Please turn to Genesis 37. Genesis 37.
We begin with Genesis 37:2. Again, it is Genesis 37:2.
These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren;
and he was a lad with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives:
and Joseph brought the evil report of them unto their father.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age:
and he made him a coat of many colors.
And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren;
and they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Genesis 39. Genesis 39:1.
And Joseph was brought down to Egypt;
and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, that had brought him down thither.
And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.
And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.
And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he ministered unto him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.
And it came to pass from the time that he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had, in the house and in the field.
And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not aught that was with him, save the bread which he did eat.
And Joseph was comely, and well-favored.
Genesis 39:19.
And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled.
And Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison.
But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed kindness unto him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it.
The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand, because the Lord was with him; and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.
Genesis 41. Genesis 41:37.
And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants.
And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all of this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art:
thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou.
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.
And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;
and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he set him over all the land of Egypt.
Psalm 105. Psalm 105:17-22.
He sent a man before them;
Joseph was sold for a servant:
His feet they hurt with fetters:
He was laid in chains of iron,
Until the time that His word came to pass,
The word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him;
Even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
And ruler of all his substance;
To bind his princes at his pleasure,
And teach his elders wisdom.
Our Father, how we praise and thank You for giving us Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank and praise Him that He indeed is our Prince, and He is our truth. He is our life. He is our everything.
So we praise and thank You that You give us such mercy and grace to know Him; and to know Him is eternal life. Our Father, we ask that You will continue to be with us and give Your word to us. Anoint our ears, that we may hear what You have to say to each one of us, in the name of our Lord.
We have been considering together, these days, the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. At the very outset, we mentioned that this first book of the Bible is a book of biography. Why is it so? It is because our God is interested in the man that He wants.
It is not just anything. It must be a man after His own heart. In this book of Genesis, we find eight persons whose lives are presented to us. In these eight persons, God did some work, and out of the working of God we find a man after God’s own heart.
As God works in each of their lives, something begins to be manifested in and through them. We can see certain signs, as trademarks, upon each one of them. When you gather all these together, you find a man who satisfies God.
Now, we cannot go back and cover the whole field, but I think I need to remind you of what we have covered.
The first man, Adam: we find Adam’s tree, the tree of life. There you find the man who was created in God’s image and put before the tree of life. God’s intention was that the man He made would receive His own life and thus be united with Him. This is God’s original purpose.
It is only in this union that man finds his fulfillment and satisfaction, and God also is satisfied. But unfortunately, instead of eating of the tree of life, man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, man wanted to declare independence from God. Man wanted to make himself God, and the result was that he was driven out of the garden of God.
But God did not give up His purpose; He continued to work. Therefore, we find the second man, Abel. Abel’s sacrifice: he offered a lamb, and by the shedding of the blood his sin was remitted. He was accepted by God.
The only way to return to God, as man has sinned, is through the blood of our Lord Jesus. He shed His blood for the remission of our sins, and in Him we are accepted.
Then the third person is Enoch. We find that Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and God took him because he pleased God. People may believe in the Lord Jesus and accept Him as the sacrifice and as the Savior, but that is not the end; that is just the beginning. It behooves us to walk with God. If we walk with God, He will take us. We will be raptured, and we will be with Him forever.
The fourth person is Noah. There it speaks of abiding: how, while we are still on this earth, we need to abide in Christ. If we abide in Him, He abides in us, and we bear fruit.
Then, after all, we have Abraham. In Abraham, we find the sign of the altar. He built altar after altar. An altar, according to the New Testament, is the cross. In other words, we need to know the cross. As we know the cross, our life will grow and we will enter into worship.
After Abraham, we find Isaac. In Isaac’s life there are many wells, and wells speak of the Spirit of life. If we accept the working of the cross in our lives, the Spirit of God will fill us, just as water fills the wells. But the thing is, we have to be emptied. On our part, we have to empty ourselves for Him to fill us.
After Isaac, we find Jacob. Jacob’s sign is the pillar, and the pillar in Scripture stands for testimony. God transformed that life from Jacob to Israel, from a supplanter to a prince with God. Out of the working of God, a testimony was erected.
So, brothers and sisters, we find that in all these people God works and works and works. Today we come to the last one, the eighth one: Joseph.
As a matter of fact, Joseph is the consummation. He sums up all that God has done in the men before him. So we find in Joseph his symbol: the throne—Joseph’s throne.
You know, brothers and sisters, in the very beginning, this is God’s purpose. When God created man, He created man in His image. After he was created, God said to man, “You shall have dominion.”
Image refers to life. Dominion refers to the manifestation, the working, and the function of life. But unfortunately, man lost the image, and therefore he lost his dominion. Yet here you find how God worked in these men until finally He had Joseph.
In the life of Joseph, we find a life of the throne: dominion, power, authority, rule. Because the image of God—the image of His Son—has been restored.
In 1 Peter 2:9, we are told that we who believe in the Lord Jesus are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that we may declare the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
In Revelation 5, we also find that we are redeemed unto God by the blood, out of every nation, every tongue, every people, and every tribe. He has made us kings and priests unto God.
So, we who believe in the Lord Jesus are not only redeemed by His precious blood and have our sins forgiven, but we have been made kings and priests. In other words, we all have royal blood.
We are born again to be kings unto God—not kings in the sense of this world, but kings before God. We are destined to rule.
But, you know, in order to rule, there is the need of strict training. No one can sit on the throne, even if he is born of the royal family, if he is not strictly trained.
It is true: when one is born into the royal family and is a successor to the throne, he is destined to rule. But he cannot rule if he himself has never been disciplined, if he himself has never been trained.
As a matter of fact, the training of a king is stricter, more severe, and more disciplined than the training for any other profession. Sometimes, when we were in college, we thought it was very hard. But think of the training of a king or a queen—what he or she must go through in order to be prepared to sit on the throne.
The same thing is true spiritually. We are born into the King’s royal family. We are all successors to the throne. We have the blue blood within us. But, oh, brothers and sisters, because of this, God has to train us very severely. Otherwise, we are not fit to rule.
This is what we want to see in the life of Joseph. Because Joseph was destined to rule, God put him through the crucible—the crucible of suffering—in order that he might be fit to sit on the throne.
In Genesis 30, you find Joseph was not born naturally. His mother, Rachel, was barren. The other sons of Jacob were born naturally, but Joseph was born supernaturally.
Why? Because the Bible says God remembered Rachel. God answered her prayer. God opened her womb. So Joseph was born as a result of the mercy of God and the prayer of his mother.
Because he was born of the beloved wife, and because he was born in Jacob’s old age, of course Jacob loved Joseph more than all the other sons. But this was only the natural reason. Over and above this natural reason, there must be something else.
Joseph had such a character, an honorable character, that made his father love him more than his brothers. He was born of the favored wife of Jacob, he was born in Jacob’s old age, and he was born supernaturally. Yet there was developed in this boy a noble character that would appeal to any father.
Because of this, Jacob made him a coat of many colors. Now, a coat of many colors is also a coat with sleeves. It is a sign of honor, and we are told that it is also a sign of the birthright—the birthright of the firstborn.
In the old days, it was not necessary that the firstborn receive the birthright of the firstborn. The father could decide which among his sons should have the birthright. The birthright was not only a double portion of the inheritance; he would continue his father as priest of the family. He would succeed in the covenant that God had made with Abraham and with Jacob.
So here you find Jacob, Israel, made a coat of many colors and put it on Joseph. In other words, Jacob chose Joseph to be the firstborn. Because of this, his brothers hated him. They would not speak anything good to him because he was favored by his father.
Now, how good was Joseph? When he was seventeen years old, he tended sheep with his brethren. His brothers were very evil, and he reported the evil deeds of his brethren to his father.
You may say, “Well, he gossiped.” No. He was himself upright. Even though he was the favorite son of his father, he was not spoiled. Even though he was a teenager and was with that company, he would not compromise.
As a teenager, you like to belong. Probably it is a natural tendency to try to belong to a gang or to a group, to identify yourself with your companions; and in order to do that, you compromise. That would be the natural thing to do.
But here you find this young man, seventeen years old. He worked with his brothers, who were older than he, and they were evil. Yet this young boy would not compromise. Instead, he was so concerned for the well-being of his brothers that he reported them to his father—not as a sign of gossiping, but hoping that they might be corrected.
He was very innocent. God gave him dreams. He was not a dreamer in the natural sense, but God gave him dreams. God showed him his destiny, and he was so innocent that he told his brothers about it.
His brothers hated him even before he dreamed. Then he dreamed that his sheaf stood upright, and the other eleven sheaves surrounded it and bowed down to it. When his brothers heard it, they hated him even more. “Are we going to bow down to you?”
He dreamed again, and he told the dream to his father and his brothers. He saw the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowing down to him. Even his father said, “Do not say that.” But his father kept the saying.
He was so pure. Even though his brethren hated him and would not speak peaceably to him, yet when his father said, “Joseph, go and see whether your brethren are well,” Joseph went.
Joseph could very well have said, “Father, I cannot go. I am busy.” No, he was obedient to his father. Knowing that his brethren hated him, yet he went.
He could not find them, and surely that was an opportunity to come back and say, “I could not find them.” But he persisted until he found them. In other words, he was faithful. His brothers hated him, yet he loved them.
That is noble character. Even in his father’s house, Joseph, spiritually speaking, was set apart. He walked above the hatred of his brothers. He was above even the favor of his father, because he was not spoiled. He loved his brothers, honored his father, and respected his father. He was noble.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, are we born supernaturally, or are we just born naturally? If a person is born once, he will die twice. If a person is born twice, he will never die.
If you are only born naturally, you are born into this world. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Why? Because the Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death comes judgment. What is the result of judgment? The second death.
But if you are born twice—not only born of your parents, but born supernaturally by the Spirit of God—then you will never die. Even when this body dies, Scripture says it is asleep.
What makes death so terrible is sin. But thank God, we are born again. We have no fear of death. Why? Because sin is gone. Death is just asleep, and we will wake up and we will be like Him. Oh, glorious!
Are we not supernaturally born? Surely we are. It is the mercy of God that we are born again, not because we are better than anybody else. Very possibly, you are saved and born again because someone has been praying.
It is the travail of someone, and it is because God remembered. Therefore, you are born again. Now, as Joseph was, you are destined to rule. You have the royal blood in you. You are to rule and reign with Christ.
But you have to be trained. There must be developed in you a character suitable to sit on the throne, a character that makes you fit to rule. If you have a wrong character on the throne, woe to the nation.
So God must not only put in you a kingly life, but that kingly life has to be developed. God has given you Christ’s life, but the Christ life has to be developed until you are like Christ.
That which characterizes Christ must characterize you. Only then are you fit to sit on the throne and reign with Christ for Him.
Unfortunately, many, even though they have the kingly life in them, allow that life to remain undeveloped. On the contrary, they still walk according to their flesh. They imitate the behavior of worldly people. They want to belong. They compromise. If that is the case, they will lose their reign.
So Joseph, established on a throne in his father’s house, seemed to fall down. When his brothers saw him coming, they said, “Now the dreamer cometh. Let us see whether his dreams will come true. Let us kill him.”
They seized him. The first thing they did was strip off his coat of many colors, because that was the thing they really hated.
Reuben said, “Let us not kill him. Put him in the pit.” Reuben was thinking that afterward he could save him. So they put Joseph in the pit, and while Joseph was in the pit, his brothers sat down to eat.
When their young brother was in the pit, agonizing, weeping, and crying out, these brethren had the heart to sit down and eat. How could you swallow?
While they were eating, a company of merchants passed by. They were Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt. Then Judah suggested, “What is the good of killing our brother? Why not sell him to these men? Then we may get some money out of it.”
So they sold their brother Joseph. Later on, they confessed that they saw the agony of their brother’s soul, but they hardened their hearts. They dipped the coat in blood and sent it to their father, saying, “See, this is the coat of your son.”
Joseph was sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. From the favored son in his father’s house, Joseph became a slave in Potiphar’s house.
Now, if this thing should happen to you, what would you do? Probably we would murmur. We might say, “Where is God? It is no use to love God.” Probably we would blame the whole world. Probably we would refuse to work.
But not Joseph. He was sold to be a slave in a far country. He was only seventeen or eighteen years old. Yet here you find he was not murmuring. He was suffering, yes, but he did not become bitter. He worked faithfully.
God was with him, and he became prosperous. It is nice to notice that everything that passed through his hands prospered. Even though his master, Potiphar, did not know God, he saw in Joseph a man with the presence of God, a man in whose hand everything prospered.
Finally, Potiphar committed everything in the house to him. He cared for nothing except the bread that he ate. Everything came to Joseph. Joseph became the ruler of the house of Potiphar. Again, he was set on a throne.
Now, brothers and sisters, you know what environment is. All the time we blame our environment. We say environment makes a person what he is. But only a weak one is made by his environment. A strong person controls his environment, or makes use of it.
Joseph was taken out of an environment of love—at least his father’s love—and put into another environment that was so mean, so low: a slave in another house. You could not find a worse environment.
A weakling would be crushed by that environment. But here you find Joseph, instead of being crushed, rose above his environment and ruled over it.
It is not the outward environment. As a matter of fact, an adverse environment only brings out the strength within, to show whether there is inward strength or not. That is the reason why oftentimes God puts us in difficult environments.
Maybe you are blaming God and complaining to God: “God, how do You allow such an environment to surround me?” But this is God’s love. He puts you in such a difficult environment in order to bring out the life that He has planted in you.
Think of our Lord Jesus when He was on earth. What an environment He had. He was born in a manger. He fled for His life when He was a baby. He was raised in Nazareth, a hidden country place. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
He was trained to be a carpenter in a small city. Even though He went around doing good, He was opposed, threatened, and rejected.
But what did that environment do? He lived above it. He was a heavenly Man living on earth. Wherever He went, He brought His heavenly atmosphere with Him. Whatever He touched, He touched with a heavenly hand.
Even when they rejected Him, He worked among those cities. Yet He could turn Himself to heaven and say, “Father, I thank You.” He lived above. He ruled over His environment. He made the environment work for His good and for the Father’s glory.
He was a heavenly Man. Even this earth did not take away His heavenly character.
Remember what Paul says in Philippians 4: “I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want.”
Sometimes Paul was praised by people, but that did not spoil him. Many times he was misunderstood, persecuted, and rejected by people, but that did not bring him down. He lived above his environment. He ruled over his environment. His kingly life came out of his adversity.
God was with Joseph, and God made him prosperous—not in the sense of physical prosperity, but certainly in the sense of spiritual prosperity.
You may be put in an environment like Potiphar’s house. You may think you are almost like a bondservant, made to work. But do you not know that you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies?
In Ephesians 2, we are told of the riches of God’s mercy: that when we were dead in sins and trespasses, by grace He quickened us; by grace He raised us up together with Christ; and He seated us together with Christ in the heavenly places.
Do you not know that you are sitting in heaven? Even when you are in Potiphar’s house, you are seated in the heavenlies. You ought to carry your heavenly atmosphere into Potiphar’s house. You are to rule and reign even in Potiphar’s house as a slave.
You say, “How can a slave rule?” But here you find a slave who does rule. It is not a position; it is life.
Brothers and sisters, whatever your circumstances may be, do not murmur. If you can see this, if you can believe in God, and God is with you, you can prosper even in that service.
All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Joseph was prosperous in Potiphar’s house. He was made steward of the house. Yet the test came. Potiphar’s wife tempted him, but Joseph feared God. Because he feared God, he was falsely accused.
He was not given a chance even to explain. He could not defend himself because he was a slave. His master, in anger, put him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined.
So here you find Joseph, established on a throne in his father’s house, seemingly fell down—not because of his fault, but because of his brothers’ fault. Then he was in Potiphar’s house, again established on a throne, and again he was brought down—not because of anything in himself, but because of his faithfulness to God and to his master.
He was going down and down and down, into the dungeon. The Bible says, “His soul entered into iron.” Not only was he put in fetters, but his soul entered into iron.
Why did God allow this? Would you not have the feeling that God had forsaken you? Yet even though Joseph was thrown into a dungeon, very soon the keeper of the prison saw that everything he did prospered by God. So Joseph began to rule the prison.
The jailer put everything into his hand and let him rule everything. Very soon, Joseph was again on a throne in a dungeon.
You can sit on the throne. It is not necessary that a throne be in a palace. Think of Paul and Silas when they were thrown into prison in Philippi. Their feet were in iron fetters in the dungeon, and at midnight—when things could not be more severe—they were singing and praising God.
A throne in the dungeon—and all the doors were opened.
Why does God allow such suffering when you have come into the life of Jesus? Because God is training you. Hebrews tells us that the Father chastens His sons, not because He does not love them, but because He loves them, that they may become partakers of His holiness.
When a person is trained, he suffers. But through suffering, he is made a partaker of the divine nature.
Then you find Joseph ruling in the prison. One day Pharaoh had his birthday, and two officers displeased him. So he put these two men into the prison: one was the cupbearer, and the other was the chief baker.
Do not think that one was merely a baker and the other merely a cupbearer. In the old days, the chief baker and the cupbearer were very high officials in the government.
The cupbearer was the one who delivered the cup to the king. Usually, he would drink from it first before delivering it to the king, because the king was always afraid of being poisoned. So the cupbearer must be the king’s favorite, his companion, the king’s confidant.
But somehow they displeased the king. Probably there was a misunderstanding; perhaps there was a plot to poison the king. So they were put into prison. One night they dreamed dreams.
The next morning, when Joseph was serving them, they were very sad. He said, “Why are you so sad?” They said, “We dreamed, but we cannot know the interpretation.” Joseph said, “Tell it to me. Do not interpretations belong to God?”
You know, through suffering God gave him spiritual understanding. When Joseph was in his father’s house, he was just dreaming, but he could not interpret. Through all these sufferings, God developed in him spiritual discernment and spiritual understanding. He was in prison, but he knew the secret.
That is what suffering will do to us if the suffering comes from God.
Joseph told the cupbearer, “In three days you will be lifted out of prison and restored.” He told the baker, “In three days you will be taken out of prison and hanged.” And it happened.
Joseph told the cupbearer, “When you are restored, remember me, because I was here not through my own fault.” But unfortunately, after he was restored, the cupbearer forgot Joseph.
How difficult that must have been. Joseph was in prison, he began to rule, he could interpret dreams, and the dreams came true. Because of that success, he should have been released from prison and all his problems should have been gone. But the cupbearer forgot.
God allowed the cupbearer to forget Joseph. The last two years must have been the most difficult years. He had been going through the crucible of suffering for thirteen years. When he appeared before Pharaoh, he was thirty years old; he had been seventeen when it began.
Then, two years later, God gave Pharaoh dreams. Nobody could interpret them. Then the cupbearer remembered. He said, “There is a Hebrew man in the prison who interpreted my dream, and it came to pass.”
So Joseph came out of prison and stood before Pharaoh. Pharaoh told him the dream, and Joseph said, “It is not in me.” Here you find that he did not take any credit for himself. He gave all the glory to God.
Through all the suffering, you find Joseph was delivered more and more from himself. Sometimes suffering makes us more selfish. The more we suffer, the more we think about ourselves.
But if you suffer with wisdom, the more you suffer, the more you are delivered from yourself and the more you turn to God. Joseph said, “It is not in me. No, no, no. But God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”
So Joseph gave the interpretation, and he also gave counsel. Those sufferings had come with wisdom. You can get knowledge without suffering, but you cannot get wisdom without suffering.
Pharaoh said, “There is no man in my kingdom so discreet and wise as you are. You be the man to take care of the future.” So he set Joseph second in the kingdom.
Here you find Joseph again came to the throne. But it was not the throne of a house; it was the throne of a nation. God had been preparing him.
When he sat on the throne, what happened? Number one: he made provision for the future—not only for the nation, but for the whole world. Everybody came during the famine years.
They said, “Do not come to me; go to Joseph.” He was a bread giver. People from Canaan and from all around came to find food. Joseph provided food.
Number two: his brethren came from Canaan because there was famine. It is a most interesting story how Joseph dealt with them. Sometimes you think, “Why did you not tell them you were Joseph when they first came? They were suffering from all their troubles and agonies. Why did you treat them in such a way? Are you playing games with them, Joseph?”
But Joseph dealt with his brethren in the way that God dealt with them. It was not just a matter of giving some food to his brothers. It was a matter of restoring his brethren.
To restore his brethren, his brothers had to be brought to the place of repentance. Only when his brothers came to the place of repentance did Joseph reveal himself.
Not only that: before Joseph died, he gave hope. He said, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from hence.” Joseph was not in any way deceived by the favor and riches of Egypt. He looked on to the coming of God’s promise.
There is no doubt about Joseph: he was a king.
Brothers and sisters, God is preparing us. You may still be in your father’s house, or you may now be in Potiphar’s house, or you may be in the prison. But God is true.
It is not because you are in Potiphar’s house that God has forsaken you. Through water and through fire, in your affliction He is afflicted. He is with you. He is going through it with you.
In all of that, He may bring you to the place where you are trained, disciplined, educated, and well able to reign and rule.
Brothers and sisters, today is the day of our training. We shall enter into our rest. We shall be called there. But if that day should come and you are not prepared, you are not able to sit on the throne.
Even though today it seems to be controlled, think of the glorious future. In the very beginning, God desired that man should have dominion. If you have the kingdom of God in you, then you will be given authority to rule and reign.
Oh, our Father, we thank You that You have not only called us to these things, but You have caused us to become part of the kingdom.
We pray and thank You that our hope is in You. You are putting us through the little crucibles. Yes, they are severe, but You are true.
We praise and thank You that You have called us to rule and to reign for a thousand years. Oh, our heavenly Father, we acknowledge that we are not fit.
Even though we are called, even though we are chosen, even though we have the Son Himself, yet we are not fit. We are not mature. We do not know You as we ought.
Today, we can only commit ourselves to You. Do whatever is necessary to make us fit, that Your will may be done.