects how we are in eternity.

His trials are preparing him for much greater responsibility.

As we look at our own lives
- young looking ahead, old looking back.
We see how our experiences fashioned us for what is ahead.

Joseph's greatness in Egypt depended on his
- hard experiences with his brothers,
- Potipher's wife
- and Prison.
Malcolm Muggeridge. Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful, with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned
in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained.  In other words, if it ever were to
be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo...the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal or trivial to be endurable.  This
of course is what the cross signifies, and it is the cross more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.

Should we think of our life on earth as preparation for eternity?
Yes it is.
But not just a preparation.
Astronauts simulation on earth - preparing them for Space Travel.

Space travel the real thing.
Simulation just practice.

Our life on earth is not just practice.
It really matters.

Because eternity meets time in Christ and therefore in all who are born of Him, This world, this life, created by God matters v. much and is part of Eternal Life.

Nevertheless is still a preparation.

Continuity and Discontinuity.
Continuity:
- Life after death - not disembodied spirits floating about cloud 9.
- Human life transformed - glorified but still human life.
- Wonders of nature, Achievement, Fellowship, Adventure, Hope all part of eternity.

Yet discontinuity.
- Break with this life. Death.
- Sin,
- Cross.
The way we are here is v. relevant to how we will be after death.

Vs. 2. Prospered.
That does not mean promotion but success..
Used his talents to full.

The Lord was with Joseph and he used his talents to the full.

Certain kind of evangelical preaching:
- Let God take control.
- Surrender to His Spirit.
- Be filled with His Spirit and He will carry you along.
- Swept along by wind of Spirit.
- No effort
- God will do it all.
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Other extreme.
- Flog ourselves.
- Plans efforts,
- Labour to please God.
- Proudly trust our abilities and talents.
- Think of all the efforts and Committees and Literature to make a Successful Church.

But Is God with Us?

Give Him, and His Word priority.

Prayer and speak to Him like a little child.

When God's Spirit moves in Power we won't need this terrific accumulation of business.

But Holy Spirit does not destroy our talents and personality.
- He enables us to use what God has given us.

So the Lord was with Joseph and He prospered.

Let us be a Church where First Priority is that God be with us.
- Then humbly depending upon Him we use our different talents to the full.

In the midst of Joseph's success - Temptation comes in the form of Potipher's wife.

True of us. When things are going well we are most susceptible to temptations.
- She tried many ways to trap him.
- Surprises him and coaxes him.
- Eventually a final ambush from which he escapes.

If he had given in - might have risen even higher.
She would have seen him well.

He knew to resist - mortal danger.
He keeps out of her way.
V10 And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.


Reminded of:
2 Tim 2: 22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Verse 9b significant:. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
- He calls it by its proper name: Wickedness.
- (Not:  inadvisable, dangerous, improper.) Wicked.
- That strengthens his spirit.
- To acknowledge with his mouth in the hearing of another: 'This is wicked' , strengthens his resolve.

AND 'sin against God'

David and Bathsheba: 'Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned.'
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Yet it still leads to misfortune.
His refusal leads to his imprisonment under false charges.

What is the point of being righteous now?

Would it not have been better to enjoy the prosperity of the wicked.

Have you ever thought
- 'I have been too honest`'
- I have kept myself pure in vain?
Psalm 73 starts with these doubts.

Joseph in Prison.
22 And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. 23 The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.

Same man in prosperity and affliction.
- Self-pity destroys our soul.
- All tempted and tested.

He turns to help others.

Jesus' advice:
- Associated with the lowly.
- Seek their friendship.
You won't be filled with self-pity.
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5 From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field.

Blessing overflowed from Joseph to others.

Simply ask the Lord to be with you.
In encouragement and discouragement.

Make your priority to be with the Lord - followed by the desire to use your talents to the full.

Then in discouragement and encouragement your life will bring blessing to others and that, in the end will be the greatest blessing you can know for yourself.
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Genesis 40.
Joseph is in prison.
(not because of wrong, on contrary, resisted seduction be his master's wife.

Soon Joseph has company in Prison.

40:1Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody.

Probably Pharaoh had been ill. Who does he blame?
- Not unnaturally his cup-bearer and baker.

2 Main Points.
5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.”

1st Point.
Dreams and guidance for our lives.
- They believed there was an interpretation but there was no-one to interpret.
- Dreams were important in ancient Egypt.
- Massive literature. Multitude of 'experts'.
- Butler and baker both cut off from the literature and the experts.
- Ancient Egypt believed in all kinds of signs and portents.

In a country where there is little knowledge of God - people turn to signs and portents.
- Britain today - fewer and fewer know the Bible so what happens? Does everyone become atheist?
- Religion and life sections in bookstores.
- Beautifully produced books on dreams, palm reading etc.
- Everything has its own spiritual power: sun, starts, earth.
- All these things are wonderful but their wonder comes not from themselves but God who created them.
What does the Bible say?
- Must have nothing to do with majic or tarrot cards or superstitions.
- Opening ourselves to evil influences.

But what about dreams?
We can't help having dreams.
Eccles 5:7 Much dreaming is meaningless.

The vast majority of our dreams have no significance or meaning. Ignore them.
Deut13:1“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

Don't put your trust in a dream even if it is connected to a sign or wonder.
Real Q is does it bring you closer to God and love or not?
Jeremiah 23: 16-18
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”
18 For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?

Real Q is 'Has he stood in the Council of the Lord?'

Know and love the Bible in the company of God's people letting your prayer be heard.
- Then when something unusual happens you will know whether or not God is speaking to you.

Great misconceptions about God's guidance.
Q Where does God want me to be?
- In Glasgow, In Edinburgh, In London, In Africa, In India?
- God's main priority is not where you are geographically but whether or not you are with Him.
'The Lord was with Joseph.'

For much of the time it does not matter whether you are in G E L A I
- As long as you are with Him and He is with you.
- Seek in Christ to serve and obey Him.

The obedience He wants is not place but heart.
Sermon on Mt.

The Lord will open many doors. And He really wants us to choose.

We are free;

If He is with us
- He will close doors that we must not enter.
- And if He really wants us to be on ONE place He will get us there.
- So many agonise: Am I in the right place? You shouldn't.

Dreams.
- Dreams can be used by God but not in the way the world expects.
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When the Cup Bearer and Baker looked dejected (no access to literature or experts) Joseph says 'Interpretations belong to God'. ie: not to experts or literature.

Next Chapter: 41:15,16 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” 16 Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favourable answer.”

2nd Point.
Testing of Joseph continues.
- His interpretation of dreams of Cup B and Baker come true.
- Cup B released.
- Joseph says: Speak to Pharaoh for me - I am innocent.
40: 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house.
But vs 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Familiar word to us all. We have forgotten and we have been forgotten.

Sorry and apologise when we forget.

When we are forgotten remember it is part of life and everyone experiences it.

Quick answer to Joseph to Butler - but to Joseph?

He waits on!

Waiting for many in Scripture.
Ab waiting for birth of Isaac - almost gives up.

Moses's ordeal of waiting.

David - anointed king but waits through many trials for the fulfilment.
Why?
God waits!
Sin and suffering world - nothing to God?
It causes Him great and continuous pain.
(OT Noah and Jer) (NT focussed in Cross).

Waits for the world to be ready for Jesus - 1st time.
'In the fullness of the time'.

Now He waits for us. So that His kingdom comes.

All the world must hear - This gospel of k preached in whole world then …

He wishes to give nations time to hear and repent.

But what do we do?
We forget Him.

The Creator of the wonder of life.
We forget Him.

Still many people have religious curiosity but instead of turning to God turn to fortune tellers and magic.

God cannot be less than us …
Personal,
Love,
Self-giving.
Cross.

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