Prison to Prince
Genesis 41:1-8 · Vern Peterman · Jan 11, 2009
Genesis, No. 51
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926121365580

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I'm glad you can join with us here to walk through this passage. Before we do that, I just want to kind of give you an update and re-inform in some cases about this upcoming trip to Uganda. Bruce, maybe stand up just so everybody sees who you are. Bruce and I will be traveling in about a week and a half.

And some have asked, thank you, that we're, are you ready? I said absolutely not. Some have said, are you getting ready? Absolutely. Once we depart, there's very little opportunity to catch up with anything you might have forgotten or not prepared for. So yes, we're having to move very thoughtfully and methodically through everything.

For what it's worth, here's Uganda in the heart of Africa. We'll be leaving on Wednesday the 21st, gone for a couple of weeks there. We'll be landing it in Tebbe. Yes, that's the one that has the famed movie and the Israeli rescue, if you're familiar with that, at the airport. We'll be going from there to Mbale, a four or five-hour trip. We sure hope. Anyway, four or five-hour trip. And then from there, we'll be going to a nearby village called Chisino Village, means Mango Village.

And that will be kind of our area of concentration, working with the church there. We showed these pictures previously, but here's Bruce with Hassan and Isa, a couple of the people there, former Muslims, and some indications of things in Mbale and the surrounding area. Here's Joseph Molacco, the pastor, and another person that we're in contact with, Khalid Mwasa and his family.

Nancy has begun doing some typing up of the Gospel tract. Now let me tell you, since neither Nancy and I know Lugandan, it is very interesting to try to proofread this. What words appear to be something that you recognize in English, that's not what they mean. And pretty much everything else is unrecognizable. This, for example, engiri, that one, that means gospel. Most of it is unrecognizable from anything that you have heard or seen in English. Occasionally something like Christo comes across and you say, okay, I recognize that one. And then after that, you're lost.

So anyway, this is a lot of fun to type. And even to know, have I lost my place? Now, you know as well as I, it is like pulling hen's teeth to get us to talk about money around here. But people have asked repeatedly, is there any way to contribute? So we'll knuckle under and tell you. If you wish to contribute towards expenses, and there are some extraordinary expenses that go along with this, you know, miscellaneous things.

One of them, for example, is malaria is very common. In Africa, overall, about one million people die every year from malaria. child dies every 30 seconds of malaria. That's something that Bruce and I are not planning on dying of, so we have to take some, you know, things to prevent that. This is an example of some of the extraordinary things.

So, anyway, if you wish to designate for the Uganda ministry, that will be something that we can then use to make sure it gets directed in this way. So here we are in the upper end of the reaches of the Nile River. And here is Uganda here in this area. Here's Egypt up at the top. And there's the Nile River Basin, that purple line on the map. Okay, and that's my segue into our passage, okay?

Because I had a dream is what the pharaoh starts off here. In chapter 41, he begins having this dream, as Courtney read for us here. In Egypt in those days, dreams were thought of as a message from the gods. They were interpreted often by a book of dreams. I have to have a little qualification to that.

It was rather unusual for the Pharaoh to ask for help interpreting his dreams. The assumption was, since Pharaoh was one of the 700 gods of Egypt, that he already knew what the dream meant. So to have him ask, what does this mean, was rather unusual. And it may be one of the reasons why the rest of the court was rather shocked. How do we help Pharaoh interpret a dream? He is one of the gods, right? Well, now, to have a dream, you have to be sleeping. And of course, he was in a mummy bag, right? No, maybe not. He was in a bed probably more like this, would have been typical. And so he has this dream.

This Book of Dreams that they would interpret from wasn't inspired. It was sort of a, here's a listing of different symbols and things that come up in a dream. And some of the problems in using the Book of Dreams, which again the pharaoh typically was not one to ask for help with this, but if they did, one of the difficulties is a particular symbol, a cow or a sheep or something of that sort, might mean several things. And you didn't know, was the dream about something now, was it about something in the past, or was it about something in the future? So the problem, the dream was often interpreted in a way that was either vague or had multiple answers or some combination of the two. And so these dream interpreters would come up with various ideas. Well, it might be this, it might be that, could be this, might be that, and that wasn't particularly helpful.

The pagan priests' interpretation of these dreams was often vague or just plain false, especially if you had a prophecy and it didn't come true. Now, so Pharaoh has this dream. He has this two-dream night. Ever have a two-dream night? Okay, he had a two-dream night. Seven sleek cows and fat cows along the Nile River. Of course, the Nile River, you know where that is. Here's Uganda and Bali down there.

And anyway, won't go there too much. Here's the fat cows. Well, maybe not that fat. Okay, that's a bit much. But healthy cows, okay? All right, they're doing fine, eating lots of grass. Coming out of the Nile River, and they're among the March grasses there. Then seven ugly and gaunt cows come out from out of the Nile, and the ugly and gaunt cows come and eat the seven sleek and fat cows. Now, I've never seen a carnivorous cow before, and I'm glad I never have, but be careful of them. They can be rather nasty, I guess.

So, they come and eat the fat cows, and after the dream, their pharaohs awake. Of course, if I had a dream like that, I'd probably wake up too. And so he wakes him to sleep, and he's probably got a good reason to wake up, but then he goes back to sleep. And then he starts another dream. Okay. Same song, second verse. He goes back to sleep. He has this second dream.

And again, in this one, the seven plump and good ears of grain grow on a single stalk. I couldn't find a picture of exactly seven, so you'll have to go along with me there. But seven plump and good, here's a grain grow on a single stalk, but they don't remain. Why? because seven thin and scorched ears of grain come up, parched by the east wind. Of course, when they're in Egypt, once you get very far away from the Nile, wind from any direction is going to be, you know, hot, but the east one particularly. And these seven thin and scorched ears consume the plump and good ears of grain, okay? They are all gone. All you have left is the scorched and thin grains left. Now, in case you're seeing double, that's good. There is double up there.

Beginning with Joseph's own dreams, Moses, the author of the book of Genesis, took care, I mean we're talking for the last roughly 10 plus chapters here, to put a number of pairs into the account. We're going to point out some right here and we're going to point out some more as we go along. He put pairs into the account again and again and again for about a dozen chapters here. And I would suggest to you that likely the reason in many of those cases is just as a confirmation. If you see it twice, of course, if you get the same message with each time, it's a confirmation that yes, this is true. When I say pairs, it's not this kind. Not that kind. It's two. That's the idea.

Joseph himself had two dreams, for example. He was 17 years old. He went and told first his brothers and then his brothers with his father alongside there. And he had two dreams. Remember, there was the one dream having to do with the sheaves and all the sheaves bowed down to his one sheave that was standing up. And then there was the sun and the moon and the stars. That dream. So he had a pair of dreams. That would be one example.

Back there in Genesis 37. Joseph became high steward twice, once in the house of Potiphar and another time there in the prison. Here he is in prison and yet has the position of second in charge there in the prison itself prior to this event. And then we have, in addition to that, two men Here's the pair idea again. From Pharaoh's court, we're in prison with him and they also had a pair of dreams, right? Each of them had a dream. So here's this two at a time idea. Now Pharaoh also has two dreams.

Now we'll see some additional examples of the two or pairs pattern showing up as we proceed here. Here are pairs of words and we have this also on the slide on page one of your handout. Pairs of word descriptions. Notice the pairs that show up in this passage. First you have the sleek and fat combination, which by the way is twice, and plump and good, plump and full. there as well. Pairs of descriptions together. Same thing happens, or very similarly, with ugly and gaunt and thin and scorched. Again, pairs of words keep showing up. Isn't it interesting how not only have we seen pairs of things for about a dozen chapters here, but the intensity of those pairs becomes greater and greater here as we look at this. Now, Pharaoh wakes from the sleep and he is troubled. He's really wondering what this is all about.

His dreams were thought to be more significant than others. After all, he is the pharaoh, the leader of Egypt. Essentially, everyone's activities went towards the pharaoh's afterlife. Everyone in the whole nation worked to improve and make optimum and the best, the Pharaoh's afterlife. He was one of the 700 gods.

And so if Pharaoh had a dream, that must be exceedingly important. Although there are others who are important in the social structure, Pharaoh is unquestionably at the top of the pyramid. So, because his dream is so significant, and I would say rather unusually, but significantly, they call together all the magicians and wise men, gather them together and say, what does this dream mean? Apparently, Though this is unusual, if you're calling together all the wise men, all the magicians, all of those of the priestly caste in Egypt, they're kind of in the tier right below Pharaoh himself. If you're calling all of them together, this is very important. The Pharaoh is very disturbed and very concerned that he knows what this dream means.

Here's the social pyramid. You've got Pharaoh at the top of the pyramid. You've got the government officials, nobles, and these priests who are all gathered together here. And here is Joseph among the slaves and servants at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Now, all of them, and that's thoroughly trained as they were, all of them pulled together could not come up with an interpretation. You wonder why it's possible that they looked at the listings and said, wait a minute, we have nothing in our listings that tell us what to do with seven cows, especially gaunt and ugly ones that eat up the fat and good-looking ones. We have no way to interpret that.

It may also have been something like Pharaoh coming and saying, look guys, I want the straight story. Don't give me any of this, it might be this, it might be that stuff. You give me that, you're out of here. You're in the prison. So they might have said, whoa, I'm not touching that one. However it came across, they were, by whatever restraints the Pharaoh put on them, stuck. They couldn't come up with anything. They had no way to answer, at least one that made them feel safe. So they were stumped with this pair of dreams.

So, all of a sudden there, just two years before, Joseph had interpreted the cupbearer's dream. Remember that? The cupbearer first told a dream, and then the baker told another one after that. Well, the cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, because he says to the baker, God owns the interpretations. And to the cupbearer, the cupbearer tells him his dream, and the cupbearer had been asked by Joseph, please remind and remember me in front of Pharaoh when you get there. So Joseph may have been thinking, hey, I'll get out of here in just a few days. Well, two years have gone by and finally he's remembering, oh, oh, I remember Joseph. He could answer this. He could come up with an interpretation. So the lights go on for this guy. He has one of those light bulb moments.

These two profound dreams, by the way, being the second time that no interpreter has been available for a dream. Here's another one of those pairs. The chief cupbearer recalls that Joseph had interpreted his own dream while he was there in prison two years ago. So, this is one of those, now that you've waited two years, hurry up!

And that kind of a situation. So they send and call. And by the way, the send and call is another pair which shows up more than once. And it doesn't show up in, I think, oh yeah, that's right. It's only a pair of chapters that it shows up in the Bible. But this is one of them. So send and call for Joseph. They hurriedly get Joseph from the prison. Well, he's got to get himself ready. He shaves himself.

That was a big thing in Egypt. It was not only customary, but they actually had special wash facilities if you were going to go in and see the Pharaoh. Right there in the entry area, they had special wash and cleanup facilities for people who were coming in to see Pharaoh. You do not go in unshaven and dirty to see Pharaoh.

Period. And so anyway, he's likely doing this in a hurry. Hope you don't cut yourself. And he gets over to Pharaoh's court here, trying to get himself ready real fast. Now, Pharaoh then gives Joseph a summary of his problem. I've got a dream. A couple of them. And no interpretation. Not even for either of them.

Pharaoh then tells Joseph that he has heard that Joseph can interpret dreams. I hear this rumor, this cupbearer friend of yours, says that you can interpret dreams. Since we have nobody else who can do it, be glad to hear what you got to say. Well, Joseph comes up immediately with a clarification. He doesn't say, sure, I can pull it off for you. I, Joseph, can do it. He says, immediately, God is the one who will give the interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams. God's the one who can pull it off.

He immediately gives the Lord the credit here. Now, the fleshly believer, of course, will eagerly blame God, demand that God will do things on a human time scale. But Joseph, with faith in God, gives God the credit even before the dream is told, even though he's been waiting for two years. He didn't come up with griping and complaining about, you know, it's taken a while and Mr. Cupbearer, I've got to have some words with you. But instead, Immediately, his response is, God will give the interpretation. That's the focus.

Now, Pharaoh spills the beans. Pharaoh then proceeds to tell Joseph the details of his dream. Nobody among his wise men and magicians have been able to pull this off. They can't interpret them. But he tells the details, basically as we saw in the first eight verses that Courtney read for us here. And he spells out pretty much verbatim as he had said before. Perhaps the details of the dream are not told about when the magician and wise men heard it, because we just had the magician and wise men couldn't understand it. Since they couldn't interpret it, why give the details, right?

But he tells them here. Joseph then tells Pharaoh what the two dreams mean. He doesn't say, well, let me come back and think about that a while, you know, and ponder that, and let me give it some thought. He just says, right now, here is what your dream means. Though Pharaoh had the two dreams, he says they mean the same thing. God has told Pharaoh what will soon take place in Egypt. One of the things in verse 25 that is, I think, really valuable to take a look at is God has done the revealing. God's told Pharaoh.

And what it says in that verse is what he, God, will do. God's going to make this happen. God's going to pull it off. It's not God's best guess. It's not God guessing and hoping that he's got the right answer. It is God knows and God will make it happen. God is sovereign. The seven good cows and the seven good years of grain are seven years of good crops. The seven gaunt cows and the seven years of parched grain are seven years of famine.

So he lays that out. Oh, that's what that means. You can imagine the wise men and the magicians, all those of the priestly cast there in the court going, oh, man, that was so simple, so direct. They must have been mind-blown. So we always come up with it might be this, could be that, you know. This guy just says what it is. That's amazing. Here in this passage, verse 25 through 32, and this is not on your handout, but I'll have it up here.

It says that Joseph brings up God in this four times. Something very interesting is that he brings up God in the Greek Old Testament. It actually has the definite article, THE God. Remember, the Egyptians had 700 gods, and so if you said, you know, God, well, which one?

Joseph makes no mistake about it. He points to, it's not one of these and one of those and a couple of these and five more of those. It's the God, the one God, the true God, the real God. He makes it abundantly clear from the first verse here to the last. The one true God.

And that pattern that you see in the Greek Old Testament is carried over into the New Testament. Frequently, as Paul writes to churches where many of these people have pagan backgrounds, believing in multiple gods just like the Egyptians. Paul makes the distinction. The God. The one God. The true God. Not all these others who don't know the future and don't have the answers. So here's what this means.

Joseph told Pharaoh that these dreams mean that the seven years are good harvest to be followed by seven years of really bad harvest. So bad that the good years will be forgotten. The surplus from those years will be eaten up and taken up. The double dreams of Pharaoh also had a great significance. He says explicitly here that the double dreams say two things.

One, these things are determined by God. Remember, the things that God is going to do, verse 25? They're determined by God. See, God isn't just letting things happen in the world. God is sovereign, and it doesn't mean that He sits there and controls everything so that you have no choice. and no personal will in the matter, what it does mean is that the things that God has determined to take place are most certainly to take place, and they are not out of His control.

He has determined that these seven good years and seven bad years will take place. They are going to happen, just like He has determined and predestined that you be conformed to the image of the Son. If you're a believer here this morning, He is determined and predestined that to take place. It will take place.

No questions. No question about it. God is sovereign. It will happen. He will work all things together for good in your life. He will. Those are things that He has determined. And this is communicated to Pharaoh. That's the reason for your double dreams here. God's determined it. But there's another reason.

It's going to take place very quickly. The fact that it's double, it most certainly is going to take place and it's going to happen very fast. This isn't going to be a matter of waiting some period of time and then it will happen. It's going to start real quick. You better start getting ready now. So he begins to tell Pharaoh what Pharaoh ought to do about it. And you're going to need to do this to prepare for the next 14 years because this is going to start soon and I don't mean maybe.

Pharaoh should appoint a wise man over the land who will use overseers and they'll gather up one-fifth of the harvest. Now the way it worked in the land of Egypt is that the farmers were on the second to the lowest tier, right above the slaves and servants. So farmers were kind of low on the totem pole, so to speak, low on the social pyramid. But the land that the farmers did the harvesting from was owned by Pharaoh. It was all the Pharaoh's land. And so here the farmers were going to use Pharaoh's land that he owned, and Pharaoh was going to take a fifth in order to have a reserve for those bad years that are coming. Gather up one-fifth of the harvest and guard the storehouses.

Some of the storehouses had a shape like you see here in these sort of beehive-shaped containers. They also had storage facilities that were more like a house with walls and a roof and that kind of thing. So those two forms And what they would do is they would set up storage cities, kind of clustered in certain areas, in order to be able to gather the harvest from those areas and to be able to distribute it out to people efficiently.

So they had that arrangement. When the bad years would come, they would be reserved then to carry Egypt through those bad years. That was the idea. They just told him outright, one-fifth, that'll do it. Isn't that interesting? He didn't say, keep some. He said, one-fifth, that's what you need.

Pharaoh's response. I mean, Pharaoh, you can imagine him, he's amazed. First of all, it's extraordinary that he gets asked for help with an interpretation. But then he says here, then Pharaoh said to his servants, that is those in his court that were gathered together, can we find a man like this in whom is a divine spirit? Not that he recognized the Holy Spirit in him, but he says there is something extraordinary above human wisdom and above human insight and above human understanding about this man. He recognizes that.

As a matter of fact, the next verse, verse 39, Pharaoh even says, The God, just like Joseph had said four times. In the Greek Old Testament, it actually says, The God who has given you this wisdom. Really amazing. In verses 38 through 45, then, comes the next part of this story.

Pharaoh, seeing that Joseph had uniquely given the interpretation of the dreams, and even told Pharaoh, here's the brief outline of what you need to do in order to be able to take advantage of the coming good crop and the coming bad crop. Here's how to handle the opportunity and the crisis that's in front of you.

He put Joseph second in command in all of Egypt. And by the way, there's multiple record in the Egyptian archaeological records, multiple records of this kind of thing where they give a person a second in command title. So this was in keeping with the Egyptian pattern and we see that recorded here. Joseph was given Pharaoh's signet ring. This was in order to give Joseph the ability to mark things with Pharaoh's authority. He basically had the authority of Pharaoh, even though he was not Pharaoh himself.

Clothed him in fine linen. I'll tell you that the Egyptians all wore linen. That was the only thing they wore. They all wore linen, but he was given fine linen. Linen that was put together with more care. And a golden necklace placed about his neck. These symbols of authority.

Joseph is placed in Pharaoh's number two chariot. You know how we've got Air Force One? I don't know if there's an Air Force Two, but probably that's what it would be. Kind of equivalent, right? And all are told, bow the knee. Everybody bows the knee to Joseph. He is the one who is right under Pharaoh. He has Pharaoh's authority. Everybody bows the knee. Are you a nobleman? Bow the knee. Is your name Potiphar? Bow the knee. Are you Potiphar's wife? Bow the knee.

Got that? Isn't this something? This is extraordinary here. So from that point forward, Joseph served in Pharaoh's court. Okay? You got that? From that point forward, Joseph served in Pharaoh's court. Pharaoh then gives Joseph a place, as he put it, over my house, verse 40, and over all the land of Egypt, basically the same thing, verse 43. Essentially there is a slight difference though.

The house is everything within Pharaoh's own immediate control and command there, as well as everything else in the land. And remember, all the agricultural land was owned by Pharaoh. He owned it anyway, so to give him the authority, well, That makes perfect sense, because that's Pharaoh's. So Pharaoh had the opportunity and the authority to do that.

These verses show a pattern of stewardship that we have brought up before, and we'll see again as we proceed through Genesis, and actually through the whole rest of Scripture. Pharaoh, who was the one who had supreme authority in the land, handed the authority, entrusted it to Joseph, and over all the land of Egypt, at least agriculturally speaking, He would be like the grand vizier of agriculture, which was very important.

We pointed out last week that for the Egyptians, the idea of bread was very important to them. The Egyptian word for bread is the same word for life. Very significant. So when Joseph was with Potiphar, he also made him over his house and over all that he owned.

A similar idea of stewardship is carried across. Stewardship is a principle that began in the Garden of Eden. Remember where Adam was told, you will have authority over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and you are to eat this and not eat that and make sure you be fruitful and multiply. He was given a stewardship. That idea of stewardship will be carried over on into the future, times yet to come. Essentially, the father will give Christ a stewardship over the entire earth in the coming millennium, in the coming reign that he will have over the entire earth. That's a stewardship relationship as well.

Pharaoh also gives Joseph a name and a wife. Likely in the interest of having the rest of the Egyptians relate to Joseph and recognize him as one of their own, he gives Joseph this Egyptian name, Zaphonath-Penea. There have been several guesses as to what it means. It seems to me that nobody knows for sure, so I won't try to tell you. But nonetheless, it appears to be explicitly an Egyptian name. one that would be recognizable by the Egyptians. Joseph was given here the marks, at least externally, of the Egyptian culture.

Pharaoh also gave him a wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, a priest of On. This would have been from the top echelon. Again, the priest would have been right below the pharaoh in the social pyramid. This obelisk that you see, this kind of needle, somewhat like a small version of the Washington Monument, that is the one remaining structure from the city of Onn, where Potiphar was the priest.

It was an important city in that time, and later on, Jeremiah 43.13 has it as this, called Heliopolis, Sun City is kind of the name for it. And so here's Joseph given the Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife, and essentially giving him all the symbols of acceptability within the Egyptian culture. So what does Joseph do?

He sits and gets on his lounge chair and sips on some mint tea and lays back. No, he gets to work. He carries out what he had recommended to Pharaoh. He accumulates one-fifth of the grain harvest in Egypt during this time, during these seven good years that he had spoken of. Apparently, they came very quickly, like immediately. There's no indication that there was any real delay. Exactly what he had told Pharaoh, this is going to come fast, is exactly what happened.

The good and the bad harvests in Egypt depended upon the flow of the Nile. Aside from the flow of the Nile, Egypt would all be desert. So the Nile River from way upstream, places like Uganda, would get its water flow. And if there was a shortage of water flow, then the Nile would not have the water flow either. And it would not bring in the rich sediments that would lay out on the croplands each side of the river. So these good years were from the sediment that laid out there and watered the land well. And then the seven bad years that followed were from upstream flows, being very lean.

During the good years, he fills the storehouses of all the cities of Egypt, even to the point where he had stopped trying to keep track of the total. He just said, one-fifth, that's the number the Lord told me to take, and that'll do it. I don't have to sit there and work out what the total is. That's the right number. And he worked off of that. He accumulated lots and lots and lots of grain, apparently had enough storehouses for all the amount that was collected.

In Genesis 41, verses 50 through 52, there's a few interesting verses of personal life for Joseph. It's not in your handout, but I'd like us to take a look at it. Now, before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, a priest of On, bore to him. Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, For he said, God has made me forget all my trouble in all my father's household.

Isn't that interesting? This has really continued to bother him and to hit home, but now, no, the Lord has allowed me to forget that and put that behind me. And in the second Ephraim, for he said, God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. Isn't that interesting that in his history, in his past, he looks at that with trouble? But even here in Egypt where he is second in command and given the best of the best, the luxury that he enjoys is second only to Pharaoh. Even in that, he calls this the land of his affliction. Isn't that interesting? Manasseh means causing to forget. That's why he says what he says there. Ephraim means fruitful. The Lord made him fruitful here in the land of his affliction. Ben-Joseph undoes it.

The next seven years come and all the grain that he had gathered is now being sold back to the people. So that during those very, very bad years of very great famine, these storehouses are being drained and emptied. The famine is so bad, not only are the people of Egypt coming to him, but people of the entire probably eastern Mediterranean are coming to him. For actually many centuries, Egypt, even up until the New Testament times, Egypt was looked upon as sort of the breadbasket, if you will, of the Mediterranean. So all these people from other lands coming to Egypt for grain, and that's going to be the introduction, the segue into the next chapter here. The grain houses are being drained to feed all the people.

Think about Joseph here. Consider his circumstance. Here he was at age 17, sold off by his brothers. Thirteen years have passed from the time Joseph was sold by his brothers until this point in time we read now. Imagine, sold by his brothers, thirteen years go by, including two years in which the cupbearer forgot him, until finally this takes place.

That's quite a bit to endure. And seventeen, eh, that's still fairly young. Life has just begun. What a beginning, huh? He doesn't know what his family thinks of him 13 years later. Notice he talks about, I forget my trouble back there. This is the land of my affliction. But he really has no idea. What do they think of me back there? Does my father miss me? Do they have any idea what happened to me? What did my brothers tell him? He doesn't know. He has no idea.

Some of the things we can take out of this passage include God's path for you may not be direct. It might not be short either. As human beings, we're inclined to look at things, oh, I can see that goal. And I want life to be just straight towards where I think I ought to be headed. That's easy for us to set in places, oh, that's going to be our goal. I can see that. I can see the resources that I need to get there. That's our inclination as human beings.

But that may not be the Lord's plan. The Lord may have a very different and indirect path. Up until this account here, Joseph was in prison, and for all he knew, he was forgotten by his family and had been forgotten by the chief cupbearer, the one person who was hoping would remember him. As we've seen the life of Joseph here, God brought him through all these circumstances and he endured one injustice after another, getting there. What's interesting is, like Joseph, we may have to walk by faith.

2 Corinthians 5.7 has a very brief, as a matter of fact, middle of a sentence, kind of a verse. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Walking by faith means not. It means to live out our lives not by what we can see and touch and hear, everything that this world has to offer, this world's insights and resources, but by trusting what God has said in His Word. what He has made us to be in Him, and who He is in each one of us who believe. It's walking by faith.

What has God done? Who is He? What has He made me to be? Which directly relates to who He is, right? Walking by faith is not presuming that God will do what we think is a good idea. Oh, I'm going to believe God for this thing. I'm going to name it and then claim it. No. That's not walking by faith. That's presumption. That's presumption. Finally, God gets the glory. You notice, here's Joseph.

He's got plenty he could be real bitter about. He could have stomped into that room and started chewing out the cupbearer. I told you and you left me in there for two years! What's the matter with you? I have a half a mind to shave somebody else. You, right? Instead, he comes in here and what are the words out of his mouth?

God gets the glory. God gets the credit. He's the one who's going to do the interpreting. The God. The God. The God. You know why God gets the glory? Grace. Grace. Grace is God gets the credit because he's the one who's done it all. God has all the resources and all the provisions. It's not my best efforts and He makes up the difference. It's all Him. It's all His. It's grace. Credit where credit is due. That's what glory is about. And guess what? He's the one to whom all credit is due.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage. It is amazing to see worked out your faithfulness. It's amazing as we look here to see though you indeed intended for Joseph to go through difficult times and in the end he would recognize its value. We also, Lord, see that you are faithful. You are faithful to what you said you would do. You are faithful to what you have determined to do in our lives. We thank you for that faithfulness. We thank you for your marvelous and most amazing grace. In Jesus' name, amen.