Alright, Genesis 37. Let's read verse 5. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. Well, that's all we're going to read right now. Joseph dreamed a dream. I preached on this a few times, this subject. It'll be a little different this morning, but it's important. Just something that I just think we need to look at this morning. So let's bow and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you for the songs. Thank you for the special. Thank you for each one that's here now. I pray you'd help us to get our minds together and our ears and eyes focused up here. And that they would listen, Lord, to what you have to say this morning. Help us to have clarity in what I say, that everybody could hear you as you speak to them, each one. I know what this does for me. I know where it speaks to me in my life. But I don't know the rest of the folks here this morning. Each one's different. And I pray that it would be taken the right way. And that it would do some good. And it would be a little push in the right direction for them. And that they would receive it in Jesus' name. Amen. Joseph dreamed a dream. There's a lot of dreaming in the Bible. We've been reading in Daniel at home and are reading at night and we've seen there a lot of similarities in Daniel and Joseph. Daniel dreamed and he interpreted dreams for other people. God spoke to people through dreams. There's something that's, a lot of people put too much, and I'm talking about dreams in your sleep and like that, but what we're talking about here is a little different thing. Now Joseph dreamed this dream, but you know that there's more to a dream than the dreams that you dream while you're asleep. Now that's what we're talking about this morning. We all have our dreams, and for those that love God and look to Him, it's God who puts those dreams in our hearts. Now, that's the way it is. If you're lost, if you really don't care about God, if He's not first in your life, you still got your dreams, but they're different kind of dreams. They're not the kind of dreams that God puts in a person. You know, the dreams, if they're based upon our own selfish interest and pride and lust, you know, if we're just looking for what we want, if we're dreaming about how we can look good and how we can better ourselves and how we can make some great mark on the world ourselves, you know, that's, that's, you know, if they're based on that junk or They're going to be different. I'm getting ahead of myself here in my mind. I've got to get my mind and my mouth together. So bear with me a minute here. If your dreams are based upon our desire to see God glorified in this evil and corrupt world, they'll be of a different order than the dreams that we dream of our own interest and selfishness. Amen. If our dreams are made only of money and fame and worldly pleasure, then we're dreaming way below what is possible for us to dream. Hey, if that's you this morning, why don't you lift the bar a little higher than that? If you're going to dream, why don't you dream something that's real and worthwhile? I mean, dream something higher than what the rest of the world has and dreams about. You're not made to dream about earthly, worldly things. We're made to dream higher than that. Selfish, worldly dreams that are shattered have no comfort following, and therefore they leave bitterness and disappointment in their wake. Better listen about that. You want to dream only about earthly, worldly, carnal things? Dreams get shattered, you know. Dreams don't work out like we think they will, like we hope they will. And if you're just dreaming in the earthly realm, then you have no comfort when it all falls to pieces. And that's why there's so many bitter people. Do you know that? Do you know that this morning? Where's that root of bitterness? What's it based upon? Where does it sprout from? Disappointment. Yes, sir. Disappointment. and being let down, not getting what you wanted, what you thought, what you dreamed about. It didn't come to pass. Dream higher, dream higher. Joseph's dream was not about his own exaltation, but about God being glorified. And that's a key thing that you have to understand about Joseph and his dream. And it's a key thing that we need to understand about our own dreams too. Where are they founded? What are they based on? Where are they coming from? Why are we dreaming this dream? Joseph's dream was based on God being glorified. Now his brothers and even his father, Jacob, misunderstood the dreams and they assumed that it was pride in Joseph's heart making him think such things and hopes for such things and imagine such things. They thought it was personal ambition. Oh, but they were wrong, very wrong. That's not what Joseph was about. That's not what his dreams were about. Now, the thing about it is, we're just made in the image and likeness of God, and we're made higher than the animals. We're not an animal. Don't let them convince you that you are an animal. We're of a different sort. We're a different creature. We're made in the image and likeness of God, and I feel sorry for people that can't tell the difference between animals and people, and they put them on the same level. Man, oh man. How blind can you get? We should have compassion on animals. They're alive, they're a life. Yes, we should treat them right and not mistreat them, and we should take care of them. God gave them into our domain. We're responsible, I believe, for them. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but they're not human. You know, animals don't dream. They don't dream. They're not like humans in that respect. We dream. We look way ahead and we think way out yonder. And we can even look to eternity. And they don't do that. They can't do that. They're not capable of doing that. God didn't make them with the capacity to do that. And so, it's part of what we are. It's part of how God made us. Bible tells us that without a vision, people perish. That's what we're talking about here. Looking to the future. dreaming about the future, looking for some good. Now, it's where you're coming from again. You know, I wanted to make this clear because there's people here this morning, without a doubt, and people that hear this, you got dreams, but they're all about you. They're all about making something of you. They're all about you being somebody or having some great thing. It all ends in you being adored and worshiped by everybody and admired and looked up to. Because that's the celebrity society that we live in. You want to be someone of renown. But a dream that comes from God don't work from that way. It's the same way, you know, I was thinking about preaching this morning about a false religion and false prophets and the difference and that's one of the great differences. The false religion always exalts self and always pushes you to be proud and it encourages pride and builds it up. and self-exaltation. False prophets work in that realm and that they feed that in the people. And that's why they get so many followers because it goes right along with the world and that will work in this wicked world. But I'm talking to you from a different aspect, in a different realm, from God's viewpoint, God's perspective of this thing. Without a vision, people perish. That's why this world's perishing. That's why people are killing themselves right and left. You see it every week in the obituaries. I do, every week. Every week I see where somebody has done that. No hope, despair, no vision. They look to the future and, buddy, it's dark. And there ain't nothing there to be desired. So they think they can end it all that way. No hope. We were without hope and without God in this world. But see, not now. Since we're saved, we're not without hope and we're not without God in this present evil world. We got vision. We can see. It's what we're looking at. It's what we're seeing. That makes a difference in how you dream. If you're looking low, like a hound dog with his nose on the ground, you don't see that pole right in front of you, that car that's fixing to run over you. Remember that old dumb dog over in Virginia who's going along with his nose on the ground running right in that telephone pole. You remember that sound? Bam! That's the way a lot of people are. Their vision is real restricted because they're looking down like the animals do. Look up! Broaden it. Enlarge your vision. Without a vision, people perish. You have nothing to live for, nothing to hope for. Dreaming is what we're supposed to do, but it's supposed to be based upon and originate from God to us. It's God who gives us the vision. It's God who gives us the hope. Not something that we just work up ourselves out of this poor, miserable place that we live in the universe here. We need to dream and we have a vision of something. We need to dream and we need to have a vision of something to accomplish with our life. What are you here for? What am I here for? What are you here for? To just work and eat and sleep and work and eat and sleep until you die? Don't you ever sit around and think, man, there's got to be more to life than this. Don't you ever think of what am I going to do with my life? What am I going to amount to? Is it going to make any difference when it's all done that I lived here on this earth? Do you ever wonder that? It's right to dream, to want to accomplish something with your life, which is so short. But look high. Don't look low. Don't look here out around you at the world and just fit in and march in step with them. Step up higher. Nothing's ever accomplished unless somebody has a dream first. And that's the way it is. Somebody thinks about it. Somebody figures it out. When older people quit dreaming, they're not much of a blessing anymore and a help are they? when they quit looking ahead. When they get all wrapped up in the here and now, or the yesterday, and there is no future for them, then they cease being a blessing. The old people who are a blessing are the ones who are looking ahead, the ones who are still dreaming. Still looking to the future of what they can do, what they might do. Others around them, what they can do. Dream for other people if you can't dream for yourself. When a person isn't walking with God, they become a sentimental Christian only living in past experiences without any dream for the future. That's what he was talking about. Your old man will see visions. How is it? I'm getting it backwards. And the young man will dream dreams. Anyway, you're either a dreamer or a dreader. Yep, once we get past our immaturity and childishness, our dreams take on a different quality. Now you can watch these little children and you can remember when you were a kid and it's the same deal. Childish dreams are just temporary, imaginary playthings. They're never looked at as reality and without any real expectation of becoming reality. When I was a kid, we always had guns and we shot each other all the time. But I never thought of shooting somebody for real. They're so scared now that little boys playing with guns is so dangerous. It's just so bad for them. And a little boy will make a gun out of anything he's got. They're playing. It's childish imagination and dreaming. And it's not looked at as reality by them or by anybody else. They're kids. They're playing. Let them play. People worry about junk like that and then they'll let them sit at a video game and blood and guts everywhere and pornography and they'll let them look at all the filth and the poison of the world and then worry about some stupid thing like that. That's how ignorant everybody is. Children play, and they dream in their play, but as we mature, we begin to look ahead. I don't know. It happens different for some people. Some people don't ever seem to grow up, but when you grow up, you'll start looking ahead instead of just around you and playing games like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. When I was a child, I thought as a child. I spoke as a child. But when I grew up, I put away that stuff, started looking at things different. Don't mean you stop dreaming, but the dreams take on a different thing about them. I mean, they begin to form dreams. When you look ahead, you begin to form dreams, and they become goals. And then these goals, they become a part of your decision-making and your choices in life. Do you see what I'm talking about? I don't know. I don't sound like it. When you grow up, you stop imagining and playing and you start thinking in reality and you start dreaming, but this dream is a reality to you. I mean, it's something that turns into a goal that you work toward. And so you got a goal in your life and a dream and you make your decisions to get you to that point. Now, if you never grow up, you never have no dream and you just spend your life being a child, playing your little games, fooling away your time, wasting your days and wasting your life and your mind, never looking ahead to accomplish anything, never any goals for your life, and you waste your life because you won't grow up. When we're childish, we control our dreams. When we grow up, our dreams control us. We have a dream about what we wish to do and accomplish. Should, you should have. You ought to have something in mind besides just nothing. That's one of the big problems we got, and I'm bleeding over into this character thing I've been trying to preach on on Wednesday nights. Having initiative and being motivated, and boy, we're missing it now. It's part of the bad character that is taken. Nobody's motivated to do nothing. Nothing. They don't want to think. They don't want to move. They don't want to be, do, accomplish, build. Nothing. Just sit around. Just live in the whatever. Man, don't you want more out of your life than just nothing? You can go to these places on earth. Of course, I'll be a racist for saying this, but if you go to Africa, you'll find them in the jungle living just like they've lived for thousands of years. That's right. They found the Indians in America the same way. You can go to the islands in the Pacific and you can find them still, some of them, the same way. They're just fine with a grass hut and run around naked. And whatever's available, just pick it up off the ground and eat it or whatever. No aspiration for anything else. The cold, the heat, the sickness, the death, the discomfort, the troubles of life is not enough motivation to get them to do anything except just continue on as they've always done. God shall enlarge Japheth and Japheth is enlarged. I don't want to get sidetracked here. I get sidetracked on that real easy. As we mature, we look ahead. Now, we have a dream about what we wish to do and accomplish. If the affections of our heart are on the things of God, then He gives us the desires of our heart, and our dreams are from Him. That's the way it works. That's why I'm always trying to get you to look to God, and to think about God, and to gaze upon God, the Word of God. Learn of Him, because if you will, You'll fall in love with God and God will get control of your life and He'll direct your steps, your paths. But until that happens, you're going to direct your own and your dreams are going to be the low sort. And you're never gonna have a vision for anything better. We visualize in our minds the outcome of our labors and look forward to it without doubt. When you're young, that's the way it is. Your dreams, man, it's just something that you're gonna, I'm gonna, that's what I see and that's what I'm gonna do. And it's just a straight line from where I'm at to where my dream is fulfilled. That's when you're young and looking at it from that end. We're full of confidence that we can accomplish these goals. Sometimes we don't know how we're gonna be able to do it, but we're sure that we'll see our dreams come true because I dreamed it and it's gonna happen. Simple as that. But I want to warn you today that we're always in too big a hurry to see our dreams come true. That's one of the big problems with our generation is we're all in too big of a hurry. We're used to instant everything and we're used to pushing a button and it happens. It just doesn't work that way in real life. It's amazing to me, you know, let me just throw this in here. It's funny, we're in such a hurry and everything's so speedy and all this, I hate these touch screens. You talk about slowing everything down. I mean, you used to have a radio, on and off button, button to turn the dial, that's all it was. Now you push the button and it sits there and don't do nothing. And you say, well, it ain't working. So you hit it again. And then it catches up with you. And then it's all messed up. They're all that way. Computers, the thing in the car, everything. But see, we got used to things snapping and in a hurry. And that's what we demand and we expect. And it just ain't going to happen that way with your dream. If it's from God, especially, it ain't going to happen that way. Things take a while. If God's the author of the universe, he is. And if he's the author of our dreams, I hope he is today for you. The first step in seeing our dreams become reality will never be in the direction that we choose ourselves. That's what Joseph found out here. And he told it his brethren and they hated him yet the more. See, Joseph's dreams were about unity and peace with his brethren. They hated him, and he knew they hated him. And they envied him, and he knew that. He knew that they couldn't stand to be around him. And in his dreams, he saw them liking him. He saw him liking them. He saw that there was peace in the family and unity among them. That's what his dream was about. And he told it them and they hated him yet the more. He thought when I tell them this, they'll see that I'm not against, I mean, you know, I want peace with them. Nope, nope, didn't work out for him. He told it to his brother and they hated him yet the more. So, the first response he gets from his brethren about his dream, and they're part of his dream, see? It had the opposite effect. If your dream's born out of the influence of God upon your life, then expect it to be brought to fruition in the same way the rest of God's creation works to bring forth fruit. All of nature and creation teaches that blessings come through much labor and suffering, not just words and promises. Everybody's got too much confidence in just little words. We like to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, but it takes more than talk and it takes more than words for anything to happen. You can promise God with words this morning, all you want to, but you got to put your foot to it or it's worthless. and it'll never produce anything. Ecclesiastes 5.3, for a dream cometh through the multitude of business. You understand what he's saying? It takes a while. It takes a lot of work. There's a lot of days and nights and a lot of steps between here and there. Don't dream about something and it happens tomorrow. Nope. If your dream's born out of the influence of God, you can expect it to happen the same way everything else happens in God's creation. Sorrow is better than laughter. For by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. We don't like that, but that's the way it is. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 3. Romans 5, verse 3, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience. There is somebody writing who understands how it works with God. and the life lived for God. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 17, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment. This man had been beat three times with 40 stripes minus one. He'd been stoned and thrown out of the city and beaten and everything else. He said these light afflictions. He'd been ostracized, kicked out from all of his people. They threw him out. Didn't want him no more. Tried to kill him. He died daily. He said, I died daily. He was talking about they're going to kill me every day I get up. He thinks that's probably it. They're going to get me today. That's what he meant. He wasn't struggling with his flesh. They was after him. And he knew that every day might be his last because they were actively pursuing him and trying to kill him. And if you had a whole bunch of people after you like that, you'd say, man, every day I think about dying. Death is ever present and ever close to me because they're going to kill me. Someday they're going to kill me. And he gloried in that. And then he said, for our light affliction, that's what he called that, is about for a moment, working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. You see, that's the kind of dreaming you gotta do. You gotta realize that there's a lot in between here and there. We're birthed into the world through suffering. And if you, where do pearls come from? Suffering. That poor little creature suffers a long time. to produce one of them for you to put in your necklace or your ring or your earring and wear it around. A seed has to die and be buried before it can produce anything or else it abides alone. That's one of the major lessons of the Scripture about life and about eternity and everything and how it all works. That seed, except a corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die. it abides alone. Death is the gateway to life. Don't think your dream is going to come out any other way. You want life to precede death but it doesn't work that way in God's way of doing things. Usually the first step in seeing our dream fulfilled is to find ourselves rejected of others because they don't share our dreams. We ourselves are rejected by others for daring to dream things that look impossible. You understand what I'm talking about? Joshua, there's you another example. And Caleb and who's the other one? Tell me the other spy that was a good one. Joshua and Caleb, they were the two. They dreamed. Caleb said, I want that mountain. I saw it one time, and he got it, didn't he? Did he get it right then? Oh, no, no, no. 40 years in the wilderness, and then a few more, taking the promised land, but he got it. Yes, sir. But there was a whole lot of fighting, and a whole lot of suffering, and a whole lot of waiting before then. Don't think it's gonna be any different with us. We'll be rejected by those closest to us and those that we thought would be the last to forsake us. Verse 10 there in Genesis chapter 37, even his father rebuked Joseph for his dreams. You may, and Joseph was real close to his father and Jacob loved Joseph dearly and that was part of the reason his brothers hated him so bad. because of the special attention and love he got from his father. And Israel said to Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock and shechem? Come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. You may have to willingly allow yourself to suffer at the hands of others. Do you understand there that Joseph surely knew his brethren would take advantage of the opportunity to get rid of him? Or at least abuse him while he was out there at their mercy. He knew how they felt about him. And he knew that if they got a chance, they was going to do away with him. It was that bad. And Joseph knew it. And yet, his father said, I want you to go out there where your brethren are, out there in the wilderness. Joseph said, he didn't say, well now father, you know I may not come back. You know how they felt. Here I am. Here am I. Send me. You ever hear that? Isaiah said that. Here am I, send me. Surely Joseph knew his brethren would do that, but he went anyway, at the risk of everything. The next step towards seeing dreams accomplished is to be separated. You know, it's not gonna work. Everybody's not gonna just say, wow, you got a good dream. Count us in, we're with you, buddy. We'll be with you. Don't work that way. And especially if it's a dream that is based upon God's will in your life. Doing God's will in your life. Don't count on the support of everybody. Don't count on the support of your closest loved ones. Joseph's dreams included his brethren, but he separated from them. And I mean far from them. He didn't just move across town, they sent him to another country, way away. Instead of getting closer, it seems like the dream is getting farther and farther out of reach. How are they going to bow down to him? How are they going to be unified if they're way over yonder and he's way over here? It just seems farther and farther away. Don't think of your dream as you'll be able to see it. It's always within sight. You can just almost see it happening. No, what's going to happen is it's going to go farther and farther to where ain't no way. Ain't no way it's ever going to happen. Ain't no earthly way. It's impossible now. Must have just been imagination. It's just been wishful thinking. The Bible's full of evidence that a person who has a God-given dream will live a lonely life and will not be a part of the mainstream or popular with the crowds. Moses also dreamed a dream. His brethren, the children of Israel, he knew he belonged to them. He knew they were his people and he wanted them freed from this bondage. So he just stepped out there and going, do it. He's the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He's got the position. He's got the means and the power. He'll do it himself. Well, it didn't work out, did it? So he got to go to the wilderness for 40 years to learn his lesson and be prepared. And then he came and did lead them out and got to spend another 40 years in the wilderness listening to their grumbling and complaining. He had a noble goal. He had an honorable dream. But Moses didn't really realize the fulfillment of it, did he? He dreamed about leading them to the promised land where God had promised and where they belonged and where they were gonna go. But did he get to see it? The closest he got was up on the mountain. God took him up there before he died and just let him look over there and see. But he didn't get to lay them in. He just thought about it for 80 years at least and dreamed about it. And it wasn't no pipe dream. And it wasn't no dream of his own making. It was from God. That's what made Moses who he was, the man he was. That's the kind of dreams we ought to have. That's the kind of dreams you ought to have. If you want your life to count and amount to something, you better get something from God like that. You, I mean, Moses, Joseph, they all knew what God's main plan was. They all knew. Joseph said, when you do go up out of here, you take my bones with you. He knew they were gonna go. Just like we're sitting here today and we know that we're gonna go. God's people are going out of here soon. And we ought to be like Moses and want to have a part in getting them out of here. Yes sir. Making sure everybody's in that's going to be in. But instead we dream about cars and fantasies and fame and money and things and positions. You ought to dream higher. The next step here is in the development of Joseph's dream, anyway, is to put in the development of a dream that God has put in somebody's heart, like Joseph. It's likely for us to be brought into a place where we have no control over our situation and we're not able to put our hand to it at all. See, we want to put our hand to it and make it happen. That's one of the biggest hindrances to the work of God right now. We can't keep our hands off of it. We know how, and we're gonna get the means, and we're gonna do it. We're just gonna make it happen the way we think it ought to happen, the way we dream about it being. That's what's happened with all the churches. See, they dream about the place being full, so they make it happen. But then when it happens, it's not what they dreamed about. So God puts us in a place where you cannot do nothing about it. Joseph is a slave in another man's house. He has no freedom. He has no means. He has nothing of his own. He is another man's slave. I mean, he's in a situation where he has no control over his life at all. He's there to meet the needs of somebody else. Joseph. Now we know who he is. They didn't know who he was. Joseph knew more about himself. I mean, he knew that, what am I doing here? This ain't part of the plan. This ain't what I had envisioned. And how is this ever going to get me to where God has shown me I'm supposed to be? We think we gotta be free to accomplish our dreams. We think we gotta shake off all the obstacles and all the things that are hindering us. Paul said, I've got a thorn in the flesh and it's hindering me, Lord. I could do better without this, Lord. It's slowing me down. God said, no, it's just what you need. He had to learn to accept it. And we're that way too. We think, boy, if I could just, if I just had more money, if I could just, if my situation just wasn't like this, if I didn't have this responsibility and if I didn't have all this holding me down, boy, I could get there and do what I want to do. But it don't work that way. God don't work it that way for us. Now in your earthly dreams, you can do that junk. Yeah, just do it, force it. Make yourself associate with the people who can make your dream happen. That's the way earthly people make their dreams happen, ain't it? Yeah, they hug up to somebody who's rich or somebody who's in some position that can help them to get where they want to go. But in God's way of doing things, when God's involved in it, it just don't work that way. Now, I've seen them do it. I know how it works. I've watched it all through the years. I've been through all this junk of mission boards and everything else, and that's the way it works in most of it. If you know the right people, and if you can make the right people like you, and if you can get somebody to pull for you, it makes all the difference. You'll succeed. God ain't got nothing to do with that junk. Because I can look in my Bible and I can see the greatest men who ever lived and it didn't work that way for them. They got shoved out, not pulled in. All the religious leadership and organization of their time cast them out. And that's where Joseph's at, far away from home, a slave, in a house with a wicked woman, in a heathen nation. Somehow we think we need to acquire more means to accomplish our dreams, but God takes away even the things we have. We think, if I had this and had this, and we can just barely get by with what we got, and takes that too. I've got things come to my mind, but I've got to hurry. I'm trying to hurry so I can let you go. But we think we've got to stay in control of our lives even if we're going to accomplish our dream. We're going to have to stay in control. But if it's a dream God's given us, we may find ourselves in a situation from which we can't escape. And we're under the control of others with no end in sight. While our life wastes away. And while we spend the strength of our youth and our life thinking of our dream, it's slipping away. Joseph spent his, I mean the prime of his life, his 20s and 30s, he spent being a slave and a prisoner. No way out, no hope whatsoever. Joseph was sold into slavery. His time and his life and his strength was spent in serving the interest of others instead of pursuing his dream. What was Potiphar's interest? What was Potiphar's wife's interest? He cooked their meals. He washed their clothes. He cleaned their house. He ran their errands. He was the flunky. He was the guy who did all the dirty work. They cleaned up all the messes. He was the guy that took care of their business so they could seek their pleasure and be at ease. That's what his life became about. Their vanity. Man, that's bitter to me. That would be bitter to watch them flaunt themselves and step around high and my life's being used just for your menial little trivial needs and desires. cleaning up after you, and then to get treated like he did by Potiphar after that wicked woman did what she did, and then blamed him and said he was evil. Oh, but it don't stop there. I mean, you think that's as bad as you can get, but that ain't as bad as you can get. Joseph had to go through more before seeing his dream fulfilled, and he had to go to prison. That's worse than being a slave. If you're a slave, you might run away and get away with it, but if you're in prison and you're locked in the dungeon, you ain't going to run away. Quite a difference. Prison has to do with this, the door being shut. I remember a guy in jail one time telling me that. He was crying. He hadn't ever been in jail before. And he cried, a man, a grown man, sitting there telling me, and he cried and he said, man, you just don't know what it feels like when they slam that door. And you're in here. The door's shut. Final finality. I mean, that's it. The door is forever shut. You're in here and you ain't going nowhere. No hope. No hope. They threw him in the prison. Did they give him a sentence? Well, you're going to prison for five years, ten years. No. The Bible said Joseph was in the prison. That's it. That's his life now. That's all the future he's got. There ain't no hope of ever getting out. Ain't no lawyer for him. Ain't no kin folks to bail him out. Ain't nobody to call, nobody to write to. Ain't nobody even knows that he's there. But God does. But from Joseph's perspective, it looks pretty bad, don't it? Well, is he on the road to defeat? Is Joseph going to die in the dungeon? His dream was just a pipe dream? No, no, not at all. There's a God in heaven. God gave him the dream, and God's fulfilling the dream. It's not the way earthly dreams are fulfilled. No earthly way of seeing your dream fulfilled in prison. All hope completely gone. And if the dream will ever be realized, it's gotta be God's doing. Do you see that? Do you see where Joseph's at now? Ain't nothing I'm ever gonna do. It's not gonna happen by anything that I will ever do. If it happens, it's gonna be God's very hand that does it. Now see, that's why God works that way. Remember Gideon? Gideon had over 10,000, no he had, how many did he have? He had 32,000 men. and all the Midianites out there. I mean, there were hundreds of thousands of them, and Gideon had 32,000. Well, now that's pretty bad odds right there. But God said, nope, you got too many, Gideon. He said, what? 32,000 against all of them, and this is too many? He said, yeah, you ain't got too many. He said, take them down and see how they drank water and all this. So God kept a-pairing them down. They got down to 10,000, and then God said, still too many. Got down to 300. Why? God gave him the answer, why? He said, lest you think that you delivered yourself by your own hand. I mean, 300 men ain't gonna whoop hundreds of thousands of Midianites. It's got to be God. And if we whoop them up with our 32,000 or even 10,000, we can still say, man, we're the toughest guys on earth. Look what we did, woo! Better not nobody else mess with us. Who's next? Who's next? But God wants to make sure that it don't happen that way. So that when it's over, you're saying, oh, glory to God. God delivered us. And you know that that's right. And you ain't got no inkling of anything in your soul that thinks you did it or that you had a hand in it. And that's where he's at right now. It's where he's at in the prison. The baker and the butler's dreams were fulfilled in three days, and Joseph's wasn't. They dreamed their dreams, he told them what they were, and three days later, it's all done. Joseph said, I dreamed a dream one time, and it still ain't happened. Long time ago. Joseph could interpret their dreams. And Joseph could interpret the dreams of Pharaoh. And he saw them fulfilled before he ever saw his fulfilled. He interpreted Pharaoh's dreams. Seven years of plenty, seven years of leanness and drought. Joseph saw the dream, he interpreted the dream, saw it all happen and carried out. And he knew, he knew how dreams were, how they were. He knew, he could understand, he could interpret dreams like Daniel. But what about his? Same way. I tell you, the importance of a dream has a lot to do with how long it takes to fulfill it. When you find yourself living in what you dreamed about, It will have come about by circumstances beyond your imagination. Joseph just wanted out of the dungeon. He had no thoughts of being put on the throne of Egypt. Do you think he ever thought about that happening? Well, of course not. How in the world could he have ever in the wildest imagination have thought of that? Joseph had probably long ago put his dreams away in the back of his memory. That's how it is. As he matured through all those long years of hardship and loneliness in prison, his dreams kind of lost their luster and they were accounted somehow in his mind as just childish immaturity maybe. I really believe that. They lose their luster. I mean, as time rolls on and the hair turns gray, you just kind You remember it, but it's just kind of like, yeah, that was kind of, well, those were some good thoughts. They were good things to hope for, wish it would have happened, but never did. In spite of all the disappointment and shattered hopes, Joseph was faithful to God through it all. That's the key thing right here. But he surely never understood the dream until his brothers bowed before him that day. Chapter 42 verse 5 says this, And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came. For the famine was in the land of Canaan, and Joseph was the governor over the land. And he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them. And he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said from the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, But they knew him not, and Joseph remembered the dream which he had dreamed of them. That many years. And he knew immediately the dream. It's what he saw years ago. He never thought about it being like this at all. He didn't have no understanding of how it was going to come to pass or anything. But there came a moment, see, when it really did happen. Can you just imagine what Joseph felt in that moment? Wow. Yeah, he had to go off and weep. Joy. You know, we dream about Jesus coming. He is gonna come. And it's gonna be in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. And faith will become sight. Just that quick, just like it did for Joseph, see. There was just a moment in time when it came to pass. Genesis 43, verse 28, it happened again. And they bowed their heads and made obeisance. He told them that 20 some years before, and they hated him the more. Now if our dream comes from God, I'm just about done here. If our dream comes from God, He'll not allow it to become reality until we're ready to accept it for what it is. Are you listening to me? The long delay is not because God's being mean, it's because we are such slow learners. That's right. Joseph was one of the greatest men in the Bible. He's the one that you can find no fault in. They can talk about David's sin, they can talk about Abraham's sin, and Moses' sin, but you can't talk about Joseph's sin. But Joseph, it took 22 years for God to get him prepared to this point right here where his brethren who had did him so wrong and who had stolen his life away and had grieved their father to his grave could stand there and forgive him. Joseph probably couldn't have done that 10 years ago. Twenty years ago, five years ago, but when he was ready, then it came to pass. Joseph was prepared. I've always thought a lot about it. What kind of struggle did he have? I don't really believe he had that much of a struggle. You see, they just didn't take everything in such a hurry like we do now. It took Joseph some time for all this to fit together in his mind and heart and life. Can't you see that? Finally Joseph made himself known to his brother. I'm Joseph, who you sold. And they were afraid. One of them said to the other, I told you, I told you when we sold him, our little brother, this is what's happening to us right now because of what we did. They said that before. He heard them say that. He knew they were guilty and feeling the effects of their guilt. That helped him to forgive them. But the point is, The long delay is because of our slow learning. Now Joseph faces one last test. Will he avenge himself or will he continue to be the Joseph that God gave the dream to long ago? Joseph didn't have hatred in his heart for his brethren long ago. They did for him but not him toward them. He desired peace and he desired to be reconciled with them. Now, is he still going to be that way now? Or is he going to get even? What would you do? Would you get even? Most people would say, I've waited for a long time for this moment. He is the governor of the land. He can do anything he wants to with them. They are completely in his power and at his mercy. He can put every one of them to death right now. He could have them drawn and quartered. He could do anything He wanted to with them. They've taken away His life. You can't imagine what it's cost, Joseph. But in order for the dream, see, there's a side to the dream that comes from God that we don't see. See, we think of dreaming, we think of ourself. We're the center of it all, and it's all about us, and it's where I'm going, what I'm gonna do, and what I can see. But God's looking at it from the other side, see. God's doing something big with Joseph here that way bigger than what Joseph knows about. He did something with Job way bigger than Job knew about. He done something with Moses, David, all of them with so much more in mind than what the rest of us know about or that they knew about. And we can see it from this side and we can see a big part. That's what's going on here. Let me read you two more verses and I'll quit. We'll go home. Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I've kept thy word, Psalm 119, verse 67, and Psalm 126, verse 5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. The soul winner crowd has always used that verse, you know, for soul winning, but there's more to it than that. Reap in joy. There was joy that moment when Joseph was made known to his brother. And when he convinced him, he hugged him. He embraced him. And they were scared to death at first. But then there was joy. I mean, what did the Egyptians think when they learned what all had happened here? What a testimony. You know, I've often wondered why they make all these movies about the Bible and everything, but you don't ever see much about Joseph, do you, really? I know they did make some movie about it, and it was probably a bunch of junk, but it's one of the most moving things in the Bible is the story of Joseph. I saw on the news here a few months ago where they were digging around in Egypt and they found some coins and guess who was on the coin? And it said his name right there, Joseph. And they wonder if the Bible's true. They wonder if it really happened. Yes, it did really happen. And there's a lot of lessons we can take from it right here now, this morning. And I hope you're dreaming high. Hope that you're letting God have enough of your life and your mind that He can put something in you to pull you up a little higher than this low down world. Hope your dreams and your ambitions and your hopes in life are better than what's around you here. Reach high. Reach for God and let God help you to be somebody for Him. That'll make a difference in eternity. There's no pride involved in Joseph's life, is there? We don't look at him, you can't look at him like you do some proud hero. Joseph was broken into a million pieces and crushed. And that's what he turned out to be. So I don't want that. Well, you got to get to the point where it'd be okay with me. Let's stand. Father, thank you for the Word of God. I pray you'd bless it to our minds and hearts. And like I prayed at the beginning, Lord, I pray that it would be a little push that would help some that are here. to look to you and to reach for you and to get something from you that will help them to amount to something in eternity. This is all going to be over soon, very soon. And Lord, I pray our lives, each one of us here this morning, would be a life that makes a difference somehow, somewhere, with somebody. I pray we wouldn't live it unto ourselves. And after the foolish, vain things of this world, that we would be a vessel and present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which are reasonable service, that we could be used by you, that you could use our life to be a testimony, an example, and a help, and an encouragement, and inspiration for somebody else that they might find you. Bless your word to our hearts and minds now, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. I can't never keep track of nothing. Everything gets away from me. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I with soul shall make her boast in thee, Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He heard me. And delivered me from all my fears. Amen. Ain't that right?