Clough Genesis Lesson 88

Pharaoh’s dream; Joseph called, interprets dream – Genesis 41:1-36

 

The Joseph stories that we’ve been studying are critical illustrations of this line that we’ve drawn so many times during the series, that looks like a square root sign; which we can call the curve of glorification because this curve represents the deeply imbedded philosophy of history that is biblical and it occurs time and time again; it occurs in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, born of innocence, He suffers the death of the cross, He descends into hell and then He rises on the third day and ascends at the Father’s right hand at a point far above where He originally was.  The human race is the same thing; born in innocence in Eden, with the fall, and then subsequent resurrection to a point higher than it was before.  So we have this curve and time and over again it occurs. 

 

But we want to look at particular parts of that curve today because we’re going to see more details as to why God works that way; why in your life God works this way.  There is a progress in history; not unilinear, that is it’s not a straight line curve, but the Bible gives us a progress to history; history is going somewhere.  Now pagan views of history do not show progress.  In fact, there is no, absolutely no view of progress through time in any other place except the Bible.  Some can say well, the communist view of progress in history; yes, but where did they get it from?  They stole it from the book of Daniel, through the philosopher Hegel.  So it simply is not true that history is going anywhere except in the Bible.  But it goes where it goes through this fall and then this rising again.

 

Let’s look at three points which we’ll now label, and study these three points so we can gain more skill in our Christian life.  One of these we’ll call the initial point.  The second point we’ll say is the point of fall.  And the third point we’ll isolate as the rising point. We’re going to analyze the story of Joseph in terms of these three points.  The initial point, if you’ll turn to Genesis 37:7 we’ll see how it was at the beginning of this particular curve.  In Genesis 37:7-10 Joseph knows what God’s plan for his life is.  Remember he dreamed the dream of the sheaves and then in verses 9-10 he dreams the dream of the moon, the stars and the sun.  The initial point, then, we can say is the vision of what God wants.  When we are at an initial point in our life it will be at a place when God has made perfectly clear what it is He wants you to do.  And  you haven’t done it yet, maybe you’re not ready to do it yet but the initial point is that point in your life and it recurs hundreds of times, that point in your life where you have a pretty complete idea of what God wants. 

 

Joseph here, at verses 7 and 10 here, knows exactly what God’s plan for his life is.  He knows that God has chosen him to be ruler.  He doesn’t know how it’s going to take place, he hasn’t got the soul to take the pressure yet but he knows it.  So that’s our initial point.  Now the fall point; before there can be any victory in a fallen universe with a God of grace there has to be a realization of our shortcomings, our sin, our depravity.  And so therefore we call this second point the point of the fall.  It is at this point where in experience you will obtain data on how the fall affects you personally.  It will be specific encounters with your own personal sin, with your own personal depravity.  It is not a very pleasant point to be at but it is a point that every person has to go through, the point of realizing where, in fact, your sin nature operates, how it operates. Everyone has one even though there are these looks of doubt from time to time.  The fall point is when you personally become acquainted with your own sin pattern. 

 

Joseph’s encounter was when he realized his bratty nature that we’ve seen operate in Genesis 37, the idea of running off at the mouth to anybody and everybody on every occasion about every thing.  This had to be stopped; it was a sign of adolescent pride and no adolescent prideful person like Joseph could possibly be equipped to do what God wanted him to do.  So Joseph had to pass through the fall and he literally fell; he fell into a cistern, and then later on he fell into an Egyptian prison, so with Joseph it was quite a physical falling.

 

But today we’re concerned with this third point, the point of rising. Every Christian is interested in this one; this is when the pressure stops; this is when finally you have at least momentary relief, this is a time when sanctification has been accomplished at least in one area so you can pick up pieces and move on to another area; it is a time after prolonged sanctification and trial perhaps, but at least where there has been some substantial healing, some substantial changes that are made in the depths of the soul.  That’s the place in Genesis 41 that we’re studying today in connection with Joseph.  Joseph is going to be promoted at long last. All the trials and pressures in Joseph’s life that have occupied his mind for the past 13 years now come to a stop.  At the fall point Joseph was a 17 year old adolescent; at this rising point he is a 30 year old young man.  For 13 years God has put him under pressure.  For 13 years he’s faced adversity, hardship and for 13 years he’s been, generally speaking, a frustrated male.  Why and what is the clue?

 

The Christian life is not a mystery; now there are mysteries in the Christian life, none of us are going to figure out all the details.  But I hope as we go through the Genesis series there will be at least some of you who will say to yourself, now look, my life may have its problems but if I will just take the time and the effort to just look at some of the simple obvious things that are going on in my life and my relation­ship to God, I think I can pretty well gage what’s going on.  It’s not that hard to do and in Joseph’s life it’s not that hard to do.  Here he is for 13 years in a prison, the question is, it would be the question for you, it would be the question for me if we were there, when do I get out? 

 

Well now, let’s think a moment; how would you answer that question?  When do I get out? Well, I’m going to get out obviously when God wants me to get out. Remember the last chapter in Genesis 40:23, the last verse, “Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but he forgot him.”  After eleven years Joseph thought now I can get out, the 11th year, that’s when I want to get out.  No, that’s not when God wanted you out.  But I want out; NO, that is not when God wants you out. And so for two more years he struggles on in the adversity and the pressure and the hardship of the jail.  But why the 13th year, what is it that happens in the 13th year?  Is there something that happens in Joseph’s life in the 13th year that gives us a tip as to how we can read the work of God in our life and, so to speak, predict or forecast when the pressure will let up?

 

Let’s go to the doctrine of faith for a moment because what is at issue here is that God wants to develop a grace oriented believer and God can’t do that unless there is faith functioning in exactly that part of the life that’s under trial. So we come now to the doctrine of faith and we want to go through this doctrine of faith point by point to show how it applies to Joseph and then to us.  Now one of the great problems in many fundamentalist circles is the idea, and it’s a false one, the idea that faith spontaneously arises just because I want it to happen.  You get this from a lot of sloppy evangelistic work.  The idea biblically is that God calls faith into existence in a fallen creation and He sustains it by His gracious word and works; I can’t believe by myself.  I can’t believe by myself!  Faith is something that is a product of God’s Spirit working my heart.  The problem is that we come to many evangelistic services where the preaching is somewhat inaccurate and it gives you the impression that you are free to accept or reject if right now.  Now in one sense yes, obviously God holds you…, you’ve got to choose with your own choosing system.  You’ve got to act; God isn’t going to save a person unless they show some response, that’s correct.   

But, what causes the response?  It is because, according to Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”  It is the work of God the Holy Spirit operating inside you through the outside and you start to hear the message of Scripture, either directly, you read it yourself, you read what some other Christians has written or you read or hear what some other Christian says.  But there never has been a Christian who has become a Christian just because he wanted to; it always was the calling of God, the beckoning of God to him.  We get this, as I say, through sloppy evangelism in our time that puts pressure, emotional pressure, upon an audience to manipulate it.  And many of the books that you can read on how to do it, and there are many speakers that have held audiences captivated, but it’s an emotional captivation and we can get people to do all kinds of things by emotional gimmicks.  But that is not generating real true Biblical faith; that is developing only an emotional response, signing a card, raising the hand, these may be legitimate or not legitimate but left by themselves they are not what produces faith.


If you’ll look in the bulletin you’ll see an historical example of exactly what I’m talking about for you will find in one of the inserts the result of some questions that are being discussed, our secretary is taking a course in church history under one of the better faculty members at Dallas Seminary, Dr. Hannah, and in this particular course, the course material consists of reading the original sources of evangelistic appeals from the 1600s on up to the present day.  On that sheet you will see a series of questions; those questions have to do with the changing modes of evangelism in American history from the early 1700s on up to the present day.  And if later on when you have time you will look at the answers to those questions you will see quickly what has happened in the last 200 years.  You will see quickly and pretty concisely major points, what has gone on and why it is that people, for example, can walk into Lubbock Bible Church and hear teaching of the Word and think oh, this is something unusual, we never heard the Bible taught in this depth before, why this is a little abnormal, this is asking too much of a congregation at 11:00 o’clock to listen to an hour of deep things from the Word of God.  If you will read the insert you will quickly see that this is not at all unusual.  In fact, if you think this unusual you are unusual; if you think this is abnormal, you are abnormal in the light of history because 200 years ago this was a normal thing and you can verify it for yourself by simply looking at that sheet.

 

So in the doctrine of faith we have this, that God calls faith into existence, God has to do it.  God has to work on Joseph so that Joseph can believe and until God works on Joseph so he can believe, until that point is reached then Joseph can’t believe.

 

The second point, I have faith when I try to conform my thoughts, words and deeds, to God’s words.  If you look at Genesis 39 for a moment we will look at a given example.  Joseph can’t show his faith except in works.  And you can sit and talk, talk, talk, all your life about your great faith and yet the Bible consistently holds that if you have faith it’s got to show up some place somehow.  And in Genesis 39 if you look you will see Potiphar’s wife and the incident there is sexual seduction, Joseph successfully resists it, contrary to chapter 38 when Judah does not; answer to the question to the two chapters, which of the two men has faith?  Judah or Joseph?  Answer: Joseph.  Why?  Because Joseph shows fruit of his faith, that’s why.  And so we have in the second point the fact that I have faith when I at least try, not perfectly but I at least try to conform my thoughts, words and deeds to God’s words. Joseph tried and for 13 years, over and over and over he was trying, trying, trying, trying, trying and he showed the results of the faith working in his life by specific victories.

 

Now another thing, the third point in the doctrine of faith, I can show my faith actively or I can show my faith passively.  The last verse of chapter 40 was Joseph’s attempt to show his faith actively when he should have shown his faith passively.  God wanted him to faith-rest, wanted him to relax and trust God to promote him on God’s timetable, but no, Joseph wanted to reach in and manipulate the process and so he wanted to work out a deal where through the cupbearer he could get out of that jail.  No, said God, you will get out of jail when I want you to get out jail.  Joseph had not yet learned the skills at when to be active and when to be passive. 

 

Most important, however, of all the principles of faith is that faith is not in itself a good work; faith can be defined as anticipating, the anticipation of God meeting all my needs as a sinner… God meeting all my needs as a sinner.  Note “as a sinner.”  Note again, “as a sinner.”  What are my needs as a sinner and how are they different from my needs if I was not a sinner?  It means that I need grace, that’s what it means. 

 

Now if we were to talk about suffering in three constitutional categories, a little bit different than we usually talk about suffering, we could divide suffering into three parts.  We could say you can physically suffer, fever, broken bones, illness, disease, physical suffering. We could also say that you can mentally suffer.  The hundreds and hundreds of sad examples of humanity that this morning are rotting in some funny farm, that is, some mental institution, 95% of which have no need to be in the funny farm.  But those people will prefer to suffer intense mental agony to the point of going out of this world on some bizarre form of schizophrenia, they will prefer that kind of suffering, by choice, to the third kind of suffering and that is spiritual suffering.

 

Now what is spiritual suffering?  Spiritual suffering is when I recognize that I am a sinner and I need God’s grace personally. The reason that is spiritually painful is that it’s very painful to the prideful spirit and that is what I mean by spiritual suffering.  Because some people, even Christians included, who at one time trusted in Christ refuse to buck, refuse to go along with what God wants in their life, what they do is say listen, I cannot stand the humiliation of admitting that I am a depraved sinner at this point, at this point, at this point, this point and this one.  Oh, I can give lip service to it but when it comes right down to that little point in my life or that little point in my life, then the doctrine is very abstract and I refuse to apply it.  And because I refuse to apply it and I refuse to admit that I am a sinner and I refuse to admit at that point I cannot be oriented to grace and I cannot, therefore, believe.  It is as impossible for faith to grow in that kind of rebellious attitude as it would be for palm trees to grow in Greenland.  There’s no way that it can take place; there has to be that spiritual pain of admission of my depraved situation. Then when I have admitted that, and I look to God to meet my need as a sinner, then I’m oriented to grace, now I’m on the way.

 

That’s what Joseph did and we will see a rather spectacular proof that Joseph, at the end of his 13 year period reached exactly that point and that’s why he got out of prison.  Now maybe some of the mystery is taken out of the Christian life, why God keeps us down in the doldrums, why we’re on the low end of that curve for so long sometimes and it seems like the trials keep going on and going on and going on and we never get to that point because we never get to the release or the rising point until we admit our need for God’s grace at the particular point He wants.  We can admit we need God’s grace here, we can admit we need God’s grace here, we can admit we need God’s grace here, but that’s not interested to God; God does not care about that point and that point, He cares about this point, the point He wants, the point that He is shoving in your face at this hour; that’s the point and that’s the struggle ground. 

Now what often times happens and it’s very frustrating because a person will think they are here and they think it’s just time for the  pressure release and get going now and it never seems to do it, it just seems to start like a rocket, it goes off the thing and then fizzles. Why?  It often takes place with a situation that I think best can be illustrated by a rowboat and a dock.  If you think of a rowboat or just a small boat next to a dock and somebody gets with one foot in the boat and one foot on the dock and that’s the way a lot of Christians are, the boat here representing complete trust in God, the dock representing a work of man.  And rather than wholly trust with God with something I’ll kind of lean out there, see God, I’m really trusting you, see look at that, one foot out there.  But just in case Your plan doesn’t work I’ve got a way out, an escape device and so I keep the other foot solidly planted on the dock. And from God’s perspective this is not yet belief.  It’s this half and half thing that goes on. 

 

I remember when I chose to go into the ministry and I was struggling with that decision.  I was given the advice, by a Christian,  that what I ought to be would be continue through the service, get myself economically taken care of and then go in the ministry, and then if things didn’t work out, then I would still have something to fall back on.  But that wasn’t, in my life, what God was after.  Nothing that I saw in my life worked until after I got both feet in the boat and burned the bridges behind, then I saw the hand of God supply.  I did not see the hand of God until after that point was reached.  Now this happens again and again, you see it often in marriage situations and it’s one of the great trials for women particularly because a woman always has the trial of anticipating God is going to work through her husband but then, if God doesn’t work by 6:35 I will begin my 8th chapter of nagging.  Now what’s going on here?  What it is, is that I am going to trust you, from 9:00 to 6:35 I have trusted you to work through my husband and you didn’t do it so now I’m going to do it. 

 

What kind of trust is this?  What it is is the same boat and dock situation; we’ve got both feet in two different places and so we’ve got built-in control and who the heck do we think we’re controlling?  God!  Well now isn’t that a fine state of affairs?  We are going to check up and build alternate schemes to get us around wholly trusting God.  And this is a great battle and it doesn’t come easy but a woman, according to 1 Peter 3, has got to battle this all the whole time of God working through her husband, and letting God work through her husband without designing escape devices, just in case he doesn’t, she’s going to do this.  That is not trust.  A man can have the same struggles with a matter of jobs; he does a good job day after day after day after day every day and never gets noticed for it.  But when the promotions come around always the other guy gets the promotion, never me, and I sit here and day after day I try to do the best job I can.  What happened?  Do you try gimmicks?  Joseph tried one, he said I’d like to get out of this hole, Genesis 40, and what happened in verse 23, the guy forgot.  So it was the same kind of trial.

 

Now in Genesis 41 Joseph is going to get out and now we’re going to watch the evidence that this man has for 13 years developed the proper faith to handle himself in a very volatile situation, a very threatening situation, particularly to a young man of his age.  

 

Genesis 41:1, Pharaoh dreams the dream and he stands at the side of the Nile. [“And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.”]  Very significant, that river there is the Nile and the Nile is the lifeblood of Egypt; that is until the communists helped build the idiot thing called the Aswan Damn and what happened there was they ruined Egyptian agriculture.  Now it’s filling up in back of the damn, now they don’t have all the fertilizer that was brought down, the mineral waters of the Nile and now Egypt is having a lot of agricultural problems.  This is man trying to second guess God, particularly communist men trying to second guess God. 

And so we have the Nile in the early days before the Bolsheviks messed it up.  The Nile River used to come every spring in a massive flood, both banks of the Nile and people used to say oh, isn’t this horrible, thousands of acres of farmland inundated by annual floods.  No, it wasn’t horrible at all, what was the water bringing on top of the soil?  It was bringing dissolved minerals, and so for century upon century, long before the farmers realized the need for replenishing fertilizers or rotating crops or leaving the field untilled, before any of those conservation schemes were used the Egyptian farmer year after year after year after year after year could crank out some of the world’s best crops.  Why?  Because of the annual flooding of the Nile.  The Nile was the life of the country.  

 

Now in this situation in Genesis 41 the drama unfolds around the river Nile because the Nile was the source of the economy of the nation and therefore Pharaoh sees himself standing on the banks of the Nile. And he sees the cows and he sees the grain.  Now if we tabulate the way God appears to men we’ve got three examples: Pharaoh, we have the cupbearer and the baker in the jail, and we have Joseph.  Now look, do you want to see how God works with men and how it’s different than He works with women?  All you have to do is watch; here Joseph is and God wants to get Joseph’s attention, so how does God get Joseph’s attention?  By giving him a dream over his future reign or his dominion.  That’s Genesis 37.  How does God work with the cupbearer?  He has a dream about wine.  How does God work with the baker?  He has a dream about the bakery.  How does God work with Pharaoh?  He has a dream about the economy of his nation, the economy of Egypt and the two chief sources are the economy of Egypt are cattle and grain. 

 

[Genesis 41:2. “And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favored kine and fat fleshed; and they fed in a meadow.  [3] And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favored and lean fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. [4] And the ill favored and lean fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favored and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. [5]: And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. [6] And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.  [7] And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. [8] And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. [9]: Then spoke the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day.  [10] Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guard’s house, both me and the chief baker. [11] And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. [12] And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. [13] And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged.”]

 

Now what does that little chart tell you about how God gets a man’s attention?  He does not get a man’s attention by saying he can be a better husband or a better wife; now these are important, but it puts the cart before the horse.  The way God gets a man’s attention isn’t the way 98% of Christian literature is trying to bill it—here, sir, is how you can become a better husband, or here, sir, is how you can become a better father.  The man is already under pressure and knows darn well, in most cases, he’s not the husband or the father that he ought to be.  But to approach a man from that side merely adds to his frustration and causes him to turn away rather than approaching him the way God approaches him.  So when Joseph… He doesn’t come and say Joseph, you see that nice little girl you’ve been dating.  Is that hot God gets Joseph’s attention?  It is not.  Does he come to the cupbearer and the baker and talk about the Mrs.? No.  Does he come to Pharaoh and talk about the queen?  No.  Why?  Because God knows how you get a man’s attention, it’s not that way.  So the way 98% of Christian literature is trying to do it is wrong.  The way to get a man’s attention is to show him that God is interested in the area shown back in Genesis 3 where he has the maximum trial.  Where was the maximum trial on Adam after the fall?  The sweat of the ground, of trying to get a crop out of that thing.  That’s exactly where God is going to get a man’s attention.  God will come to a man at the point of his career, at the point of his job, at the point of his calling, at the point of the frustrations of his life. That’s where the contact point is made and you’ve got a beautiful biblical example here.  And this is why ministers who have tried all the time to come in the back door do it wrong; you can’t do it this way because God doesn’t do it that way and the man isn’t designed to respond to that approach; he’s designed to respond to this approach. 

 

And so Pharaoh, all of a sudden God has got his attention real good because he knows that he can’t hold the throne if the economy of Egypt goes down, it’s going to cause revolution.  It always did in the history of Egypt, I’ll give you evidence of that next week. We have intermediate periods; when the economy collapsed in Egypt and there is total chaos in the land. According to classic chronology it happened twice and it’s called by scholars the first intermediate period and the second intermediate period between the old, middle and new kingdoms.  And so Pharaoh is very concerned about this matter and now he begins to dream.

 

Well, as he dreams we want to recall two principles that we’ve taught before in this matter of men.  Men ought to know and Christian men particularly ought to know these two principles about their job.  One is that responsibility will always flow to the man who is responsible; just like a magnet and iron filings, it always happens, whether it’s in a believer group or an unbeliever group, or a mixed group, it doesn’t make any difference.  In this situation, if you look down in verse 12 I’ll give you an instance of it.  Read verse 12 and you’re going to see a racist slur made there toward Joseph.  Notice what it says, “And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard,” see that little word, “a Hebrew.”  Now if you go to the text of the ancient near east and you begin to read the literature of the old and the middle kingdom, particularly the middle kingdom, you begin to discover increasingly the Egyptian writers are knocking what they call those Asiatic foreigners.  And there’s all sorts of little innuendos in Egyptian literature against the Asiatic foreigners.  In other words, these people are racially distinguished and racially discriminated against.

 

But now here’s the principle, a marvelous powerful principle: Responsibility flows into the hands of the responsible people.  Wherever you have a racial minority that wants acceptance, here’s the fastest way to get it: be responsible and productive and you’ll get it every time; you could be purple and have floated down from Mars and you can be acceptable in society once you show yourself to be responsible and productive and here’s why.  Now we saw how Joseph was promoted; everywhere he was he was promoted.  Why was he promoted?  Because he was an Egyptian?  No, he was a member of a persecuted racial minority, the Jews.  He was looked at a foreign Asiatic.  We don’t have foreign Asiatics around; this is what the Egyptians wrote in their book.  But how was he acceptable?  Because he showed the fact that he could produce.  And that overrode all racial discrimination.  When Pharaoh comes down, the fact that he’s hurting and Joseph is the only guy that can solve his problem, he doesn’t care whether he’s a Hebrew.  

 

It’s very interesting that one of the black leaders in our country at the moment is Rev. Jesse Jackson, and for those of you who have followed the civil rights movement, you’ll notice that in the past 2-3 years Rev. Jackson’s speeches have taken a whole new turn; Jackson’s whole platform now when he preaches at the black and white alike, he says we blacks will become full-fledged member of American society when we can produce equal or better than the white man.  And he’s exactly right.  When production and responsibility equals… racial slurs and all the racial discrimination drops by the wayside and you know why.  Here’s why the rule works.  Because what is the mandate God gave all men in Genesis 1.  What’s the first divine institution? 

 

The first divine institution is to produce; that means no matter how much of a racist someone is that racist has in his heart God-consciousness and when the chips are down which triumphs, his racism or his God-consciousness?  His God-consciousness will.  He can’t help it, he may not like it, he may not want it, but that’s the way it’ll work. When the chips are down and somebody of a race that he despises can show him hey, I’ve got an answer to your problem, this is the way we’re going to do it, this way, this way, this way, this way, let’s go.  Oh, sure, let’s go, all of a sudden you get hired.  How come?  Did the color of the skin change?  Huh-un, God-consciousness was met, the demand to produce overrode the silly things like racism and that’s the way the Scriptures work.  So that’s one way of handling a situation.  Joseph was a Semite who showed himself and showed Pharaoh the ability to produce and therefore it no longer suddenly mattered that he was a foreign Asiatic, it no longer suddenly mattered that he was a Hebrew, because he could interpret the dream and he could deliver the services and nobody else could deliver the services. 

 

All right, let’s look at the other rule, which goes like this: a Christian man can be fired, finally, or demoted, or ignored.  Now somebody walked out last time when I mentioned that thing, saying that they were fired or demoted because of their Christian testimony; it wasn’t because of their Christian testimony, it wasn’t because of their Christian testimony, it was because they were an idiot. And we’re not talking about idiots. We’re talking about people who have shown themselves to be producers and still get demoted.  Now when does that take place in a business organization or a group, club or whatever have you?  That happens when the following thing occurs; when the leadership that controls your group, your company, your whatever this thing is you’re part of, when the leadership are so hostile to the principles of God and His laws that they will trade off productivity for autonomy. 

 

In other words, at some point in an organization there will be the rise of the spirit of folly.  We saw it in Potiphar’s wife.  She knew very well that this young boy was quite capable of managing the estate; he had the plumbing repaired, he had the lawns mowed, he had the food bought, he had everything going, everything ran like a charm.  This woman had no problems, but because of her defiance and hatred for the laws of God she said I will choose to defy God, I will choose to give up the loans, the budget, the repair around here, we’ll just go back into a degenerate chaos but I am going to sin the way I want to when I want to.  Now that’s folly ,and when that is reached, after the person has shown himself to be productive, when that is reached the best thing to do is just leave the organization, just get out because the spirit of folly has taken over and that organization is going to collapse.  You’re going to see this as it worked in Egypt. 

 

You can see this again and again in our own society.  At one time, as I have said repeatedly from this pulpit, the Ukraine of Soviet Russia was the breadbasket of Europe; they exported grain and the Bolsheviks walked in there and slaughtered the farmers by the millions, put them in boxcars, shipped them to Siberia and let them freeze to death before they got there.  These were men, women and children, who were the producing class of the Ukraine and now for some strange reason the Bolsheviks can’t figure out why they can’t grow enough grain and have to buy it from Kansas and other breadbaskets of Soviet Russia.  Why?  Why is this going on?  Because the stupid Bolsheviks killed all the people that were producers, that’s why.  Folly destroyed the system and communism would collapse tomorrow if the United States would stop bailing them out at point after point.  But we just keep right on helping a foolish group of people.  And we’ll see that foolish group of people, unfortunately, probably slaughter thousands and thousands of our young men on the battlefields of Europe in the next decade because we are the ones that have bailed them out at point after point after point. 

You see this in Iran, with the regime coming in and shooting, massacring and destroying class after class after class of your managerial talent.  Now society make take a hundred years to form and can be destroyed in an afternoon.  It’s tragic but the speed of destruction if a hundred times faster than the speed of construction.  And you cannot go through and purge a society of its military elite, of its managerial elite and expect that tomorrow the telephones are going to work, the mail is going to be delivered, the food is going to get in the cities and the basic society is going to function.  You cannot expect to have that if you’re going to tear up, destroy your managerial elite; once they’re gone it will take a generation to replace them.  But we have fools, like Khomeini, who insists on destruction upon destruction.

So Pharaoh is not one at this point to trade wisdom for folly.  Later on another Pharaoh will, he starts the first genocide in Exodus 1, but this Pharaoh was better.  And so the Pharaoh begins to speak to Joseph. 

 

Verse 14, “Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.”  Now wouldn’t you love to portray this moment in this boy’s life; here he is for 13 years; he has prayed, he has memorized whatever Scripture there was to memorize, he has gone through trial after trial, he has tried to get out and every time he tries to get out he gets frustrated, so it’s been closed door, closed door, closed door, closed door and then one day, suddenly, the guard walks in and says you, you’re coming out.  Huh?  Me?  Yeah, you, you’re coming out.  Who wants to see me?  Pharaoh himself; that means you’re going to have to shave from head to toe, this was the way the shaving was, it was not just shaving his beard off, according to what we know from historical records any person in the presence of Pharaoh was considered to be in the presence of God Himself.  And so therefore they had to be… Yul Brenner was very close when he played Pharaoh, with no hair, because the men around Pharaoh were in exactly that situation.  That’s Joseph.

 

And so he comes to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh begins to tell him his need.  He recounts the dream, verses 17 on through verse 24; you’ve seen how this occurred and the various components of the dream.  [15, “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. [16] And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. [17] And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river.  [18] And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fat fleshed and well favored; and they fed in a meadow. [19] And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favored and lean fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness [20] And the lean and the ill favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine [21] And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favored, as at the beginning. So I awoke. [22] And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good.  [23 And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. [24] And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me.”]

 

But now the triumph comes in Joseph’s answer in verse 16.  You see, we’ve looked at this curve of rising; we said that curve, that rising point will occur when you’ve learned the lesson.  Joseph, back at 17 years of age, had not learned the lesson.  Think of what it must have been; here you get invited to the personal room of the most powerful man of earth.  It’d be like walking into the Polit Bureau in Moscow, the most powerful group of men on the face of the earth today.  And here you have the audience, a total private audience with Pharaoh.  Now you remember how Joseph acted with his own father and with his own brothers 13 years ago?  Oh look at me, I’m a hot shot.  What do you think the temptation was on a 30 year old young man to be called upon, as a foreigner of all things, and here’s the most powerful man sitting on a throne and he says come here, I’ve got a problem and you’re the only guy in the world that can solve it.  Oh, talk about an ego inflating situation.  Do you think Joseph can handle it?  Verse 16 says yes.  After 13 years he was carefully groomed by all the adversities in his life so this moment he could shine, and when he walks into Pharaoh and he’s given this tremendous temptation to blow up his ego he says, “It is not in me.”  There’s the triumph; it looks like a little triumph, it’s a very short sentence but 13 years went into that boy’s soul so he could say those few short words with true mental attitude.

 

And if you were to dramatize this in a film you could have the camera zoom in on Pharaoh’s face as he sits there and he looks at this Hebrew servant and he has this look of hope on his face, that surely this boy is going to be the one that gets him off the hook; surely this boy is going to give him the tip to the whole economy of the nation.  And then suddenly the boy looks up at Pharaoh and he says sir, “it is not in me.”  And he stops and he pauses for a moment, and then the camera swings over to Pharaoh’s face and you see a look of momentary despair because suddenly, if Joseph can’t do it nobody can.  And then Joseph adds, “God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”  And the word “peace” here is the word shalom, and it means welfare.  Here, incidentally, is a good example why the word can’t mean just peace, it doesn’t fit here.  It means welfare, good news, something that’s healthy, something that’s prosperous.  And so he says God is going to give Pharaoh an answer that prospers.  When Joseph answers the way he does in verse 16, that’s triumph.  That’s why he was taken from prison.  Now he can witness, now he can present the gospel.

 

[25, “And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath showed Pharaoh what he is about to do. [26] The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. [27]: And the seven thin and ill favored kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine.”]

Verse 28, what does he say?  Again, “This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he show unto Pharaoh.”  [29, “Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt.  [30] And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; [31] And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous.”]

 

In verse 32 we see him witnessing again, “And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.”  Now this was a word that Pharaoh had never heard before.  Pharaoh was raised in a wholly pagan society.  One of the marks of deity, I don’t know whether I mentioned it in this service or not but back in the dream, when he dreamed of the cows and the grain, do you realize that one of the great symbols of deity in the Egyptian society was the bull, the golden calf. Where do you think Aaron got the golden calf from? Where do you think King Jeroboam, in 930 at the revolution, got the golden calf from? He got it through the envoys of Egypt; it was an Egyptian thought form.  It was an Egyptian idea to worship the nature forces, like people in Lubbock worship the horoscope.  The idea was that there are these forces that somehow automatically operate and therefore we must bow down to them.  And here is this young boy, he walks into the presence of Pharaoh, he doesn’t recognize the golden calf, he doesn’t recognize the god of [can’t understand word], he doesn’t recognize the gods of the Nile; he says it’s Elohim, the God of the Jews.  And He has given you this dream, sir, and He will bring it to pass.  Now what clearer gospel witness can you have than Joseph’s invitation to Pharaoh? 

 

Let’s stop just a moment for a principle. Turn to 1 Peter 3, a biblical approach toward witnessing, toward sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with another person.  By the way, this is not the job exclusively of the clergy.  You don’t pay the pastor to evangelize; you pay the pastor to stay in his study and study when you can’t study so that you can be acquainted with the Word of God so you can evangelize; sheep have sheep, not shepherds.  In 1 Peter 3:15 it says: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear,” now why would anybody ask you a reason of the hope that is in you if they didn’t see the hope that is in you?  In other words, there’s got to be a track record of credibility in your organization.  If you’re a man working in a business you’ve got to respected in that business before somebody is going to come up and ask of the hope that is in you.  It doesn’t mean you have to be the head of the organization, no-no, but just wherever you’re doing your job you do it as unto the Lord and you get the reputation around you that you’re reliable, you’re responsible; when a job has to be done and it’s a little overtime you’re the one that does it. When there’s neatness and there’s that have to be filed away, you’re the one that does it.  You have the reputation and people notice this, even though they may not say anything about it, they do notice it.  And then there’s going to come that time they come to you and you’ve got the wide open door. 

 

What do you suppose would have happened at 17 years old and here’s little Joseph, the Hebrew boy, and he’s got the Four Laws in Egyptian hieroglyphics, here they are Pharaoh, one, two, three, four.  How do you suppose Pharaoh would take that?  You know, where did this clown come from, have we had a jester in my court recently, what happened?  No, that wasn’t the approach because he had no credibility with Pharaoh at that point, nothing wrong with the four points; they are four points in the gospel.  But the circumstances under which these are shared have got to be circumstances where you are an ambassador for Christ with credibility with the one that you’re talking to.  And that’s what we’re saying here in 1 Peter 3 and that’s the situation with Joseph.

 

In Joseph’s case back here, in Genesis 41, it took him 13 years to get credibility.  Now American evangelism is full of American human viewpoint at this juncture and it always is we’ve got to do it now, Pharaoh might die and he might go to hell. Well if he goes to hell he bought his own ticket.  The point remains that right now Joseph isn’t ready; maybe God has another man, maybe the minister of finance somehow is a believer and he can witness to Pharaoh right now.  But 13 years on down the road we’ll have our man and he’ll be in position and when the door opens he’s going through; the historical moment has arrived. 

 

Now we’ve got a little problem.  Joseph goes on and he describes the dream and he says that God in His sovereignty is going to bring it to pass, but then in verses 33-36 we’ve got a major problem.  We only introduce the problem this week; we’re going to follow it up for several Sundays.  The problem concerns the advice of Joseph.  After Joseph tells Pharaoh the dream of the future, now we’ve got a problem about what to do about the future.

 

Genesis 41:33, “Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. [34] Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part,” that’s twenty percent, “of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. [35] And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. [36] And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.”

 

Now there are many problems with this.  The chief problem is that it looks like Joseph becomes the architect for the most centralized government the world has ever seen.  The kind of centralized total state ownership that Joseph proposes makes Bolshevism look like a Sunday School picnic.  This was one of the most thorough dictatorships the world has ever seen, and without doubt the longest lasting.  Do you know that the Egypt government lasted 3,000 years?  Now we can’t even conceive of 3,000 years.  Our country hasn’t even lasted 300 and the rate we’re going we won’t make it.  The Egyptians lasted 3,000 years, and Joseph was one of the architects of their organization.  Now how is this, a dictatorship organized by a believer?  Confiscation of private property?  [See message 89, pg. 1105 for clarification] Clough, what about all those sermons on free market economics; what about all the provisions economically in the Mosaic Law?  Isn’t this a clear counterproof that the Bible backs socialism and confiscation?  It looks that way because that’s exactly what’s said in verse 34, we are going to confiscate all private wealth in this country and we are going to control it.  Well, what happens here? 

 

We won’t have time this morning to go into all the details but I’m going to respond to at least one major problem; why this is not an argument for socialism and centralization… why it is not an argument.  In fact, I will show you now that it’s an argument against communism, against socialism and against centralized power.  Here’s the argument.  Joseph sits under God.  What has Joseph brought to the government; in this case we’ll indicate “P” because Pharaoh was the government.  What did Joseph bring to the government that every other government can’t have and doesn’t have?  He brought to the government omniscience.  Joseph had the key to the future because God is omniscient, because God is sovereign, and God revealed His word to Joseph, therefore the state was the recipient of omniscient wisdom.  And with the receiving of omniscient wisdom, then the state takes over as a centralized power, but not if it doesn’t have omniscience.  So therefore, before you can argue for socialism or communism, like many Christians are doing, maybe some of you are, you’d better be prepared to show me where Joseph lived in Washington D.C., I’d be very interested in talking to him.  You show me where Washington, or Austin, gets a cap on omniscience.  If you can show me that, I will publicly repudiate everything I’ve ever taught about free market economics.  But until you can show me where any state on the face of the earth today has an input of omniscience, you cannot show to me a case for socialism and communism organization. 

 

Now here’s why.  Here’s why we’re so emphatic about this.  What was the plan that Joseph gave Pharaoh.  It was for seven years they were to store 20% of GNP.  Now, what form did they store this 20% of the gross national product?  They stored it in raw grain in granaries.  They bet, when they went to this program for seven long years they bet on something; they bet that in seven years from now we’re going to have a drought, we’re going to have a famine.  All right, that was the bet, it was a good bet because God promised it and He guaranteed His promise.  But just suppose that instead of God revealing this to Joseph he just pulled a slick one on Pharaoh and now Pharaoh and Joseph sit down like the London School of Economics and decide that this will be how we run the world.  And so they store 20% of the gross national product; each year the grain stacks higher and higher.  Only one problem; at the end of the seven years instead of having a famine we have a rainy spell and all the rain gets mildewed and moldy in the granaries.  Or suppose at the end of the seven years instead of a family we have an invasion of locusts and the locusts come into our villages, go into the granaries and strip them. What have we got then?  You know what we’ve got then?  A major blunder that hurts everybody.  That is why the Bible is against centralized government and centralized power. 

 

Whenever you have a few men making the decisions over a large group of people you run the risk of major errors.  This could be demonstrated no more clearly than in the present energy crisis.  It’s the custom to use as a whipping board the oil companies today, the big bad oil producers.  Now anybody that knows the sin nature knows that really can’t be because if I was an oil producer and I had millions of gallons of oil out here I could be a millionaire overnight; all I’d have to do is refine it and sell it a few cents under the market price and people would buy it all over the place, because I’ve got a scarce commodity and I could sell all my oil and retire.  Selfishness would break any conspiracy; now it always works that way, it always has worked that way. Show me a case in history where it hasn’t. Selfishness breaks conspiracies; that’s one of the joys of the free market system. 

 

But what really happens is that the United States government has always thought a few people could determine what is a fair price, and we’re going to have a fair price at the pump.  And so for the past 20 years we’ve been buying gasoline products at less than it really costs to produce them.  And so for years we exist in a fool’s paradise; we have natural gas in Texas and so everybody goes on natural gas.  Meanwhile, no alternate energy sources are economical.  MIT, back in 1941 started the first solar power plant and they had to drop it in 1946 because it was not economical.  Research program after research program was flushed because nobody would support it because everybody was infatuated with these low petroleum prices and these low gas prices and no sweat, we don’t need solar power, we don’t need any alternate energy forms.  Why? Because a few people thought that was fair market price and we can’t permit those big bad businessmen from making a profit on their product.  So you know what happened?  The big bad businessmen finally ran out of their profit and like the farmers of Rome in the third century, they finally say the hell with you, we’re not producing; if we can’t make a profit we don’t produce. 

 

Diocletian learned this lesson; he ought to have when the Italian farmers in the third century; he had the same idea that many Christians have; oh, there’s such a thing as a fair market price and we’ll put all to the Roman Empire, isn’t it cruel to charge high prices for bread. What would you rather have, high priced bread or no bread?  And so Diocletian said it’s wrong, it’s discrimination against the poor to allow these bread prices to go up, so he said bread prices are going down.  Fine, how’s the guy supposed to buy seed and plant it and carry it on to the point where he can grow grain?  He can’t.  So in the third century the Italian farmers said sorry, I’m retiring; tell me when Diocletian drops dead and I’ll come back and farm again. And that’s what they did; thousands and thousands of Italian Roman farmers quite the field, they walked off the field, they left them. And people starved to death and then everybody wondered oooh, what happened?   See, that’s just God’s laws of economics.  It’s in the Bible and it was right in here. 

 

I’ll show you how that law actually recurs and Joseph is going to actually use the law, but during this process of decentralization you go against this plan of Pharaoh, and what you do is… suppose we have a decentralized approach, you have businessman one, businessman two, and businessman three.  All right, all three of these businessmen are food distributors.  They’ve got to buy the farmer’s products and they’ve got to make the deals with the guys what crops they’re going to raise, what the selling price is going to be. So here’s business number one and he says I hear the Hebrews talk about God’s going to have a famine, I think there’s going to be a famine and so therefore this guy structures his business to supply food seven years hence.  Number two businessman says nah, I think that’s a bunch of baloney, we’re going to have a wet climate seven years from now so I’ll structure my food distribution, my business this way.  Businessman number three says nah, we’re going to have locust plagues in seven years and so I want a minimum amount of grain in those granaries I want various hedges that he can make on that. 

 

So now you’ve got three businessmen hedging on the future; they have three different forecasts for the future and three different solutions.  Now logic tells you that one of the guys is going to be a winner.  True, you go down to the fact that you have only 33% success, but which would you rather have? 33% success or a big fat zero when they’ve all banked on the same forecast of the future and it turns out wrong.  This is why we are for free market economics, because we don’t have Joseph’s forecasting the future for us.  If we did, you could write off and get your Joseph financial letter for the next three years and you could design your business around it; you could say see stockholders, you can fully invest in my firm, I’ve got the seal of approval of Joseph; we have totally aligned our buying and selling with his prognosis.  But we don’t have Joseph and because we don’t have Joseph we can’t have centralized power like this. 

 

What you are going to start to see in the Genesis series is one of the most awesome solutions to a human problem that has ever been seen on the face of the earth that leads… that leads people to the first great type of the antichrist in history.  The wheels that begin to turn with this tremendous awesome controlled economy under a centralized government becomes that same government that crushes the Jew and that God must smash in the Exodus to release His people and is used again and again in the prophets to be an adumbration of what’s going to take place before the return of the Lord Jesus Christ on a worldwide scale. So we’re in a very serious area and we want to show, as we go through this, wisdom principles both that apply to us personally and to us corporately.

 

As a reminder of this we’re going to close by singing….