(Genesis) Genesis 40:1-8

Now, with all of that in mind, it's very important now to look at the wording of this chapter here, which seems, again, as if it's not advancing the action here at all. And it came to pass after these things that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord, the king of Egypt, and Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers against the chief of the butlers and against the chief of the bakers, and he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard under the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And, friends, that wasn't any accident, you see.

But what does this reveal? Well, it reveals, first of all, the arbitrary and dictatorial position and policy that Pharaoh of Egypt had. I do not know what the baker did. Maybe burnt the biscuits for breakfast.

I don't know. But for some little whim on the part of Pharaoh, he puts him in prison. Now what did the butler do? Well, it may be that he was bringing up a glass of wine to hand to Pharaoh, and he stumped his toe and spilled it on the Persian rug that was there.

I don't know, but he did something, and it must have been rather minor, and because of that, why here these two, the butler and the baker, are in prison, and they are put right in there where Joseph is. Now, Joseph occupies a good position there in the prison even. Everywhere the man went, his ability certainly was recognized.

And the Scripture says a man's gift makes room for him, and certainly that was true for Joseph, though he was a slave and now a prisoner. Poor fellow, you say. Well, God's moving in his life with a definite purpose.

Now we find that though he's put next to these men, they're put there for three days. Actually, that's very temporary. Any other person that had gone through what Joseph has gone through and had been put in that prison, they'd give up.

But he didn't give up, friends. That's not the way that he did things, and we're going to see that now in just a few moments. Now, will you notice, and the captain of the guard, I'm reading verse 4, chapter 40 of Genesis, and the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them, and they continued a season in the war.

Now Joseph got acquainted with them, you see, because he had charge of them, and it was his business to take care of them while they were in prison. Now verse 5, and they dreamed a dream, both of them, each man his dream, and one night each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, looked upon them, and behold, they were sad.

Joseph came in. He was an optimistic type individual himself, always very bright and sharp, and he goes in and these two fellows who occupy a position with Pharaoh, sitting there very doleful with a very dark look upon their faces and a dark brown taste in their mouths, and so they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly today? And they said unto him, We've dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.

And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God. Tell me them, I pray you. Now Joseph gives God all the glory in all of this, and later on we'll find another young Hebrew in a foreign court who will do the same thing, give God the glory.

And I wish today that I could get over to Christians the thought that anything that you do for the Lord, make sure that God gets the glory for it. One of the reasons that many of us are not blessed as much as the Lord would like to bless us is because when we do receive some wonderful thing, we take it for granted and we do not give God the glory for it. And we ought to do that.

We need to give God the glory. And so here why he should give God the glory, and he does. Do not interpretations belong to God.

Tell me them, I pray you.