Joseph No.6 Awaiting God's Timing

The two men are still in prison, the baker and the cupbearer, but not for very much longer. But Joseph remains there and is to be forgotten. Now let's read this account in Genesis chapter 40, reading from verse 20.

Genesis 40 and verse 20. Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials.

He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation. The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph.

He forgot him. Now when the two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream. He was standing by the Nile, and when out of the river came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds.

After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the river bank. The cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.

He fell asleep again and had a second dream. Seven ears of corn, healthy and good, were growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other ears of corn sprouted, thin and scorched by the east wind.

The thin ears of corn swallowed up the seven healthy, full ears. Then Pharaoh woke up. It had been a dream.

In the morning, his mind was troubled, so he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him. Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, Today I am reminded of my shortcomings.

Pharaoh was once angry with his servants, and he imprisoned me and the chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard. Each of us had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own. Now a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard.

We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them for us, giving each man the interpretation of his dream. And things turned out exactly as he had interpreted them to us. I was restored to my position, and the other man was hanged.

So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon. And when he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before Pharaoh. Until my soul, the door is open, They shall live, the crops of green will fade.

Until I walk in ev'ry green grain, Peace till my soul, my day has begun. My hope, my hope, will set not in shame. My spirit shall be brightened, Peace till my soul, the praise and thanks to God.

His voice to prove peace till my soul, The hour is hastening on. We shall live, for ever peace of mind, And drink and give from the sun. Peace till my soul, may change and give to us, For faith and blessing we shall meet at last.

Please be seated. I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at Genesis chapter 40. And if you can cope with two passages at once, if you keep your hand on Genesis 40, will you turn over to the New Testament, and through to the epistle of Peter, the fifth chapter, and the sixth and seventh verses.

1 Peter chapter 5, verses 6 and 7. Very precious verses of Scripture. So much so that if you've got the NIV version, I'd like you to read these two verses through with me. And we'll do it twice.

Alright? Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Now again, slower and thoughtfully.

Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Now if you'll go back to Genesis 40, it'd be more comfortable to have your Bible remaining open there.

I want to speak to you about awaiting God's timing. We have, let me explain for our visitors, though you may have grasped this if you had a quick look at our news sheet, been looking through the life of Joseph for some weeks at the tab, not just in terms of a historical excursion into ancient history, though that in itself would be beneficial, but we want to learn from the past. The one thing about God's word which is really remarkable, perhaps above all other, is its contemporaneous note.

I mean by that that what it said yesterday, yesteryear, it still says today. And you can learn a great deal about your life now and how to react from the study of God's word written yesterday. There is a sense in which it's always up to date.

That's why, as I've quoted before, when the epistle to the Hebrews backtracks in reference to the Old Testament, it invariably says, the Holy Spirit says, not said. Present tense, the Holy Spirit keeps on saying. Generally speaking, God is always generally speaking.

How does he speak? He speaks through his word. And that's why we'll make our way here at the tab through passages of scripture, books of scripture, week by week because we want to know what God is saying to us today. And my main theme this morning is awaiting God's timing.

Awaiting God's timing. There is something that God wants from you. Are you listening? Something God wants from you more than anything else.

And it is this. Your total allegiance and confidence in him. Your total allegiance to and confidence in him.

And there's something that God wants to tell you. You can totally trust him. He wants your allegiance, your confidence in him.

And he says this, having placed it there, I'll never dishonor the trust. You can have absolute confidence in me, having committed your life to me completely. Now, it's one thing, of course, for me to preach that.

It's another thing to work it through. It's one thing for us to turn to a choice psalm, like the 37th psalm, and hear these words read, Commit your way to the Lord, verse 5, trust in him and he will do this. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

One thing to read that, another thing to believe it. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. You see, we're dealing with a man in prison, a young man by the name of Joseph.

And he's there not because he did anything wrong. It was a trumped-up, fabricated charge. But it landed him in a dungeon, and it was hard for him.

He was a lad of the open fields, a lad of the distant places. Take a man who by nature is a shepherd, and incarcerate him in a cell, not just for weeks, but for years, and you can understand his predicament. Add to that the fact that he shouldn't have been there, and you double the challenge of his faith in believing in God, believing this particular scripture.

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. I have problems with God, do you? One of my problems, which I have often confessed from the pulpit of the tabernacle, is the slowness of God. He doesn't work in the way that I want him to work, and he doesn't use the alacrity, that means the speed, with which I want him to respond.

Do you have that sort of difficulty? So did Joseph. He was there in this prison, as I say, for some years, and he was in great difficulty. You see, later on you will find in the Psalms that actually make reference to Joseph.

You find something of his predicament in the 105th Psalm, where there is a reference to the experience that this young man had to go through. Perhaps you'd like to turn to it. Psalm 105, verse 16.

Let me fill in the context. God has reminded Israel that he sent as their savior centuries ago a young man who was, verse 17 of Psalm 105, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles.

His neck was put in irons. Till what he foretold came to pass. Till the word of the Lord proved him true.

F.B. Meyer says that that last statement will carry the translation until the word of the Lord cleared him. He's on a charge of adultery. He's in this jail with no legal reason to be there because Potiphar's wife had brought the whole thing together from her own vivid imagination.

You remember. And Joseph does not have the right, nor do you and I have the right, to plead our own cause. Ultimately, it's the word of God which clears us.

Jesus never defended himself, did he? And as I mentioned on a couple of occasions previously in these studies, when he came back from the dead, mark the fact, he manifested himself to his believers, not to his opponents. The life of our Lord Jesus, his testimony, is cleared, is vindicated. By the word of God.

By the action of God. But sometimes it's not easy to wait for God's timing to clear you. This was Joseph's problem.

This is what I'm suggesting. God is dealing with Joseph as a special case because he has a remarkable ministry for Joseph to perform. Maybe God's got something remarkable for you to do also.

And to shape you up to being able to do this, he has to handle your circumstances in a way that are puzzling. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed, watch his methods, watch his ways. How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects.

How he hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands. While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands, how he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes. How he uses whom he chooses and with every power fuses him, by every act induces him to try his splendor out.

God knows what he's about. I have problems in finding imperfection in the life of Joseph, but imperfections are there. And one clear example, I think, of imperfection in the life of this remarkable man is possibly the way in which he asked the butler, you remember one of his two companions in prison towards the latter time of him being in jail, when he asks one of his companions, the butler, who's going to be returned to the service of Pharaoh, when that occurs, remember me, verse 15 of the previous chapter, chapter 40, for I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.

Verse 23, the chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him. Joseph has the problem of spending two further years in jail when he had put his trust, his confidence, in the butler to use the influence that he had with Pharaoh to spring the innocent Hebrew from the dungeon.

Now, maybe in that sense, Joseph got it wrong. The word of the Lord would clear him. The purposes of God would defend him.

When our Lord Jesus was on trial, though they reviled against him, he didn't revile back. He waited for the judgment of God to pass sentence over those who brought him to the cross, and he himself allowed the course of events to be his defense and his ultimate justification. Sometimes God will ask you to accept the circumstances as they are without tinkering around in order to manipulate things so that the lines fall out in pleasanter places.

Are you a sort of amateur car mechanic? Show me an engine and put me towards it, and it's an accident asking to happen. I'm hopeless in that area. Tinkering around is not my gift, or at least when I do, it never has the effects that I expected.

There's once when I tried to put a reversing light on a car that I had in London, and I put the down switch on. The reversing light came on, but so did every other light in the jolly car. That's my problem.

Tinkering around. Leave it to the people who know what they're about. God knows what he's about in Joseph's life, in Joseph Jesus' life, in your life.

But it's not always so easy, is it, to wait with a meekness and with a confidence that Jesus showed to his father, but this is one of the things that I'm asking you to examine in your own life today because God wants from you, I repeat, your total allegiance and confidence in him, and he guarantees you this, that he can be absolutely trusted. Put not your trust in princes. That's an Old Testament proverb that really was applied in the days of the Hebrews to indicate that the best of men were men at best and they could let them down, and here is Joseph, and he's discovering this painfully for himself.

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him. It's terrible that verb forgot, isn't it, when applied to you.

Maybe somebody who you treated very royally, and you hope that one day if there was a possibility of them repaying you in the same fashion as you dealt out towards them in kindness, they'd do it, but they forgot you. Maybe alongside one of your school chums you worked and you watched him develop and he became prosperous and influential, and when he climbed the ladder of success, he didn't want any more to do with you. He forgot the quarry from which he'd been hewn, and so you feel somewhat distressed and sorrowful.

Here is the chief cupbearer. He's released from prison. Now Joseph is a human being like you and me, the same blood run through his veins has run through yours, the same emotions, the same temptations.

The weeks go by. He doesn't hear from the cupbearer. Maybe, well, perhaps he's got so much to do he's been reinstituted in this noble office of testing the wine of the king and looking after various bits and pieces in the domestic affairs of Pharaoh.

Maybe when a couple of months have gone, then he'll come to me, then he'll have interceded for me. But the weeks lengthen into months and the months to a year and the year to two years. Joseph must have come to a realisation because he's an intelligent lad that the man had forgotten him, that he hadn't done what he said he would do when Joseph had rightly interpreted his dream and prophesied his repatriation in the service of Pharaoh.

You see, God is pulling the carpet from under the feet of Joseph because he's trusting the butler. God doesn't want Joseph to trust the butler. And he doesn't want for your salvation you to trust anyone else including your nearest and dearest.

He asks for your total allegiance. Sometimes I think, now hear me correctly or else you'll misunderstand me. We put too much premium on our friendships.

Thank God for friendships. But your wife could never get you into heaven and you could never get her. Your closest friend cannot be spiritual on your behalf.

God does not work by proxy. He deals with you in a one-to-one situation as our American friends would say eyeball to eyeball. God is concerned for your allegiance not just your wife's allegiance.

Be your closest friend's allegiance. And sometimes he'll take our friends from us and those things that we count dear so that ultimately we're left God and ourselves on our own a one-to-one, he not walks with God and he was not for God took him that sort of relationship. Oh my friend, if this was the last address I ever preached in this place I'd want to underline that point.

You and God together, walking self-sufficient in your spiritual relationship with him. Joseph trusts the butler but the butler is not to be trusted. My mother and father might forget me says the psalmist and the Hebrew might forget Jerusalem be he displaced miles away from that holy city but one thing remains true let it be written in large letters upon the sky for every Jew to read God will not forget Israel.

God will not forget his own. He never forgets though the butler forgets and your friends will forget. So here is Joseph stripped of his hope at a human level and yet perhaps amassing in his mind again is the stories he's often heard from Jacob of the great God of Abraham and the promises of Abraham and Joseph who is a man of faith if nothing else recalls also the dreams that he had that one day he would exercise a sphere of influence those dreams were right because they came from the Lord and God somehow would have to spring him from this jail without the help of anyone else and as a result the honor and the glory would be God's.

Do you know why you can't work for your salvation? Because if you could work for it by knocking on doors and inviting people into some religious assembly then ultimately the credit would one day belong to you and to God but you're saved by faith alone God gets the glory for our salvation. So you have to humble yourself as Joseph humbled himself in the sight of God in what was possibly a stinking jail with the hope that, listen here's the punchline from the New Testament in due time God will exalt him the problem with us is that the due time is not near enough on occasions it's distanced from us by a year or maybe a decade and we're waiting for that due time and ultimately perhaps on occasions our faith gets so small that we start to tinker around to bring about what is yet for the future into the present make a mess as a result Joseph has to wait Dreams are funny things, aren't they? Do you have a dream? Now I used to have a dream that was now if Freud is right I'd really like someone to get from Freud what the meaning of this dream is because when I was a kid I used to dream about every two months now this is going to really amuse some of you turning up in the school assembly Fursill Junior School, Pittsmore, Sheffield in my pyjamas I know it sounds crazy but I can remember that dream time and time again there we were singing our hymns and I look down and I was in my pyjamas quite extraordinary dreams, aren't they? generally speaking dreams seem to me to have little relationship to reality not always there are special occasions and none more so than in the Old Testament before the Holy Scriptures were given in a complete fashion when God used dreams in a most remarkable fashion to convey to men what his purposes were for the future now Pharaoh is having dreams quite an interesting evening he's on BBC One and he flicks over to ITV and he gets a rerun of the same dream as far as the principle is concerned but it's annoying these seven fat cows these seven thin cows these seven fat ears of corn these seven thin ears of corn what does it all mean? so he wakes up and he brings the magicians the astrologers all the privy counsellors all the cabinet the distilled wisdom of the cabinet all together can you imagine it today? as in Egypt and not one of these men who were paid to keep the king happy and to give intelligent insights into the affairs of state not one of them could interpret the dream remember I said some while ago in enjoying speaking to you from the study of Joseph how you can determine that God works at both ends of a situation now Joseph is in jail and he's been forgotten and Pharaoh has a dream and by implication in the 41st chapter and around the 15th verse you will gather that the dream comes from God in other words it's God who sets in course a series of events that brings Joseph out of jail Pharaoh has this incredible dream and as one quarter after another goes into Pharaoh's presence and can't help him so ultimately the rumour spreads throughout the whole of the court that the king is troubled and no one can come to his aid and at that point the chief cup bearer remembers Joseph verse 9 the chief cup bearer said to Pharaoh today I am reminded of my shortcomings yes he was he was reminded but who activated the memory none other but God who sent the dream it wasn't Pharaoh's credit that ultimately Joseph shall come out of prison it certainly wasn't part of his, he had nothing to do with it apart from getting him in prison in the first instance and it certainly wasn't the butler what stimulated the process for the springing of the escaping of the release of Joseph from the dungeon was God himself in due time the right moment had arrived the credit would be God's wouldn't it it wouldn't be the butler's all the glory belongs to the Lord now as it was for Joseph so it is for you and for me God doesn't forget us whatever our circumstances might be don't try and tinker with events today so that your future might become a little bit more acceptable let me illustrate what I mean, maybe because we have a lot of visitors and we're always glad to have you here in the tab during ostensibly the summer weeks maybe there's some preacher here some pastor and you know every time you read through an evangelical magazine it sort of fills you with a sense of envy you read of the conferences the conventions and you see the speakers the stars and you're not among them though you believe that God has gifted you your gift is not used not nationally and there is if you're a human being and you will be honest in accepting this there is the tendency to want to tinker with things to manipulate events to acquire for yourselves the invitation that's always eluded I put it in that illustration so that others of you can make out your own application of the point but God says no humble yourself and in due time He'll exalt you now men have manipulated things and seem to be exalted as a result of their own intervention but when God wants to do something special with a man with a woman He says hold it hold it my son, hold it my daughter allow me in my time at my speed to bring about circumstances so that the special thing I have for you to do you'll be fully equipped and fully competent and when you ride the wave of success you'll keep your poise and your balance as you'll recall that the result of your achievement is my power and sovereignty working on your behalf you can tell that the time has come for something in the life of Joseph special to happen because every other attendant human factor that might have been of help to him has been taken out of the way and God alone in all His wonder and in all His love starts a trigger of events that brings Joseph into the orbit of friendship with the most influential man in the whole of Egypt now hear me concentrate, thank God for the way you folks listen, I really appreciate preaching at Worthing Tabernacle more than any other place, that's why it stays a lot because you really do listen and it helps but think this one through, if Joseph had been allowed to tinker with the butler, you know and spring his exit from jail at that point what might he have done? Well he indicated by implication to the butler what he had in mind he wanted to go back to his dad he wanted to go back to Jacob he wanted to go back to his shame-faced brothers his home was in Palestine the land of promise but Joseph, it's not for you to return to Palestine if you return to Palestine, the promises of God to Abraham can never come about because a disaster is going to hit Egypt and affect the whole world the stock market will resound to a financial earthquake seven years of good crops, seven years of famine and unless there is a man of cutability to take over the reins of state and government at that point Abraham's offspring are finished you see what I mean? do I make myself clear? when we start to tinker around with the future and manipulate things according to the way that we want the problem is that we become opposed to the purposes of God so God in his sovereignty takes the butler out of the way allows amnesia to fall and men who sometimes don't keep promises find that even their lamentable forgetfulness is not outside the sovereignty of God you see when Joseph is brought out of jail he doesn't come out as a pauper, does he? I mean by that, he doesn't come out as a smelly prisoner left to roam around grub out an existence in Alexandria somewhere when the butler tells Pharaoh about Joseph Pharaoh is so excited he sends quickly did you read that passage carefully? he sends quickly for Joseph, he wants this man released with all speed and there's only one thing that becomes a sort of parenthesis before Joseph actually appears before Potiphar and that is for Joseph to clean himself up, to have a bath and to put on new clothing and within a matter of hours of being in the presence of Pharaoh, Joseph who has had his ornamental multicolored robe ripped from him and blooded by his brothers as they dipped it in the blood of an animal, he will be adorned in one of the best clothes that has ever been manufactured in Egypt he who has known criticism by his father shall know congratulations by the greatest man in the whole of the world at that time. How quickly is the transformation of Joseph, why? Because the time has come, humble yourself and in due time I will exalt you and there's hardly anything in history that compares with the change about in circumstances as with those of Joseph who moves from being a man in servitude and slavery a prisoner with absolutely no freedom and becomes the second most important person in the Egyptian empire having entry into the priesthood of Egypt as a Jew being able to testify to the greatness and grandeur and the unity that there is in the God of Abraham and Jacob remarkable and the wisdom of Joseph is this that by assent ultimately to the purposes of God he awaited God's due time you remember the point that I made right at the beginning what does God want from you more than anything else your total allegiance and confidence in Him and what does He want to show you more than anything else He can be fully trusted my friend even in the area of salvation your personal salvation the principle remains true in due time God's spoken to your heart didn't He with me it's so much wrapped in the early years of my life I can hardly unearth it Sunday school teacher, maybe my mom or dad told me about Jesus with you perhaps you casually turned into the tab or maybe it was some friend maybe some literature that you'd got from CPO or Challenge or one of the other literature organizations you read about the freedoms that there are in Christ you were sprung from your jail you put away your old clothing, you became washed in the blood of the Lamb and God fits you to stand in front of if the opportunity was there the Prime Minister of England the Queen of England the great of the land, the lowly of the land and declare the unsearchable riches of Christ He places upon you the robe of the righteousness of Jesus Christ all these things He has done for you at a spiritual level He has lifted you, He has liberated you if He has been great for you in the larger things of your spiritual life, will He not also be faithful in those smaller areas where He wants you to trust Him in terms of the outworking of His purposes for your future sometimes you have to wait, God's timing for a year or two years or a decade but His purposes are worth waiting for commit your future to Him don't tinker around and remember this when you've humbled yourself in due time God will exalt you and the word of the Lord will clear you and nothing else so that to God shall be ever, always the glory God bless you Father, it's going to be easier for some of us to sing this hymn than to live it out but it's a good hymn we want to sing it as a prayer of response to what has been shared from Your Word Lord, we've got people here at 70 and for them it's not easy to trust You for everything we've got some kids here at 17 and some of lesser years than that it's not easy for us Lord, because we're impatient help us to do that, however to curb our impatience and to make our response to Your Word in this lovely old hymn help us to sing it intelligently and work it through in our lives through the gift of Your Spirit upon us Amen 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440 440