Genesis 41 now there might be a little bit of overlap with Some of the things Bernie has covered with looking at the chief butler and the chief baker But wanting to work through this text and looking at Pharaoh's dream. So the title of this message or lesson is the king of dreams now, that's hopefully something you are aware of as a play on the dis or I guess it's dream works that did the Joseph movie and it's called The King of Dreams. Now, I titled it as such because we're going to look at Joseph was not the king of dreams. God is the king of dreams. And Joseph would have been the very first to admit that. And so we're going to look at that. And we will look at basically four parts to this message or to this chapter. Verses 1 through 8 is Pharaoh's dream. 9 through 13 is the butler's remembrance. 14 through 24 is Joseph's summoning. And then the last, 25 through 36, Joseph gives the interpretation. Now, what is some, just getting the context, getting up to speed, I like to do a little bit of review. It's like an on-ramp on the highway, you know, rather than hitting the ground running at 80 miles an hour, or excuse me, 55 miles an hour. We want to get up to speed, appropriate legal speed. So what is the context of Genesis? Maybe the immediate, broad context. What have we seen thus far in the book of Genesis? Creation, right? The book is literally beginnings. And so what better place to start than the beginning? And with that, we saw clearly God existed before the beginning, right? He's eternal. He's the creator. And there is a distinction between him and creation. Now, that's the foundational truth that we would do well to remember, because I think it makes sense of all difficult passages. Partly because, okay, let's take an example of the Trinity. How well can you say you confidently understand the Trinity? At least fully satisfactory in your mind. Probably not many of us, right? Why is that? Because the Bible teaches that God is one. But the Bible also shows that God the Son, God the Father, and God the Spirit are distinct, and yet God, and God is one. How do you explain that? Well, if you try using human arguments or creation framework, you're gonna fail, right? You're gonna run into contradictions. Well, three is not one and one is not three. There's, you believe in three gods. No, we don't, we believe in one God. And God tells us, he reveals himself to us, and it may not make sense, but that's because he's creator and we're creation. And we have to understand the creator in his self-disclosure of himself in his word. And so what else, contextually, maybe getting into the nearness of chapter 41? Who's Joseph? And that's not a knock on you. That's a great start. But we would take the whole lesson going through all of it. Actually, you're right. It's creation from the beginning to the birth of the nation. Yeah. And moving forward, God's plan of salvation from the beginning. Yeah, and that's a great segue because from the beginning of creation, we then get introduced to the beginning of man, the beginning of God's relationship with man, the beginning of the fall. And then we see the beginning of Abraham or Abram and God making promises to him, those promises passing to Isaac and then to Jacob. And then Jacob has sons. And now we're focused on one of his sons, Joseph. Why? Hey, he was the favorite. Brothers didn't like that, right? And so they sold him off to slavery and thwarted God's plans, right? Is that what we saw? No, they were playing right into God's plans. Now, somewhere along the line, we're not told when it was clear to Joseph, I kind of tend to think that he trusted the Lord every step of the way, but we learn later when he's talking to his brothers, what you intended for evil, God meant for good. And so this is kind of the theme or the undertone of this entire narrative that I want you to keep in mind so as to not get lost in the details of the drama, right? That's one of the risks you run with historical narrative, is the drama is so enticing or thick and interesting, intriguing, that sometimes, not that that's not important, but we can lose the message that is being conveyed. And we've talked about, and Dan kind of helped make this clear, that dream motif, right? We've highlighted that Moses intentionally includes themes or motifs or foreshadowing in the book of Genesis that will have present significance, but definitely later significance. And one of those is dreams. And we've seen thus far, God speaks to man directly, but he also speaks through dreams. In fact, that's how Joseph kind of ended up here, right? In a roundabout way. But now, and this isn't the first time, God also speaks to rulers, to Gentiles, people outside of the covenant. God speaks to them. And so we want to pay attention to those things. Yeah. Did the Lord ever speak to Joseph at any time? I don't remember. Well, I think that... Yeah. He must have known he was selected by the Lord to do certain things. And I think the dream made that clear. But we're not told of a direct conversation between God and Joseph. It could have happened, but if it did, it wasn't fit for Scripture apparently. It seems that later on, he told his brothers what you did for evil, God made for good. So I just wondered if he had some kind of connection that knew that he was elected. It's a good question. I would tend to say that I don't think God came down and explained everything. But that's fascinating, right? Because that means the conclusions Joseph was coming to was based on the information that he did have, the promises of God that he did have. And so he came to certain conclusions based on what God has revealed. And I think that could be an example to us as we seek to do the same with God's Word. I think so. Yeah, I mean, with the proclaiming of the dream to his family, I think that would qualify him. You know, it's interesting. That is where this started back with Abraham, because he was told that his sons, his family, they would go down to Egypt, and they were told they would be there, that they would become a great nation there. Yes. And so when you see all of this, I think that's something that Joseph may be aware of. Everything's oral tradition back in his home. But they're going to be made aware. So he seems to be the only one that got it. But he understands that this is what's going to occur at some point in the future. And that's something we were told from the past. Absolutely, and that's the actually the conclusion of today's lesson, so you stole my thunder but We will come back to that thought because I think that is absolutely what's happening You know what we could talk about what level of understanding Joseph had now Dan mentioned oral tradition they didn't have scripture, but they had a History, right? How many of you come from a family that tells stories, family stories? Now, all of us can maybe think of our lifetime, oh, I remember being a child and we would go down to this place or that place and it was a great time. But how many of you have grandparents that they remember their childhood? Well, now you're getting way back in history, right? Well, what if those grandfathers lived to be 500? A lot of history, right? And so that's what happened, especially when you didn't have TV or media or those sort of things, families would talk. Imagine that. And they would talk and they would tell stories. And I think especially when those stories had the creator speaking to you, it's worth sharing, right? And so that oral tradition was passed down. And that's why Moses, you know, Moses didn't live through these things, right? How did he know? Did he just make it up? A great novelist wrote a good series, you know, fiction. No, he had access to all of these things. And he was also under the process of inspiration of the Holy Spirit and wrote these things down. Well, Abraham. Rare though, friend of God. And so looking at section number 1, 1 through 8, we see Pharaoh's dream. And in verse 1, we see that a dream comes to Pharaoh. Then it came to pass, at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he stood by the river." Now just pausing for a moment, where's Joseph during these two years? Jail. Now, yeah, he's in a better position, right? God has favored him and blessed him, and he's ahead of the jail, but he's still in jail, right? He can't come and go as he pleases. And so he's been in jail this whole time. Now, how many of us have been in that similar situation in our life, waiting on the Lord to do something, and the waiting is longer than we'd like it to be? We're praying, praying even specifically, we're praying even trusting God, imagine that, but nothing's happening. Well, the Old Testament is filled with scripture, and we looked at some of these on Wednesday night, of waiting on the Lord. trusting in Him. We looked at one of my favorite passages, Lamentations, chapter 3, is a beautiful, beautiful picture in the midst of perhaps one of the darkest books of Scripture. And one of the sentiments that Jeremiah, the writer of Lamentations, communicates is that he will wait on the Lord, the God of his salvation. Now the context is he just saw Jerusalem destroyed. Now we're going through the book of Matthew and a lot of the conversation is on the kingdom. Can you have the kingdom without Jerusalem? Without the temple? Without Israel or the Jews dwelling in the land? You can't, right? So he knew that it was a long ways off. Plus he also was the one who was given the prophecy for 70 years they would be out of the land. And yet what was his heart? I will wait on you. I will trust in you. I'll be patient. It's hard to be patient, right? And so we see that with Joseph, just trusting the Lord, trusting in God's plan, God's timing. We might struggle with one or both of those. We might be on board with God's plan, but not on board with his timing, or we might be on board with his timing and not on his plan, or we're not on board with his timing or his plan. but Joseph appears to be just trusting the Lord. Now we see verses two through four, we get into the dream and we actually see that there's two dreams that Pharaoh has. So verse two, suddenly there came up out of the river, seven cows, fine looking and fat, and they fed in the meadow. Then behold, seven other cows came up after them out of the river, ugly and gaunt. and stood by the other cows on the bank of the river. And the ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven fine-looking and fat cows. So Pharaoh awoke." Now, if you were having this dream, that might frighten you, right? Because first of all, do cows eat anything other than grass or hay or corn? No. So that would be disturbing to see a cow eating a cow, right? And so he wakes up, as one would, And then we see in verses five through seven, the second dream is described. He slept and dreamed a second time, and suddenly seven heads of grain came up on one stock, plump and good. Then behold, seven thin heads, blighted by the east wind, sprang up after them. And the seven thin heads devoured the seven plump and full heads. So Pharaoh awoke, and indeed it was a dream. Now I wanna pause here. Many of us have read this, right? We know kind of the essential revelation that's being communicated. But if you didn't know that, as hard as it might be, try to scratch that from your brain. Would you have any idea what this is intending to communicate to you? None, right? You might try to see the significance. Okay, well, seven is apparently significant, right? There's seven cows. Two sets of seven. Two sets of seven of the grain. So seven is important. But within that, there's a whole lot of uncertainty and unknown, right? You might see the nature of it, the tone of the dream as a warning, right? Okay, those ugly gaunt cows ate the healthy ones, the thin blighted grain devoured the others. So, okay, maybe it's a warning, but what do I do? What did I do? And what must I do going forward? So this is where Pharaoh was at, and we see his response to the dreams in verse eight. Now 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 its wise men. And Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them for Pharaoh. And then, so this section comes to a close. So Pharaoh's response is troubled and he tries to understand or discern the meaning. What did I just see? And we also have to understand in the ancient world, God, the creator, was not the only one communicating with man, right? Fallen angels communicated with fallen man. That's why later in scripture, God says, don't seek out mediums, spiritists, soothsayers, sorcerers. In fact, when the Mosaic law is given, they're not permitted to live, right? And so it's a serious thing, but we see Pharaoh would have understood, okay, something greater than me is trying to tell me something. And I have no idea what that is. And quite frankly, I'm terrified because this apparently is something significant. So he tries to find an interpreter. He does the same thing Nebuchadnezzar would later do in history by getting all the wise guys that he could to try to interpret this dream. And none of them are able to. Yeah? Then we see Nebuchadnezzar, we see Jerusalem Pharaoh and everything, specifically because it relates to God's people and it's given specifically for the purpose of bringing Joseph up into this position. Because we see Cyrus, and he doesn't appear to have an interpreter, it's a dream, hey, rebuild the temple. But again, it's all directly related to And it's, like I said, I know it's speculative. Yeah, it is speculative. We don't know. Could God talk to anyone He wants to? Absolutely. Now, I am inclined, based on the testimony of Scripture, that God appears to only speak to Gentiles when it's significant to His program as it relates to Israel, as it so happens. But, of course, could He go and talk to some king You know, at this point, there were probably tribes in the Americas, and he says, hey, there's gonna be a famine, I wanna spare you guys. Sure, but we don't know, right? So to the question, I can't answer it, but I would say it leads to a good conversation on why does God communicate? He doesn't communicate just because he's bored, he's feeling lonely, he wants to talk to someone. It's to explain something about his program. And that's, to Dan's point earlier, the point of, I think, the point of this narrative. Why is God speaking to Pharaoh? Why did he speak to Abimelech when Abram was there? Because Abram's significant, and he doesn't want this king, this Gentile king, to become cross with Abram and face God's wrath, because God has bound himself to Abram. And so we're seeing this. Now, at this point, it's somewhat preliminary. I know we're kind of jumping around because we know the story and how things end up. But we want to do our part in how would the original audience understand this? How would Pharaoh deal with this information? How would Joseph and those sort of things? Now some summary application, God is seeking to reveal something to Pharaoh, that's clear. Pharaoh has two dreams, one dealing with livestock and the other vegetation. So looking at interpreting the dream, humanly speaking, we could maybe deduce that, right? Okay, maybe there's something to do with livestock and agriculture or vegetation. That much is clear. Seven is a significant number. Maybe even say 14 is a significant number. And so, you know, but that's it, right? You're limited. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Or maybe even in their thinking, maybe, okay, those are, economical. So maybe it's the economy. Maybe it's a warning that, you know, like those stock market guys like to do and issuing these warner warnings. And if you buy their stock, you know, you're gonna survive this collapse. Yeah, Jonathan, go about your question. You know, if we had sensed there was something very special about this dream, these two dreams, what might we have made of it? I think what's fascinating is The element that Joseph brings in that I would not have gotten at all is the element of hope. In other words, it's a scary dream. And his spirit was troubled, as we read. And I wouldn't have taken anything positive from it. It sounds bad, whatever it is. And yet, as you know, what Joseph brings in is a solution that brings hope. Well, and that's an excellent observation because that really is kind of the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, right? Joseph has that context of who God is. He knows that even though it might run against our personal agenda, whatever it is, because who God is, is good. It's going to be good. Whereas, you know, Pharaoh probably thinks of the gods in a very capricious way. that, okay, this is maybe a warning and who knows, this may be the end of all, right? And so to your point, I think that brings up kind of that conversation of maybe even some application on how we can minister to people by our knowledge of who God is, that contextualizes what God has revealed to us through his word. Yeah, I guess I was speaking to just of his planning for this. Because of that, it says that though it was throughout all the lands, in Egypt there was grain. Yeah, and we're going to get to the point, and Dan kind of alluded to it, we're going to see that the apparent focus is not the focus. This dream sequence with Pharaoh is not the focus of this narrative. It's the revelation that God is giving to Pharaoh that is, but even Pharaoh is not the necessarily intended audience. I think Israel is the focus, right? How do we get Israel and company to Egypt? That's what God is doing. And we'll get to that maybe next time. Maybe today, who knows? It's interesting that the very last pause, but there was no one who could interpret it. There was no answer. And then there was Weissman, and his assistants, and so on. They were unable to work. Which is interesting, because you get guys or gals of that line of work, they're going to come up with something, right? No one's just going to say, sorry, can't help you. Yeah. And I think they knew that, OK, whatever this is is significant. And if I offer my interpretation and it's wrong, that's not going to end well. So maybe that's why they keep silent. Or perhaps God intervened and stopped the mouths of these wise men and weren't confusing Pharaoh with all sorts of interpretation. So then the next section, verses 9 through 13, the butler's remembrance. So now recall the sub narrative with the chief butler and the chief baker and the candlestick maker. And they all end up in prison. They meet Joseph. They have dreams. Joseph interprets their dreams. their dreams come to pass exactly as Joseph said, right? So think about the setting. Pharaoh just had a dream. Now the most important man in the nation, perhaps in the world at this time, apart from Abraham, but Gentile speaking, most important man has a dream and it's a parent warning and none of the wise men are able to interpret. So just imagine the type of panic going on around Egypt as to, well, what in the world is this going to be? What is happening? So everyone's thinking, well, golly, what could this mean? What could this possibly mean? Who could possibly interpret this? And the chief butler's racking his brain. And then he finally remembers, oh, well, I had a dream I didn't know. And there was this Hebrew. And so we pick up with verse nine with this remembrance. Then the chief butler spoke to Pharaoh saying, I remember my faults this day. Duh. When Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, both me and the chief baker, we each had a dream in one night. He and I, each of us 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. And we told him and 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." So that's that section. We basically get the retelling of the events. Any comments or questions? It's pretty straightforward as far as what's happening. So 14 through 24, we get Joseph is summoned. So now Joseph enters the picture and verse 14, Joseph summoned and made presentable. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon and he shaved and changed his clothing and came to Pharaoh. Now verse 15, we see Pharaoh's estimation of Joseph based on what The butler said, and Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had a dream and there is no one who can interpret it, but I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream to interpret it. So his estimation, he has high hopes that, okay, based on what I'm hearing, you're the guy, you're the, the savior of Egypt. You're the man for the job. You're the king of dreams, right? Now, if Joseph was what his brothers thought he was, that would be a exciting thing, right? Oh, powerful emperor, ruler of the land is seeing potential in me. Now's a great time for me to kind of be a little bit full of myself, right? But what does Joseph say? Verse 16, Joseph's correction of interpreting dreams. So Joseph answered Pharaoh saying, it is not in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. So similar to Daniel, right? And so he recognizes he has no ability except what God has given him. And he says, God will make this known. Verses 17 through 24, Pharaoh recounts his dream to Joseph. So now we're getting a little bit of commentary from Pharaoh, right? These weren't in the description of the dream, but in Pharaoh's retelling. So we're seeing that filter and we're getting some description that kind of tells us a little bit at least of what Pharaoh was working with and what his level of understanding was. Verse 20, the gaunt and ugly cows ate up the first seven, the fat cows. When they had eaten them up, no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were just as ugly at the beginning. So I awoke. So there's an added detail, right? We don't get that in the description, but apparently they ate and remained the same. Interesting. 22, also I saw in my dream, and suddenly seven heads came up on one stock, full and good. Then behold, seven heads withered thin and blighted by the east wind, sprang up after them. And the thin heads devoured the seven good heads. So I told this to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me. So now we come to the last section, verses 25 through 36, where Joseph gives the interpretation. Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. Now is this special skill that Joseph has or is God giving him the interpretation? I think it's God giving him the interpretation. So the fact that Joseph says that these two are one is God's revelation to Joseph and that it is what God is about to do is clearly God's revelation to Joseph of what he's about to do. So then we come to 26 where we see the duration of what God is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years and the seven good heads are seven years. The dreams are one. So we get that repeated. phrase of the dreams are one morning. Excuse me. Sorry. Uh, verse 27, we get a breakdown of the 14 years and we see in the seven thin and ugly cows, which came up after them are seven years in the 70 empty heads blighted by the East wind are seven years of famine. So we're seeing that, okay, there's seven good years, seven bad years. There's a breakdown of 14 years whole, seven good, seven bad. Now we come to verse 28. Joseph summarizes the dream's origin and function. This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. So again, he, Repeats that this dream originates with God and the function of the dream is for God to tell Pharaoh what he is about to do now 29 through 32 Joseph summarizes the dreams interpretation and 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." Now that's something to work with, right? Pharaoh, king of the land, now has information that can cause him to act or respond in a way that can benefit. Although that doesn't seem to be clear yet to Pharaoh, so Joseph emphasizes this. in verse 32, and the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now we get Joseph's explanation, 33 through 36, his suggested response to the dream. He says, now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this and let him appoint officers over the 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, and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And then lastly, verse 36, then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine. So God gave a revelation to Pharaoh to spare the nation from seven years famine, right? If you're gonna have seven years of famine, but you have seven years of plenty, you can take what you need to survive, but also store and reserve what's needed for the seven years of famine. So God prepares Pharaoh for that. But some questions. Summary application. First of all, we see dreams are a form of special revelation. God communicates to Pharaoh through a dream. God revealed the next 14 years to Pharaoh. Why would God do that? Why does God reveal the next 14 years to Pharaoh? Don't famines come and go? It was going to be a war. God built an area within the Middle East since Egypt was more or less the center of everything, that informed him, because he had all the, well, he had the Nile River right there. Sure. Yeah, and that's a fair interpretation, right? Significant, large empire, they would be the one to give that information. It seems to me that given the context of Moses' writing in regards to Israel going into the land and everything surrounding that, that God is, well, I mean, part of this is showing us that God is, they're seeing His continued care for, you know, His people before they even are people. He's preparing a way, and I don't know if it's too much to say that he is saving an entire nation as preparation and plan for where his people Israel are going to be and where they will ultimately end up. And that leads to kind of my conclusion that the apparent focus of this narrative is not the focus of this narrative. Yes, it seems to be God revealing something to Pharaoh, but I think is because of Israel. And so the last question, why is God going to inflict famine on Jacob and company without telling them? So if he's doing this to save Israel and his family, why not go tell Jacob? Joseph had the authority to do what he was supposed to do. And Pharaoh, clearly, it's a time of history, too, when you look at history. We're the Romans. whether Greeks, whether Persians, they're not. They haven't been. So Egypt, world history-wise, if you go back, is pretty dominant outside. Who knows what's going on in the Far East. But he needed to tell, he needed to tell Pharaoh, he needed to tell the one that had the authority so that we could do all this, so they could put Joseph under control. Jacob and his sons, they knew he was Yeah, and I think that's fair But I also think that well if God just revealed this to Jacob couldn't they have done the same thing and their families preserved So they they reserve during the seven years and then the seven years of him, but that doesn't happen, right? What happens and now I'm getting ahead of the narrative, right? but Jacob comes down to Egypt. Why? Because the famine was so bad in the land. Why weren't they prepared? He didn't know. Why didn't he know? God wanted him out of the land. Why? We'll close with this. Go to Genesis 15. Then I'll go ahead while we're turning to Genesis 15. for the mercy of God. Yeah, absolutely. For revealing this message to what would be one of the greatest, if not the greatest power in the surrounding area, best equipped to store the food, put everything together, so that that's what we see later in the following document. Everyone is coming to Egypt to receive the food and to benefit from that and probably preserve a lot of life. Again, it's another example that I've tried to emphasize in Genesis of grace always. Every situation that there is judgment in Scripture, grace precedes it. God is a God of grace. He is a God that deals with sin, but He's a God of grace. And so similar to how God rescued them, God is going to come and destroy the earth. But what has He done prior to that? He sent His Son to pay for our sins. And anyone who simply believes in Him has everlasting life. And so grace always precedes judgment. And again, that's why Moses speaks in these themes and motifs and foreshadowing so that the Israelites later would understand God is a God of grace, but He also is a God that deals with sin. And it preps them ultimately for the cross. Now, Genesis 15, real quick. is when the covenant is officially cut with Abraham. So the promise is ratified here and starting in verse 13, then he said to Abram, no, certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them. And they will afflict them 400 years and also the nation whom they serve. I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation, they shall return here for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaimites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. So in other words, God gave Abram prophecy that they would go to Egypt and he was going to deal with those dwelling in the land. So it's kind of a, okay, step out, step aside while I deal with this, and then you will reenter. And then that brings us up to the conquest, right? With Joshua. So again, we're seeing God move his program along He is in control of everything. And as far as application, what greater comfort is there when everything seems to be going astray or falling apart? God is in control. He's never lost control. And one day he will have absolute control when his son sits on the throne from Jerusalem on this earth, and we will be with him.