Genesis 40: You Should Have Kept Your Mouth Shut

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It's his word that transforms. You will find more and see more than I can ever articulate. Welcome to chapter by chapter and today's chapter is Genesis 40. You should have kept your mouth shut. Joseph had a temporary lapse into unbelief. Joseph is imprisoned serving time for a crime of rape that he did not commit. While there the cupbeer and the baker for Pharaoh are put in the same jail. It says in Genesis 40 verses 3 through 5 so he put them in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard in the jail. The same place where Joseph was imprisoned. The captain of the bodyguard put Joseph in charge of them and he took care of them. And they were in confinement for some time. Then the cupbeer and the baker for the king of Egypt who were confined in jail both had a dream the same night each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation. Joseph is going to use his gift of interpreting dreams to minister to two prisoners and it's pretty powerful. But then something happens. Joseph realizes that these two men have access to the king. Joseph then crosses a line in his interpretation. Notice it when he changes from interpretation to a personal request in verses 12 through 15. Then Joseph said to him, "This is the interpretation of it. The three branches are three days. Within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore to you your office and you will be put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbeer. Only keep me in mind when it goes well with you. And please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. For I was in fact kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews and even here I have done nothing that they should have put me into dungeon. Joseph told his story of being kidnapped and then falsely accused of a crime. Joseph says, "Keep me in mind. When you're a dream that I interpreted comes true, keep me in mind. He's wanting the cupbeer to deliver him from his prison affliction. He had a temporary lapse into unbelief. Joseph forgot that God is with him, God sees him and God is super intending this whole process. I see this as the only blotch in Joseph's career, but this is true of a lot of us. We have all said things in tough times when it is best to have kept our mouths shut. Here's what was hard about reading Joseph's ask. He asks the cupbeer to do for him what God was already doing for him. To understand it, let's bring together three chapters of Genesis. Let's connect Genesis 39, 40, and 41. It says in Genesis 39, 21, but the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him a favor in the sight of the chief jailer. Skip over to Genesis 40, verse 14. When Joseph says, "Keep me in mind when it goes well with you and please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Farrah and get me out of this house." God extended kindness to Joseph and then Joseph says, "Do me a kindness?" You know what the result of this ask was? That's Genesis 41, 1. Now it happened at the end of two full years. Joseph asked the cupbeer for something that God was already giving to him and it gave Joseph two more full years. That's what it says in 41, 1. Two full years. It's interesting that the word full has embedded into its meaning the word battle and eternity. Seems like two odd words when in actuality they probably make sense to convict Joseph. The battle seems like an eternity because I opened up my mouth. Be careful of asking people to do what only God can do for you. Joseph saw his predicament as mistreatment instead of God's treatment and preparation. For those that are in Christ and called according to his purposes, there is nothing that happens to them that cannot be used by God. We trans-mute every situation. A.W. Tozer speaks about this transmutation. He says the word means to change something into something else. One of the glories of Christianity is that faith in Jesus can transmute lower values into higher values. For example, earthly possessions can be transmuted into heavenly treasure. It goes like this. A hundred-dollar bill can be given to missions and transmuted into feeding children or printing Bibles in a nation's language. Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is touched with immortality. Trans-mute means to change something into greater value. Joseph was transmuting in this journey until he had this lapse. He was trying to control the time of transmutation if I could say it that way. It's a challenge to all of us. Don't try to get out of your trial before God's timing. David even picks up on the Joseph story in Psalm 105. He uses a phrase when he retells it that gives sense to Genesis 40 and Joseph's out of character experience. David says this in Psalm 105 verse 17. He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters. He himself was laid in irons until the time that his word came to pass. The word of the Lord tested him. The king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples, and sent him free. He made him lord of his house and ruler over all of his possessions. And then to imprison his princes at will that he might teach his elders wisdom. There was no college degree for world leadership 101. So God knew that being rejected, being lied about, being forgotten would be a classroom that would transmute. It would prepare him for the position that he was later to obtain. God also knew that Joseph needed to graduate that classroom according to God's time. Verse 19 is what is very powerful. It's this phrase that is over time limit of prison, not Joseph becoming friends with a friend of the king. It says until the time his word came to pass. There was a clock, a time that God was watching over. The Psalmist says that Joseph had a word over his life, a word that was waiting to come to pass. The word came by way of a dream years earlier. There was a world leader in the making that was going to take a lot of work. I think God was working out unforgiveness towards his brothers and Potiphar's wife. It was God working out of him revenge. Prison was a university of leadership. I wish he would have kept his mouth shut. I think he would have graduated sooner. After reading this conversation in prison, I realized the warning of not turning people into cup bears. We will use nicer words like I'm networking with an actuality. We were asking for an extension of kindness. You know so and so, so would you introduce me. You know Pharaoh mentioned my name. We want certain people like this cup bearer to open up doors for us. Joseph did not know about Solomon's advice in Proverbs 1860. Listen to it. A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before great men. His God-given gift will get him one day before Pharaoh, but he was looking for a person to do it. If you have a gift, God will open up the doors. If the doors have an open, God still has you in class. Thank you for joining chapter by chapter. Every chapter from the greatest book, the Bible, the Word of God. We'll see you tomorrow.