Alright, brethren, let's turn
to Genesis chapter 40. Genesis chapter 40. I'm going to attempt to preach from
the whole chapter, so we're going to have to sort of outline this
as we read it. But I think it's needful to read
it. First of all, we see sinners. Sinners. And we see an offense. The first thing we see is sinners
and their offense. Genesis 40 verse 1, and it came
to pass after these things, after Joseph was falsely accused, after
Joseph opened not his mouth, and after he was cast into prison.
It came to pass after these things that the butler, there's a sinner,
the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker, There's another
sinner. They had offended. There's the
sin. They 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 into the prison. the place where Joseph was bound. So there's the sin and the offense,
the sinners and their offense. Now here we see Joseph given
the charge over the prisoners, verse 4. And the captain of the
guard charged Joseph with them. He charged Joseph with them to
look over these prisoners. And Joseph served them. He served these prisoners. And
they continued a season in ward there with Joseph. And then Joseph,
we see here, is the only one who could interpret their dreams. They had dreams. Joseph was the
only one that could interpret the dreams. Verse 5, And they
dreamed a dream, both of them, each man his dream, in 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. Joseph came to them in the morning,
and he looked upon them. And behold, they were sad. And
Joseph asked Pharaoh's officers. He asked them. He draws out of
them this answer. And he asked them 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 have
dreamed a dream. And there is no interpreter of
it. They couldn't interpret the dream. And Joseph said unto them, Do
not interpretations belong to God? This wasn't just an ordinary
dream. This was a message from God.
And this was God alone who could give the interpretation. Joseph
is a prophet of God. So he's going to be given the
interpretation. He said, tell me, I pray you.
Tell me, I pray you. He's the only one that could
interpret this dream. And then Joseph declares good
news to one of these men. And he declares judgment to the
other. Good news to one, judgment to the other. Verse 9, And the
chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and he said to him, Now
this is the chief butler. In my dream, behold, a vine was
before me, and in the vine were three branches. And it was as
though it budded, it bare fruit. And her blossoms shot forth,
and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes. And Pharaoh's
cup, Pharaoh's cup, a cup that belonged to Pharaoh, was in my
hand. And I took the grapes and pressed
them into Pharaoh's cup. And I gave the cup into Pharaoh's
hand. And Joseph said unto him, this
is the interpretation of it. The three branches are three
days. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh
lift up thine head. Now that's a very important word
right there, very important phrase. In the margin it reads reckon. That word is impute, it's charge. In three days you shall be charged. You're going to be charged. You're
going to be reckoned with. And when this happens, you're
going to be restored. He's going to restore thee unto
thy place. And thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's
cup into his hand after the former manner when thou wast his butler. Now that was good news. Good
news. Now Joseph declares judgment.
Verse 16. And when the chief baker saw that
the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was
in my dream. And behold, I had three white
baskets on my head. These baskets were on his head.
This was on his shoulder, on his head. Now the word three
basket means a basket with holes. a basket with holes. And he said,
and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of baked meats
for Pharaoh. And that word baked meats, according
to Strong's dictionary, it means deeds, works, things done, labors. They were pastries that were
prepared by the baker for Pharaoh." Now watch this, "...and the birds
did eat them out of the basket upon my head." Pharaoh didn't
eat them, the birds ate them. "...And Joseph answered and said,
This is the interpretation thereof, the three baskets are three days.
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee."
He's going to charge you. He's going to impute to you and
lift your head off you and shall hang thee on a tree. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. What's this mean? He's going
to take off your head and hang you on a tree. This is the curse
of the law. This is the justice of God poured
out. That's what it represents. And
the bird shall eat thy flesh from off thee. Now here's the
last thing. We see the word of Joseph came
to pass exactly as Joseph said it would. Verse 20. And it came
to pass the third day. which was Pharaoh's birthday.
And he made a feast unto all his servants. And he lifted up
the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among
his servants. He reckoned, he charged them.
This was judgment day for these men. And he restored the chief
butler unto his butlership again. And the chief butler gave the
cup into Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged the chief baker
as Joseph had interpreted to them. Came to pass just like
Joseph said it would. Now, the first thing we see here
is an example of our offense. We see our sin, our rebellion
against God. Verse 1 says, Pharaoh's butler
and baker offended their lord, the king. Verse 2 says, and Pharaoh was
wroth. Verse 3 says, "...and he put
them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard into
the prison, the place where Joseph was bound." Now who does Pharaoh
picture here? Pharaoh here is a picture of
the Lord God. He's a picture of the God of
judgment. The God before whom we all must stand. And this butler
and this baker are examples of sinners. Examples of you and
me. Now, the butler and baker each
offended their lord, the king. It's not told what they did,
it doesn't get into particulars of what they did, because that's
not really important. You see, sin is offending the
Lord God. It doesn't matter what the detail
is that you did, that's really insignificant. But the matter
is, you've offended the Lord God. That's what sin is. When
James says... I mean, John says sin is transgression
against the law. Well, who is the law? God's the law. The law is not
some ten commandments written on stone. The law is God. And we've transgressed against
God. We offended the Lord, our God. The first thing that we see here
is sin. And you may think this when you hear me preach. You
think, boy, he always starts out with our sin. Well, salvation
begins with sin. You and I have got to first be
made to see our sin or we won't have a need of salvation. If we don't see our
need, we won't see how we need Christ. the salvation of sinners. We've got to be made to see our
need. Now every one of us has offended
the Lord our God. Do you see your need? Do you
see your sinner? You hear us talking about them
and they and those and all the... We're talking about you and we're
talking about me. We're the self-righteous Sinner. We're the depraved sinner. We're
the one who's offended God. All have come short of the glory
of God. There's none righteous. No, not
one. And we've got to be righteous
to enter God's presence or God won't receive us. We're not righteous. And as the result of their offense,
Pharaoh put them into bondage. But not just bondage. Notice
here he put them into double bondage. Watch. It says they
were in ward. That word means confinement.
Under guarded watch. And then it says they were in
prison. They were under guarded watch,
in confinement, in prison. That's a double bondage. A double
bondage. As the result of our sin, as
a result of my sin and your sin, God has put us in double bondage. Because we deserved it. We deserved
it. It's what we earned. How am I
in double bondage? Well, number one, I've transgressed
the law of God. I'm unrighteous. So before the
law of God, I'm under the curse. That's bondage. And number two,
I'm born of corrupt seed so that in my nature there's nothing
but sin. Unholiness. I'm unholy. That's
a double bondage. A double bondage. Being unholy
and unrighteous. And God put us there because
we deserved it. I was watching a documentary
last night, and I love it when you got your message prepared
and you see something that just goes right with it. And I was
watching a documentary on Allen Iverson. And I don't know, he
was the Philadelphia 76ers basketball player. Well, I never knew this,
but he got put in prison when he was a senior in high school. And almost didn't go to the pros. And it divided the town he lived
in between the blacks and the whites. It became a huge racial
issue. Tom Brokaw even went down and
interviewed him. And years later, he was being interviewed by a
man who was trying to bring up those tensions of white and black,
you know, and he was saying, you know, you didn't deserve
what you got, you know, and this and that. And Alan Iverson made
a statement that I thought was excellent. He said, it's not
a black thing, and it's not a white thing. I deserved to be where
I was. And the man said, you're telling
me that you deserve to be there? The white man put you there.
He said, no, God put me there. And God said, go through it.
And I thought, what an excellent statement. And we can blame our
sin on mama and daddy and our environment and this and that,
and I wouldn't be this way if it wasn't for so and so. Truth
is, God put you in this bondage because of your sin, because
you deserved it. You deserved it. Now, but bless
God, there's a double cure. Notice they were put, verse 3
says, in the place where Joseph was bound. Now, I was wavering
on whether or not to talk about this. Joseph, not this, this
is what I've got to talk about. Joseph is a picture of Christ
here. He's a picture of Christ. We saw how he was falsely accused,
we saw how he was opened out his mouth, and now he's in prison.
He's in war. Now this is what I didn't know
whether to speak about or not. And I'll just say it appears
to me. It appears to me in verse 1 that the offense was by a butler
and a baker. But then in verse 2, Pharoah
was wroth with two of his officers. In other words, Pharaoh didn't
go to the two men who had offended, he went to their superiors who
were over those men, who were the chief over those men. And
he dealt with those two, the chief of the butlers and the
chief of the baker. Now in that we see, I don't know
if that's so or not, maybe it was just the ones that did the
offense, I don't know. But here's the point I want to
make and what I see in that, We're standing under one of two
federal heads, Christ or Adam. Christ or Adam. And God's, he
dealt with Adam. And when he dealt with Adam,
he dealt with us. Yes, we're guilty. We've offended.
We've sinned. But when he dealt with Adam,
he dealt with all of us. He put Adam in bondage. And when
he did, he put us all in bondage. And Christ came to where we are
because He had become the chief for His people. He had become
the superior of His people, the head of His people by covenant
grace. So that when His people sinned
in Adam, it was His responsibility to go and be bound on the cross
in the bondage for His people to get us out of that bondage.
So that we wouldn't suffer it. He suffered it. That was what
he did. He bound himself wittingly in
the place where our bondage was. He was made of a woman, made
under the law, made a curse for us. He was numbered with the
transgressors. That's what we see here in Joseph.
He's numbered. Remember on the cross? There
was Christ and there was two male factors. Two thieves were
there. Two men that were guilty. The
difference between those men and Christ is Christ wasn't guilty. He wasn't guilty. Now here's
Joseph. He's there in this prison with two men who are guilty. But the difference between Joseph
and these two guilty men is Joseph wasn't guilty. Joseph did no
sin. And yet, He took the charge levied
against Him. It was imputed to Him, and He
did not open His mouth, and He was put into that bondage. Christ
Jesus, our Lord, came to where we are, and He did no sin, but
He made Himself to be exactly like His people under the law
of God, proved Himself to be totally without sin, that He
might stand before God and willingly be made sin. That God might literally
impute the sin of His people to Him and that Christ might
become the sin His people were, the guilt His people were, the
curse His people were, that God might be just to pour out wrath
upon Him and punish Him in the place of His people. That's what
Christ did. He was numbered with the transgressors
that we are because He willingly came into the place where we're
bound and was willingly numbered with the transgressors. Oh, what
a blessing. You know, when we see what our
Savior did for us, if you, as a believer, have an opportunity
in anything you're doing to take the lighter load or the heavier
load, and there's your brethren or there's somebody that doesn't
even know Christ, it doesn't matter. You've got the opportunity
to take the lighter load or the heavier load. Take the heavier
load. If something there has got to
be picked up, and one thing is really heavy and one thing is
not, pick up the heavier thing. Christ willingly took our load,
our heavy weight, the heaviest weight there was. He wouldn't
take a light weight. He took the heavy weight. Now
secondly, we're reminded why Christ did this, and it's because
of the everlasting covenant of redemption. Now verse 4. The
captain of the guard charged Joseph with them. And he served
them. And they continued a season in
war. Before the world was made, God charged all His people to
Christ. And Christ took the charge that
He would serve His people. In the fullness of time, He came
to where we are and He served His people. He said, I am among
you as He that serveth. And when Christ reveals the gospel
in our hearts, when He's called His child, we're still left in
this body of death, aren't we? We're still under ward, but we're
not in prison anymore. Well, they continue to season
in ward with Him. And we continue a season in this
body, but we're His. We're redeemed. We're brought
out. And that's what we see here. That tells us that he which has
begun a good working will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ.
He took the charge. He has the charge over us. He's
protecting us now in everything we do in this life as believers.
Now thirdly, we're reminded that Christ is the revealer of the
gospel. Are you with me? Christ is the revealer of the
gospel. He's the revealer of the gospel.
There was nobody here that could interpret these men's dreams
but Joseph. It's a picture of Christ who's
the only one who can reveal the gospel to us. Verse 5 said, The
butler and Becker each dreamed a dream in one night. Now, during
that time, God spoke through dreams. This was no accident
that they both had a dream the same night. God gave them this
vision in a dream the same night. The Scripture tells us God, who
at sundry times spoke in different manners. He spoke in different
manners through the prophets. Here he's speaking in a dream,
and who's going to interpret it? Joseph. He's the prophet. But in these last days, He's
spoken to us by Son. He doesn't speak in dreams now
because He speaks through His Son. His Son is the Prophet who
reveals the Gospel to us, and He speaks in the Gospel. In Hebrews
2 he said, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation
which at first began to be spoken by our Lord and then was confirmed
unto us by them that heard him. So he doesn't speak in dreams
now, he's speaking in this two-fold way. He's speaking through Christ
his Son, the prophet, the true prophet, the revealing prophet,
the effectual revealing prophet, and he's speaking through his
gospel. That's how we're going to hear a word from God. And
we're going to hear it in our heart. And then Christ comes
to His child with the gospel. You notice here, Joseph came
to them. He asked them. He drew out of
them this problem. We can't interpret our dreams. He came to them and drew this
out of them. The gospel has come to you that
are sitting here now. I wouldn't take that lightly.
There's a lot of people in this world that go through life and
never hear the gospel in truth. Christ has sent the gospel to
you. And when the gospel comes to a people, God sent it. God
sent it. God sent it. And He has to make
us hear it. He has to reveal it in our hearts. And He's the only one that can.
And when He does, what He's going to do is He's going to begin
by drawing you to Himself and drawing you to confess, I can't
understand this book. It's sealed to me, Lord. I can't
understand. I can't interpret what You're
saying. Because you see, the first thing that's going to happen
in this thing of our salvation, we've got to be made to see our
sin, and then we've got to be made teachable. You've got to
be made to sit at Christ's feet like a child and hear Christ
speak to you and teach you before you're going to learn anything.
As long as we think we know it all, and we're asking questions,
and we're running ahead of where God is in revealing the gospel
to us, and we're trying to find out things, and asking questions,
and throwing up smoke screens with questions of things that
are ridiculous, we haven't been made humble yet. When you're
broken, when the doctor comes in and says you've got cancer,
and I'm going to tell you what needs to be done, you're going
to shut up and listen. Because now you've got a need.
And when Christ tells you, you've got the cancer of sin, and makes
you to know it, and makes you to see you can't understand the
cure unless He reveals it, that's when you're going to hush and
listen. Alright, now, that's the next thing. Now, fourthly,
the good news that was revealed. The good news revealed, verse
9. And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph. This is
the chief butler. He tells his dream to Joseph
and said to him, in my dream, behold, a vine was before me. And in the vine were three branches. And it was as though it budded
and her blossoms shot forth. It flowered. And then the clusters
of those flowers brought forth ripe grapes. Now this butler
is a picture of a sinner saved by grace. This butler is a picture
of a sinner who God is going to save by His grace. Now, notice
there was a vine in his dream, there were branches in his dream,
and there was fruit brought forth in his dream. And notice here,
he didn't bring any of that forth. He had nothing to do with any
of that. You see, in the vine, in the branches, in the fruit,
there's life. He has life in his dream. There's
life in his dream. And it isn't by the work of his
hands. None of it is by the work of his hands. And then we see here there was
a cup which belonged to Pharaoh and was put in the butler's hand.
There's a cup and it belonged to Pharaoh and it's put in the
butler's hand. Verse 11, Pharaoh's cup was in
my hand and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's
cup. I pressed those grapes into Pharaoh's
cup. Squeezed the juice out of those
grapes into Pharaoh's cup. And then I gave the cup into
Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said, this is the
interpretation. The three branches are three
days. And within three days, Pharaoh
is going to lift up your head. He's going to charge you. He's
going to impute to you. And he's going to restore you
unto thy place. And thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's
cup into his hand. And after the former manner,
he's going to restore you after the former manner when thou was
his butler. Now the butler had a responsibility. The butler's
responsibility was to bring Pharoah his wine in his cup. It was Pharoah's cup. It was
Pharoah's wine. The butler was to bring Pharoah's
cup with Pharoah's wine in it to Pharoah. But before he brought
that wine to Pharoah, he was to taste that wine, drink that
wine, make that wine one with himself to see if that wine was
good. If it was poison, he'd die and
Pharaoh wouldn't. If it was good, it was acceptable
to Pharaoh. And he was to bring that cup
then, that vessel with that wine in it, and give it to Pharaoh. Pharaoh would take it out of
his hand. And he said here, when you do that, Pharaoh's going
to restore you. He's going to impute to you and
restore you to your place, to your former glory that you had
with him. And how did this come about?
Here's a picture of a believer, but first we have to look at
Christ. How does this come about for us? It's because this cup
which belonged to Pharaoh, this is a picture of a cup that belonged
to God. A cup that belonged to God. And
that cup which God took and put in the hand of Christ Jesus,
our mediator, our substitute, our head, the representative
of His people. And Christ came to declare God
just and the justifier of those that believe on Christ. And so
he took the cup that God gave him. It was a cup of works. It
was a cup of works that had to be performed for God to be just
and His people to be justified. And Christ took that cup and
He took His body, that fruit that God had made, that body
God had prepared just like those grapes were made. And He took
that body and He willingly gave Himself on the cross to be made
sin for His people and to be pressed like those grapes were
pressed. To be pressed under the wrath
of God. To be pressed to the blood of
Christ. came out of his body, the life
came out of him just like the juice came out of that grape.
And Christ took this cup full of the wrath that he drank of
God and then filled it with his blood and he gave the cup to
God. And God, having imputed to him
our sin, imputed to him righteousness, because he was holy. While he
sinned unto death, while he was faithful to God, he was loving
God and his neighbor, he was fulfilling the law of God for
his people positively while he negatively bore our sins. And
God says now, he's just. He's just. And God put him at
his right hand. He restored him to the former
glory that Christ had with him before the world was. Just like
he was going to restore that butler. He did it in three days. He arose from that grave. Now,
remember the butler pictures a believer. And the butler had
this responsibility. Now brethren, listen to me carefully.
Here's your responsibility. Here's my responsibility. God
gives you a cup. What's a cup? It's a vessel you
put something in. You know what we are? We're,
as believers, God has created a new man. He's given you a new
heart. A heart that He's given a heart
of faith. And that's the vessel. That's
the vessel. That's the cup. It's not a cup
of works. It's not a cup of anything for
you to do. The works have been finished
by Christ. It's a cup of faith. And He gives you Christ. And
He pours that blood into the vessel just like that juice of
that grape was poured into the cup. And it's through that vessel
that that blood is brought to the Father. Faith doesn't save
us. Faith's just the vessel like
the cup was. The cup was the vessel. Faith
doesn't save us. It's not that cup that Pharaoh's
wanting. It's not your faith that God's
wanting. What Pharaoh wanted was the juice in the cup. And
what God is satisfied with is the blood of Christ that He's
given to you through faith. And you come to God with the
blood of Christ only. and God imputes to you. He judges
you. He reckons you to be exactly
what Christ has made you. If you can come to God with nothing
but Christ, believe it on Him as all your hope, it's because
Christ has made you righteous by His works for you on the cross.
Christ has made you righteous and holy by his work in you making
a new creature there Christ in you I'm not talking about any
righteousness or holiness of you Christ in you and When he
got so when God imputes to you he purges your conscience he
in the core your conscience He charges you with being not guilty
the righteousness of God God's not pretending Imputation is
not God pretending something's there that don't exist. Imputation
is God reckoning to you, accounting to you, like an accountant counts
that there's a thousand dollars in the account because he sees
there there's a thousand dollars in the account. So he accounts
it. When he accounts to us that we're
righteous, it's not because of any righteousness in us, in our
flesh, or any holiness in our flesh, it's just sin. It's because
of Christ Jesus, who's righteous and holy, who's entered into
us and made us one with Him, so that whatever Christ is, that's
what we are. And when God says, you're righteous,
you're righteous. You go through Scriptures and
read it, He don't ever say, now treat yourself as if you're righteous. Treat your body of death as if
it's dead. No, He says, you reckon yourself
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. You reckon it
to be so that when Christ died, you really died. And when He
arose, you really arose. As in whatever degree Christ
was made sin, that's the degree we're made righteousness. That's my hope. That's my confidence. And God says it, it's so. When
God says it, that's how it is. I am complete in Him. As Christ
is, so are you in this world. He's righteous and holy and complete
at God's right hand. That's where I'm at. That's how
I am. God says it. So then we come then with that
cup. Come with that cup. Now what are we to do from that
day forward? What are we to do from that day forward? Look at
verse 14. Joseph just gave that butler one thing to do. Two things
to do. Look at this. He said, verse
14, but think on me when it shall be well with thee. Christ doesn't
call on us to do any works to be accepted of God. He doesn't
call on His child to do anything for righteousness or anything
after that. He gave us the Gospel to remember His broken body and
His shed blood continually. And He gave us an ordinance called
the Lord's Table. And He gives us the bread and
says, this is my body which is broken for you. And after the
same manner, He took what? The cup. And he said, this cup
filled with wine is a picture of my blood in the New Testament
where I've written this new covenant for you. And he says, this do
in remembrance of me. Just remember me. Remember me. And Joseph gave him one more
thing to do. He said, and show kindness I pray thee unto me
and make mention of me unto Pharaoh. and bring me out of this house,
for indeed I have done nothing that they should put me in the
dungeon." Christ gives us the charge to show kindness unto
Him. Well, how do I do that? By making
mention of Him. By making mention of Him. What
is it to bring Him out of this house? It is to exalt Him. Exalt
Him. He says, make mention of Me. Exalt Me. That's what faith does. That's what faith is kind. Do
you know what faith is kind? How so? Makes mention of Christ. Makes mention of Christ. To whom?
Well, first He said, do it to Pharaoh. We first make mention
of Christ to God. We don't come boasting of any
righteousness or any good works in us. We come to God saying,
remember Christ. He's my righteousness. We come
to Him, exalting Him. Have you ever prayed to God and
found yourself just bragging on your Redeemer to God? Just
bragging on Him to God. How thankful you are for what
He's done for you. That's what He said. Go to God and brag on
Me. And we make mention of Him to
other sinners. And we do the same thing. We
exalt Him and we brag on Him to other sinners. That's what
we're doing right now. That's what we do in this world.
Just remember Him and make mention of Him. That's all He said. Why? I remember the old, old story
and what it did for me. That's why I tell the old, old
stories to sinners. Because I know what it did for
me. Alright, now here's a warning. Here's a warning. Christ only declares wrath and
justice to the wheel worker. There's no good news to the wheel
worker, just wrath and justice. Now listen to this, everybody
here that has not cast your care on Christ and you still think
that you don't need Christ and you're self-righteous and self-holy
and all of that, in spite of all your sin, listen carefully
now. Verse 16, the chief baker, he
saw the interpretation was good and he began to tell his dream.
He said, I was in my dream and behold, I had three white baskets
on my head. Anything that you try to come
to God with that's of you is a basket full of holes. He's
not going to hold anything. That's what you are and I am
by nature, a basket full of holes. And he says, and in the uppermost
basket there was all manner of baked meats for Pharaoh. I had
all kinds of works in that basket. All kinds of the labors of my
hands were in that basket. And the birds ate them. Before
I could get to Pharaoh, the birds ate them. Joseph answered and
he said, this is the interpretation thereof. The three baskets are
three days, and within three days, Pharaoh is going to lift
up your head from off you. He is going to impute to you,
and he is going to hang you on a tree. You are going to come
under the curse of the judgment of Pharaoh, and when you do,
the birds are going to eat your flesh. You are going to be thrown
into judgment and cast into hell. That's the picture. That's the
picture. Now in the butler's dream, picture of a believer,
You had a vine, you had branches, you had fruit, none of which
the butler produced. A cup even that pictured faith
that the butler didn't produce. It all was Pharaoh's given to
the butler. But here, everything in this
baker's dream is the baker's product of his hand. These pastries
he's going to try to bring to Pharaoh and butter him up. Listen
to me carefully. No sinner will ever be accepted
of God by your works. No sinner. You will be under
the wrath and judgment of God and cast out forever for the
birds to eat you. If it's by grace, it's no more
of works. All right, lastly. Somebody might
scoff at my gospel. Somebody might scoff at it and
say, well, I don't believe that. Notice here, everything Joseph
said came to pass. Everything he said. Verse 20
says, it came to pass the third day, Pharaoh's birthday, that
he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the chief baker,
and restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and
gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. He gave the cup into Pharaoh's
hand, but he hanged the chief butler as Joseph had interpreted
to them. Christ said this, Heaven and
earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Whatever Christ says in this
book and in this gospel I'm preaching to you is so. And it's going to come to pass.
It's going to come to pass. Men will go and they'll pay all
kind of manner of money for a fortune teller to tell them something,
read a palm or read some cards and tell them something that
they have no idea of. It's just chance whether or not
it will ever come to pass. And here's God telling you something
that's certainly going to come to pass. You come to God in your
works, you're going to perish in hell under the wrath of God.
But the good news is, Christ's Word is sure for those that come
in Christ alone. Just as there'll be sure judgment
for the wheel worker, there'll be sure salvation for the man
who comes by faith. Christ said this, He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. And he that believeth not shall
be down. His Word shall come to pass.
I pray that you'll be one that in that day, that great birthday
of our God, when He births us in the full redemption before
His judgment seat, and He judges all His people to be perfectly
righteous, because that's exactly what Christ has made us. And He prepares a great feast
for us, and we've delivered that cup into His hand praising and
glorifying our Savior and feasting with Him at His table. I pray
you'll be in that number. I pray you won't be with the
bakers. Cast out with all the baked meats of your vein works
into outer darkness. I pray that won't be the case.
God make it so. Amen.