Established by God

Joseph’s Forgotten Years and the Testing of Waiting

Well, I remember a time, must have been about nine years ago, where I was doing pulpit supply up in Maine. I had to wake up quite early to make it up there to preach at a small little Baptist church. And the beginning of their service that morning was much like the beginning of our service this morning.

They had some audio issues getting the mics going, but unlike our service, they never prevailed. And so I was told disconcertedly, you're going to have no amplification during your sermon. And I thought, well, throughout most of preaching history, there's not been amplification.

I'm the man for the job. And then 15 minutes into preaching, I strained so hard that I lost my voice and had a hard time making it to the amen of that message and was never invited back. So thank the Lord for provisions like microphones.

We want to continue our study of the narrative of Joseph's life here this morning. And we're beginning chapter 41. You'll notice we cut short at verse 41. I want to spend some time in these first 41 verses, looking at Joseph's character and applying from the examples we see in his life and in his conduct.

And there's perhaps more application beside that. Next week, as we finish out chapter 41, we'll look at it more typologically. That is to say, we will see more of the significance of how Joseph is presented symbolically as the forerunner of the Lord Jesus in his very exaltation throughout chapter 41.

So I hope that will hold you over until next week. Really, that's the meat of chapter 41. We're not going to quite get into the details of that glorious typology this morning. Up to this point, Joseph has been experiencing God's blessing, though he's been on the roller coaster of fortune.

He's gone from a place of honor and status within his household to being thrown into the pit by his own brothers and then dragged into slavery. But as he devoted himself to God and submitted to God's providence in his life, he then found in Potiphar's household a place of favor once more.

But as a result of Potiphar's wife, he was pulled back into another pit, this time the Egyptian prison. And here in this chapter, after a number of turns of providence have been worked out over these prevening years, we see Joseph once again restored to a place of exaltation, the greatest exaltation he could possibly have imagined.

Last week, we were introduced to the butler and the baker. This is all pretext for chapter 41. They had troubling dreams. We read in verse 8, we each have had a dream and there's no interpreter of it.

And Joseph said to them, the interpretation belongs to God. And that was the emphasis last week. Even though Joseph is in prison, even though Joseph's life and hope have been in shambles over these years, his words tell us everything about his faith in God.

The same dream that I had had all those years ago, over a decade ago, when God said that my family would come and bow before me, that I, though youngest among my brethren, would indeed be the covenantal heir of the promises, that dream belonged to God.

The interpretation of that dream, whatever it looks like in this prison cell, still belongs.

To God.

So Joseph knows that the same God who would be true to his revelation to the butler and the baker would be true to the revelation concerning him. The interpretation belongs to God. And of course, the fulfillment came to pass.

Within three days, the butler, the cup bearer, he was restored to Pharaoh's right hand. He was once again able to place the barefoot Merlot or whatever Pharaoh drank in his day back into Pharaoh's hand.

And of course, the baker was hanged. His head was lifted off, even as Joseph had sternly told him would take place. We close chapter 40 with these words, the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Pharaoh’s Troubling Dreams and Egypt’s Empty Wisdom

For two years, we read in verse 1, Joseph has been forgotten. It came to pass at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream. The wheels of providence begin to slowly turn, but it's taken two years.

Now, we've just flipped the page, as it were. We've read in a span of one second that Joseph was forgotten and then Pharaoh had a troubling dream two years later. In passing by the sentence, we pass by month after month after month of hope, despair, pain, and confusion.

We have to be careful when we read narrative that we don't flood past the details. Realize that for at least the first several weeks, Joseph was hoping that at any moment, the servants of the cupbearer would come to that prison cell and say, you know, I told Pharaoh just as you asked me to, and great news, you're going to be freed from this place.

But those servants never come. That freedom never comes. For two years, Joseph's hopes begin to wither and die as he waits by faith upon the Lord to move. For two years, he's waiting on the Lord. Be slow to take that in.

For two years, he's waiting upon the Lord. In one way or another, Joseph is trusting in God, but as we've seen from Psalm 105, God is testing Joseph. And even when Joseph applies wisdom and he begs, remember that fourfold plea from last week, please remember me, please get me out of this house.

He still has that pleading sense of urgency, though it's dying the death week after week, month after month of a two year imprisonment.

And yet he's trusting in God.

It must have been discouraging for him to trust in God over two years. But God's providence was working other things into his life, into his character, into his faith, working other things outside of the prison cell, among the kingdom, among the harvests year after year.

God's providence was at work in ways that Joseph could not understand. And so it is to the believer here this morning, waiting upon God for what seems like an unbearably long time. But God's providence is at work, not only in you, shaping and preparing you for his calling upon your life, but working things around you and outside of you so that you might walk before him and bring glory to his name.

We see that waiting is a common theme in the Christian's life. Waiting has been a common theme in the life of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Waiting is a calling for the Christian. God appoints us to wait and to wait and to wait upon him to act and to move, to deliver, to strengthen, to sanctify.

And so we see in Joseph that there's an absolute dependence upon God and that absolute dependence is testing his faith, producing resolve and perseverance, developing his character as a man of God, but also causing him to endure the pain of waiting upon God.

Now, Pharaoh has this troubling dream. We read, continuing verse 1, Behold, he stood by the river. Suddenly there came up out of the river seven cows, fine looking and fat, and they fed in the meadows.

Then, behold, seven other cows came up after them out of the river. The river is always the Nile, as far as an Egyptian is concerned. It's the river, just like we have the waterfall in Hubbardston. Ugly and gaunt, these cows come up out of the river on the banks and they eat the seven fine looking and fat cows.

That's enough to jar Pharaoh out of his sleep. There's this grisly scene of this rather pleasant scene. It could have been something that a romantic painter made in the 19th century. Fine looking, fat Dutch cows eating on the grass of the meadow by the Nile, but then arise these zombified, grisly, gaunt looking cows and they begin to cannibalize their own.

Pharaoh is awoken by this disturbing dream. We remember that the Nile is significant because it's Egypt's lifeblood economically. This is what makes Egypt such a great world empire. Indeed, it is the world empire of its day.

It's able to flex and crush the vassal kingdoms under its domain, and that's uniquely tied to the prosperity of the Nile River, all of the nutrients and fertility that flow from that water source. Pharaoh, maybe he wakes up, walks around a bit, gets his little eye mask back on, settles back down into sleep and dreams a second dream.

Seven heads of grain come up out of one stalk, plump and good, then behold, seven thin heads blighted by the east wind spring up after them and the seven thin heads devour the seven plump and full heads.

So again, Pharaoh is jarred awake. The details are so vivid, so gripping, so parallel that he knows this is something significant and I must have the interpretation of it. The east wind would have been something known to the ancients, that's speaking of what they call the soraka, the sort of North African wind that takes all of the heat and dry climate of Arabia down toward the Mediterranean, and that could dry out a harvest season over the span of weeks, if not months.

And so the east wind was something they normally had to contend with, but what's the significance of the east wind here? Pharaoh seems to recognize that something about the prosperity of his empire is at stake.

The river is there and with it what you would want the river to produce, fine grain and fat cows, but instead there's blight and famine, there's carnage and destruction. Egypt was the breadbasket of the ancient world, not only in the days of the patriarchs, but even down to Roman times.

The Roman Empire was basically fed by the grain of Egypt. Paul in Acts 28 hitches a ride on an Alexandrian grain freighter that ends up sinking because of the route it takes, but these large grain freighters, these ancient cargo vessels would have made the run from Alexandria, the port of Egypt, toward southern Italy throughout the years.

And of course, this grain made Egypt this prosperous empire, and Pharaoh knows if my grain and my cattle are threatened, then my power and my dominion are threatened. So indeed he woke, he knew this dream had come to him, verse 8, in the morning his spirit was troubled.

He sent and called for magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Magicians here, of course, is not some Broadway act with white gloves and rabbits coming out of hats. This is actually probably a technical term, maybe poorly translated magicians.

These are a certain class of priests that were trained in the arts of divination according to Egyptian religious ritual and mythology. And so these priests come, all the wise men come to Pharaoh's court, and he can find no one to interpret these parallel dreams.

Pharaoh is troubled. If we put Christianese on that, Pharaoh is convicted. He feels weighty, he feels that something is wrong, he feels distressed in his very soul and he gathers every counselor he can find that's an Egyptian, and there's no Egyptian to answer him.

Arthur Pink in Gleanings in Genesis, he says, we're shown here that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. All of Egypt's wise men can do nothing to explain an iota of these dreams to Pharaoh.

Egypt, of course, stands as a figure of the world in Scripture. It takes on aspects of Babylon in the prophetic literature, but Egypt, even sort of projecting toward eschatology, Egypt is the serpentine empire, the evil empire of the world as far as a biblical reflection is concerned.

So think of Rome, Babylon, Egypt as of a piece. These are the fallen kingdoms under the men who are swayed by the serpent. Egypt has wise men, has priests in all manner of ritual, and yet they can produce nothing of wisdom, nothing of guidance, nothing of truth.

It's all smoke and show. The people are idolaters. They don't know God, and as Scripture declares, it is only in His light that we're able to see light. And so all of the wise men of the fallen world, that is Egypt, all of the priests of our modern day pretend to have light to offer, and yet there's no light to be shown from them.

Apart from Him, there is nothing but darkness morally and spiritually. And we see that here in Genesis 41. Impotent priests, impotent wise men, ignorant, darkened, unable to interpret. That is still the case today if we feel the same way.

Pharaoh understood something that precious few in this life come to realize. The wisdom of the world is morally and spiritually bankrupt. Only in the light of God do we see light. Only by beholding the light of God's truth and God's wisdom, by applying God's way and will to our lives, are we able to ascertain God's guidance and the meaning of all things in our lives, whatever so comes to pass.

We're going to circle back to the wisdom of Pharaoh in this very regard shortly, but I just simply want to make the point. All of the wise men of Egypt, all of the wise men of the fallen world are able to convene and gather and search their books and have the conference tables with coffee on the run and they produce nothing of value to Pharaoh's crisis.

But here comes the Hebrew who has the wisdom and way of God instilled in his life and he uniquely alone is able to give an answer to Pharaoh. Do you recognize the morally, spiritually bankrupt wisdom of the world around us?

Joseph Before Pharaoh: Humility, Revelation, and the Spirit of God

The chief butler spoke to Pharaoh saying, I remember my faults this day. That's often been treated as though he's remembering, oh, I promised this guy something or at least he begged me and I just am remembering it now and I remember my fault.

That doesn't really seem to be what the cup bearer is saying. He doesn't actually ever confess that Joseph begged him to tell his story or anything. He seems just to pass it off as I know a guy. He says, I remember my faults this day almost as I remember the offenses that caused you to put me into the prison cell and when I was in that prison cell, this is what happened.

Verse 10, when Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, again, that's most likely Potiphar. Both me and the chief baker, we each had a dream in one night, he and I.

Each of us had dreamed according to the interpretation of his own dream. Now there was a young Hebrew man with us there. A servant of the captain of the guard. Remember, Joseph had been Potiphar's servant even still and we told him he interpreted our dreams for us.

To each man he interpreted according to his own dream and it came to pass. Just as he interpreted for us, so it happened. He restored me to my office and he hanged him. This ungrateful memory comes back into view.

It had been there in the memory bank but it took two years to surface. Notice the cup bearer doesn't immediately jump to Joseph. It's only after he sees every wise man and priest of Egypt come in and have nothing to offer that he sort of begrudgingly goes, all right, I do know a guy.

He finally sees his opportunity. You get the sense he really doesn't want to bring a Hebrew slave out of prison and kind of tie his reputation to Joseph. So it's sort of a last resort. I know a guy and maybe this will come through.

Whatever else he had forgotten about Joseph, he clearly forgot the begging, the fourfold.

Plea.

He does remember this. Joseph is a Hebrew. He says, we met a Hebrew youth. There was a young Hebrew. Clearly Joseph had been testifying about the fact that he was a Hebrew. That was something that left an impression upon the cup bearer's mind.

Remember that at this point, God had uniquely revealed himself to the Hebrews from Abraham moving forward according to the covenant he had made with Abraham. And so Joseph is the Hebrew, the man of God who's walking in this Abrahamic promise.

The only place that God is actively identifying and revealing his presence is to the Hebrews. His hand, his guidance is upon the Hebrews. The cup bearer and Pharaoh have no idea that history is revolving not around the might of the Egyptian empire, but about the tent of this young Hebrew prisoner.

The household of this young Hebrew prisoner who Pharaoh doesn't have a concern to know is actually the guiding point of all that's unfolding in history at this point in time. It's just like Augustus Caesar reigning over the world empire of his day, and in the backwater town of Bethlehem comes the whole meaning of history, unbeknownst to him and to most Roman senators well past the beginning of the early church.

They didn't even know what a Christian was or who Christ was until about the turn of the first century. You even have Pliny the Elder. He can't even spell Christ correctly in Latin. There was some instigation of Crestus, whoever that is, and yet all of history does not revolve around the might of empire, but the might of God's kingdom.

We see here that the only place Pharaoh can have wisdom and understanding regarding his crisis is from a young Hebrew youth that has been utterly discarded by the machinations of the fallen world. He alone has revelation from God, though nothing in his life seems to show that forth.

He's not driving a Bentley. He's not naming it and claiming it. He's a prisoner suffering, forgotten for two years. And in Joseph's life, we see the scriptural principle, the secret of the Lord belongs.

To those who fear him.

Joseph fears God. We're going to see it in more ways than one. We see the same thing in the days of another fallen empire, Babylon, when another fallen king was troubled by something he could not understand, and the answer for Nebuchadnezzar was found in Daniel, a man who fears God.

And then Belshazzar again, unable with his companions to understand what was scrawled upon the wall until they call in the aged prophet to reveal it. The secrets of the Lord belong to those who fear him.

So Pharaoh sends for and calls Joseph up out of the prison. You can only imagine what this would have been like for Joseph when that gate swings open or the rope is let down the hole, whatever the roundhouse might have looked like.

And all of a sudden he's thrust up out of his grave clothes. He must have looked almost unrecognizable. And they shave him and they put appropriate clothing on him and they thrust him into the royal presence of Egyptians, of the Egyptian king.

It's amazing, isn't it, that Pharaoh is so desperate that he calls for this Hebrew ex-con to come out of prison and stand before him. Joseph must have been as bewildered as the cupbearer. You're actually going to try this?

You're actually going to follow through? Now there's probably an application here about shaving, but I'm just going to leave it alone. It seems to be the Hebrews like their beards and the Egyptians like to be shaved, and what we make of that, of spiritual significance, we'll leave for another day.

But notice that Joseph appears before Pharaoh as an Egyptian ought to appear, as the tomb paintings. If you've ever been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and you go to the Egyptian exhibit you'll see how court officials looked in their shaved appearance, shaved heads, often only having, if anything, a small amount of facial hair, if that at all.

And so of course Joseph is conforming to practice that he might appear before this ruler, and yet Pharaoh is eager to listen to this young Hebrew, eager to hear what this young Hebrew has to say. This political leader is eager to hear the words that attend this young man of God, eager to hear the wisdom and guidance that may come from his lips.

Look at what he says in verse 15, I've had a dream and there's no one who can interpret it but I've heard it said of you that you can understand a dream to interpret it. Pharaoh knew that this dream was a revelation.

He knew that there was something significant, something troubling about what it entailed, but he could not understand it and no Egyptian he knew could understand it. He was a lot like a person who opens up the scripture and they have no idea what they're reading but they're troubled by it.

Their spirit is gripped by it and they're eager to understand it. The Ethiopian eunuch, do you understand what you're reading? How can I? I can't find anyone among my friends, among my circle who's able to explain this to me.

Can you interpret it for me? It's the spiritual blindness, the spiritual darkness that God uses his people to shed light upon. Notice that Pharaoh asserts Joseph has the innate ability to interpret. I've heard it said there's no one but you who can understand this dream to interpret.

It.

If ever there was a moment for Joseph to act like an Egyptian, he's already shaved and dressed like one. Why yes Pharaoh, why yes in fact I do have this ability and I'm willing, I'm willing to offer my services to you for a small price of liberty and fortune.

He has every opportunity to say yes I have this gift and now I'm going to maneuver and manipulate with this gift that I have that I can finally get out of prison. I can finally actually be free. Maybe I can even have a little place for myself on the banks of the Nile.

Joseph doesn't do that at all. Please notice that the same urgent begging he had had two years prior, get me out of this house. Please you have his ear. If he shows you favor, if this comes true, remember me.

He's eager but he's not so eager that he resorts to self-reliance. He really sees himself as in the hand of God and so he's not willing to manipulate his circumstances. In fact, the first word in the Hebrew text that he says to Pharaoh is a negation, Al in Hebrew, no.

Here he is as an Egyptian. If ever there was a temptation to bend the knee and say yes, I do have this gift and this is all that I ask, instead he says no. The Hebrew corrects, almost rebukes Pharaoh, no, not in me.

God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. Joseph immediately says I do not have this gift of interpretation. I'm not like your wise men and your priests, you see. I have faith in God, the living God, and God is able to tell me what He has shown you.

God is the one to whom this dream belongs. It's true of me in my life. It's been true of the butler and the baker and Pharaoh. It's even true for you. He completely, as it were, moves the focus and the possibilities that come with that focus off of himself and on to God.

It's as if Joseph desires Pharaoh not to know Joseph but to know God.

This belongs to God.

God must have the glory for this. If there's anything you must know about this, it's not my words but what God is doing in your life and in your kingdom, Pharaoh. He's shaven, brought before the ruler of the world, finally out of the pit of suffering and despair.

If ever there was a moment, if he couldn't be tested by the affliction of those years, maybe he'd be tempted by the potential glory of manipulating these circumstances, but he.

Doesn't.

The young Hebrew instead chooses to glorify God. If this is the only phrase I get in front of you, Pharaoh, this is what I'm going to.

Say.

God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. The word there, shalom, in Hebrew is so enigmatic, has so many angles and shades of meaning. Perhaps the best translation would simply be, God will answer Pharaoh's welfare.

He's not saying it's definitely going to be an answer of peace toward you, but more like, you know, God is going to tell you how it will fare with you. God will tell Pharaoh's welfare. God will answer Pharaoh's health, Pharaoh's prosperity.

You see, Egypt is viewed as the possession of Pharaoh because it's under his authority. Beginning in verse 17, Pharaoh says to Joseph, behold, in my dream I stood on the bank of the river. Suddenly seven cows came up out of the river, fine looking and fat.

They fed in the meadow and behold, seven other cows came up after them, poor, very ugly in God, such ugliness as I've never seen in all the land of Egypt. Egypt doesn't have gaunt cows with their ribs poking through their skin.

Egypt is abundant, prosperous. The Hannafords and the Walmarts are always full. And the gaunt and ugly cows ate up the first seven, the fat cows, and when they'd eaten them up, no one would have known that they had eaten them for they were just as ugly at the beginning.

And so I awoke and also in my dream I saw suddenly seven heads come up on one stalk, full and good, and behold, seven heads withered thin and blighted by the east wind sprang up after them. And the thin heads devoured the seven good heads and I told this to the magicians and there was no one who could explain it to me.

Again, the narrative is stressing there's no one, no one, no one in all of Egypt, no one who has wisdom and truth, no one but those who wait by faith upon the Lord. No one but Joseph, who's walking in the way of God, is able to discern what is true, what is right, and what is coming.

Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, the seven good heads are seven years. The dreams are one. And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years.

And the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. Indeed, seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them seven years of famine will arise and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt and the famine will deplete the land.

So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine that follows it, for it will be very severe. And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God and God will shortly bring it to pass.

Notice how many times Joseph brings reference to God. This is what God has shown you. This is what God is about to do. This thing is established by God. God is about to bring it to pass. Joseph comes as the prisoner slave before mighty Pharaoh and he speaks as John Knox to the English queen.

This is what God requires of you. This is what God has shown you. This is what God is about to do. The famine will deplete the land. Again, probably not the best translation. It's a PL. It's intensive.

It's like devastate the land. Destroy the land. That's the imagery. The severity will be such that all of the abundance will be forgotten. No one will be able to say, do you remember how good 2019 was?

It will be utterly corrupted and destroyed. Famine is coming, Pharaoh. You will have seven years of plenty, but the famine that is coming, the destruction that is imminent will be such that it will be as if you've never had a harvest.

Your empire is about to be destroyed. Your whole land is about to be devastated. That's what Joseph says to Pharaoh. You know, we say the word famine. We read it off the page of Genesis 41. We really don't know what we're talking about.

Even in parts of the world today where they experience famine, they couldn't experience it in the way that an ancient did. Not with bags of UN rice. Famine would have brought about a complete breakdown of society.

Children and the elderly starving and dying first. Eventually men begin to rob, kill, steal. The society completely breaks down such that there can be no law, can be no order, can be no domain, no dominion.

Property is lost. People are lost. The nation is lost. Famine would destroy everything that Egypt had been. God is bringing this upon Egypt, but he's bringing it upon Egypt not for the sake of Egypt's destruction, but rather for the sake of his people's salvation.

The church, not present in Egypt, but still dwelling as it were around the tent of Jacob, that is the church of the day, with Joseph perhaps far removed from it. But it is the household of Jacob that is God's church, as it were, in the land.

God's church resides uniquely upon the household of Jacob. And God is bringing this judgment upon the evil empire all so that he can save his church. He can save the household of Egypt, because if it weren't for Genesis 41 and all that God has been doing leading up to it, all of the household of Jacob will perish in.

The land.

There will be no grain that they might live. Their lives would be cut short. The promise that God had made of the serpent's seed being crushed by the seed of the woman, the seed that comes from Abraham, that itself would be cut short.

In other words, God is intending through this famine judgment that his own people, his own covenant might be saved. Do you know that that is still the case here this morning? As we dwell in the midst of the evil empire, the empires of this fallen world, God brings judgment upon them that he might save his church and carry forth his covenant promises.

Everything that God has done in history, through history, in and through his Son, is uniquely designed to bring about the salvation of his covenant people. You have it here in shadows in Genesis 41 through 50.

We have the reality of it that we're living out even today. This is what God is doing in the world. Notice that Joseph is able to declare these things forthrightly to Pharaoh. Do you notice there's no sense of his knees buckling?

He's not intimidated. He doesn't pull back. He doesn't say things that court priests would want to say, things that are soothing and encouraging to Pharaoh. All of that had fallen flat. Joseph comes with all of the integrity of a prophet.

He has a character that is spotless. Because he has not compromised himself, he's able to stand and speak. Frankly, brothers, if Joseph had compromised himself with the wife of Potiphar, I don't think he would be standing before Pharaoh.

He would not have had the integrity to be able to stand and speak, thus saith the Lord. If you don't have integrity in your life, if your conduct is not blameless, you will not have the character of Joseph to speak unto nobles and kings and the cultural elite and say, thus saith the Lord.

You just won't have it.

You'll be far too compromised to even care. He's able to say these things and not shrink back. He's able to speak of God's judgment and give testimony to God. He does that, that he can provide a way of escape and a way that brings forth God's blessing.

He applies wisdom. Notice in everything that Joseph has said, he gives the revelation of God because it is sure, it is established twice. Not only because it's sure, but because it demands a response.

Joseph is more than the revealer of the dream. He's also, as it were, the wise prophet, the herald, the preacher, the ambassador. And so he goes from interpreting the dream to a lot more than interpreting the dream.

He goes to applying wisdom to what Pharaoh ought to do now. Now he's well beyond a court magician, or you know, here it is and that's my time, thank you very much.

He doesn't leave.

He then spends verse 33 and following saying, this therefore is what you need to do, Pharaoh. He becomes, as it were, a preacher, a shepherd, a counselor, an advisor, an ambassador. The vision is sure, Pharaoh, and because God is doing this shortly, it demands a response.

It demands a response. As God's word always does. This is a revelation of God. These things are coming to bear. It demands a response. The things that God repeats in his word are meant to strike us and strike us and move us to a response.

The gospel is repeated more than twice because it demands a response. God's word is given to us as not only a revelation, but as something to respond to in wisdom and repentance that we might be a doer of the revelation rather than a hearer only.

Pharaoh, in his household, in his kingdom is spared because he was a doer of the word rather than a hearer only. He didn't say, well, I'm glad I know what that means now, I'm going to ride the wave for seven years and then I think it's time to retire to a different part of the world.

He doesn't do that.

Look at what Joseph says, verse 33, now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man and set him over the land of Egypt. I don't think Joseph at all is wink, wink, nudge, nudge pointing to himself.

For Joseph, that's like out of the question. So please keep that in mind. He's saying, you need a man, he needs to understand these things, and you need to give him authority to act upon it. And he's not assuming that's going to be him, fresh out of the orange jumpsuit of the Egyptian penitentiary system.

Not exactly worthy of being the right hand man for Pharaoh, some Hebrew slave. Let Pharaoh do this. Let him appoint officers over the whole land to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years, and let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming.

Store up all of the grain under the authority of Pharaoh. Let them keep the food in the cities, then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land, that the land may not perish during the famine.

And the advice was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all of his servants. We see that though God is sovereign and this judgment is unavoidable, that does not mean to sit on your hands and wait for it to come.

Joseph, because he's walking in God's wisdom and way, recognizes this is the time to respond. This is the time to act. The revelation was given by God so that you would prepare and prevail. If God did not want you to react to this, He would not have given you the revelation.

If God wanted to bring destruction upon Egypt, He would just bring it. He would not give you this revelation, this warning of the judgment to come, and then time to prepare for it. And the same is true here this morning.

Everyone in this room is accountable for the revelation of God that they're hearing. When we like John the Baptist say, flee the wrath to come, it's a revelation from God that is sure and it demands a response, and you are now given the time to respond wisely to that warning.

The worst thing that Pharaoh could have done here is say, well, maybe, maybe not. Well, we'll see. Well, maybe later on, some years from now, I'll get around to it. To whom much is given, much is required.

God has given a revelation that it might be responded to. Joseph's wisdom is shown to be that which is from above. The advice is good in the eyes of Pharaoh and the eyes of all of his servants. They recognize here is a wise man.