So let's pray and ask the Lord
to be with us. Our gracious Father, we pray that You would exalt
Yourself by holding up for us the Lord Jesus Christ and His
greatness and His glory and all that You've done in Him and how
You've saved us from our sins for His sake. Help us to trust
Him only and to rejoice in Him and to glory in Him. And we pray,
Lord, that we would be delivered from our sins for His sake. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Genesis chapter 40, verse
1. I have entitled this message,
Think on Me. 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,
he was angry, 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, that place where Joseph was bound. And the captain
of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them, and
they continued a season in ward. 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. So these
two men, who were the king's officers, were put in prison
by the king because they offended the king, the pharaoh. And he
was angry at them, and so he had them put in prison. And they
both dreamed a dream. One night, both of them dreamed
a dream. Each man his dream. Verse 6, And Joseph came in unto
them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, 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 to him, We have
dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph
said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me them,
I pray you. And the chief butler told his
dream to Joseph and said to him, In my dream, this is the butler's
dream, 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, and the clusters thereof brought forth
ripe grapes. And Pharaoh's cup 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 to him,
This is the interpretation of it. The three branches are three
days. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh
lift up thine head and restore thee unto thy place, and thou
shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand. after the former manner
when thou wast butler. But think on me, Joseph tells
the butler, think on me when it shall be well with thee, and
show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto
Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house." So Joseph asks the
butler, when he's restored to his place with Pharaoh as his
chief butler, to remember him and bring him out of the house,
this prison house. For indeed I was stolen away
out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing,
that they should put me into the dungeon. When the chief baker
saw that the interpretation was good, so the baker now is going
to tell Joseph his dream. He saw that the butler's dream
had a good interpretation and he's looking forward, no doubt,
with confident anticipation to a good interpretation of his
dream. So, when the chief butler saw that the interpretation was
good, he said to Joseph, I also was in my dream. And behold,
I had three white baskets on my head. And in the uppermost
basket there was of all manner of baked meats for Pharaoh, and
the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. 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. and shall hang thee on a tree,
and the bird shall eat thy flesh from off thee." A very bad end
for this man. And it came to pass the third
day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all
his servants, and he lifted up the head of the chief butler
and the chief baker, among his servants, and he restored the
chief butler to his butlership again, and he gave the cup into
Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged the chief baker,
as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not the chief butler
remember Joseph, but forgot him." All right. Are we okay? Okay. So let's look
at this together. First of all, I want you to see
at an overview level what God is teaching us from this scripture.
Joseph, there's really four characters here. Joseph, there's the butler,
which was a servant of Pharaoh, there's the baker, and there's
Pharaoh. Those are the four people in
this account. And Joseph is the interpreter
of the dreams. The butler and the baker each
had their own dream, which was God obviously giving them a message. But they couldn't understand
the message, and so they had to go to Joseph to have him explain
it. God only gave Joseph the understanding
of their dreams. And the dream of the butler was
a good one for him. He was restored. The dream of
the baker was bad. And in all this, Pharaoh isn't
ever heard. His voice isn't ever heard. It's
only Joseph telling what God's will is for the butler and the
baker and how Pharaoh would treat each of them. And so the first
part we see here, and actually as you look at this, remember
the Bible is meant to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ.
about his person and about his work. And here, Joseph represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see in Joseph the ability
to interpret dreams. He's the only one, in fact, who
could explain the meaning of God's message. He's the only
one who could reveal what was going to happen and what would
happen in each of these men's dreams. But God gave these men
this message. And you can imagine their frustration
because they couldn't understand the message. They had to depend
on Joseph entirely. Whatever Joseph said came to
pass. Whatever God determined, He made
it known to Joseph. And whatever Joseph explained,
that's what happened. And so we see Joseph is a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ in His person. He's good, he's faithful,
he's true. No matter what the interpretation
of the dream, he tells it faithfully. He tells God's message. And then
we have the king of Egypt. He's the one who has dominion
over the chief butler. And the chief baker, he's the
one who was offended by whatever they did. It doesn't say exactly
what they did, but he was offended by them. He's the one who was
angry against them, because they offended him. He's the one who
cast them into prison. And they were in the prison with
Joseph, where Joseph himself was bound. And so Pharaoh represents
the ultimate king, which is God the Father. And the butler, as
you can see in this account, he's restored to his butlership.
He's reconciled to the king. And he represents every believer.
The baker, on the other hand, is taken out of prison and there's
a reckoning made with him also. The king holds him to account.
And in his accounting, the baker is put to death. He's hung on
a tree. The curse. He receives the curse
from the king. And so the baker represents every
unbeliever. And so you can see how these
four characters in this account are going to teach us about the
Lord Jesus Christ primarily, about our salvation in Him, and
about every person in this world throughout time. How we're either
a butler restored and reconciled to God, or we're a baker who
received the just condemnation of our offense against God. So
if you understand that at the outset, it will help us to understand
the details. First of all, we see here in
verse 1, it came to pass that after these things that the butler
of the king of Egypt and his baker, the baker who was the
servant to the king, had offended their Lord, the King. Now, an
offense is sin. It says in Psalm 51 that David
said, My sin is against Thee and Thee only. This is an offense
against the king. In Romans chapter 5 it says that
we have, through the offense of one, many are dead. Adam sinned. That one sin of Adam was counted
by God, charged to us as our sin. And we also became sinners
in that sin. And his sin nature passed to
us. So that we're also corrupt in
our nature. So we were guilty and we were charged with his
offense and we also have committed many offenses. That's what these
men did. They offended the king of Egypt.
An offense is sin against God. And so sin calls forth God's
justice and God's justice calls for wrath. And so the king here
is said to be angry or wroth with his servants. And so he
delivered them into prison. And so, the next thing I want you to
see here is the severity of the punishment that sin brings. First of all, both of these men
were in prison. They were in prison because they
offended the king. And they were waiting for the
time when the king was going to reckon with them. He's going
to hold them to account. He's going to judge them. All
men have offended the king. All men are in God's prison and
waiting for the day of judgment. And he's going to reckon with
every one of us. It says in Romans chapter 14 and verse 12 that
we all must give an account of ourselves to God. And the first thing we think
of when we hear those words is, what am I going to say? How am
I going to give an account? And perhaps we even think about
how we might do that. And God helps us because He shows
us in Matthew 7 and verse 21 through 23 how some men gave
an account of themselves to God. They came and they said, Lord,
Lord. They spoke to Jesus and appealed to Him. They said, Think
about what we've done. We've cast out devils in your
name. We've done many wonderful works.
We've prophesied in your name. We've preached in your name.
We've done all that we did in your name. And Jesus said, depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. So they were
brought to an account and they gave an account of themselves,
but they were rejected and judged and received the just condemnation
of their offense. And this is exactly what's happening
here. There's an account that's required,
and every one of us must give an account for our offenses against
God. And we're kept in the prison
of our sin, in the prison of our unbelief, until God gives
us grace. I mean, until He holds us accountable,
until He gives us grace, as He does one of these men here. But
we wonder at the severity of God, don't we? We wonder at the
justice of God. Doesn't it seem severe of God
to judge men for sin so harshly? It seems harsh to us, doesn't
it? That God would require an eternity in hell for our sin. And when we think along those
lines, it reveals something about our view of God. We think God
is harsh, we think He's austere, that He requires more of us than
we deserve. What does that say about us?
What does it say about us if we think God is too strict or
too just? Well, it says we think we're
more fair than God. It says that we have a low opinion
of God and a high opinion of ourselves. It's this high opinion
of ourselves that brings God's opinion down in our minds. We have a low opinion of Him.
And so it shows us that we really are sinners. We reveal by our
thoughts about God's justice that we don't really deserve
to get what He thinks we deserve, that we are somehow better than
we truly are. God has declared to us what we
are. The heart of man, it says in
Jeremiah 17, 9, is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. That's our heart. That's our
nature. That's who we are. in the very core of our being.
And so God's justice seems strict to us, but it seems strict because
our sin has blinded our eyes, has blinded our understanding
to the true nature of God. God is holy. He never gives out
more punishment than the crime deserves. God is completely just
and right. And so if our sin deserves eternity
in hell, what does that say about God's holiness? And what does
it say about the evil of our sin? Look at what God required
to put away our sins. What was it that God's justice
required in order to make reconciliation for our sins? To make peace in
God towards us for our sins. What did it require? It required
the death of God's own Son. How strict is God's justice?
The answer is given in Romans 8.34. It is Christ that died.
And so, even though we may naturally think of God as being too strict
because of our own blindness, because of our sin and our unbelief,
we have a high opinion of ourselves, we have a low estimation of God,
and we judge ourselves and we consider ourselves to be okay
as certainly not deserving of that compensation that God is
going to give every man for his sin. But here's the gospel. The
gospel always comes to us in this context. Romans 118 says,
the wrath of God is revealed against all men because of their
ungodliness and their unrighteousness. That's where the gospel begins,
is with our sin. And God's wrath is just wrath
against us. So the fact that God reveals
this to us is the first step in us realizing the good news
of the gospel. The gospel is good news. It's
good news to sinners in prison who have offended the king and
deserve all that the king determines they deserve. That he's going
to bring upon them. Christ died for our sins. This
is how high God's justice is. And so, we see this in the case
of these two men. All men are considered in these
two men. All have offended God. All have
been put under the sentence of condemnation, under the sentence
of God's wrath, and only by God's mercy are any of us discharged
from the guilt and the penalty of our sin. And that's what this
is leading to here. Now, the captain of the guard
says here, In verse 4, the captain of the guard charged Joseph with
these men. Joseph was bound in this prison
with them. That seems strange to us. How could Joseph be bound
in the prison with these men if Joseph represents our Lord
Jesus Christ? He did no sin. He knew no sin. In him was no sin. He's holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heavens. How could he be put into prison? Well, it says
in the New Testament in Hebrews 2.9 that he was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death. That he might
taste death for every son, every one God gave him to die and to
satisfy God's justice for. So he's in prison because the
Lord Jesus Christ was wounded. for our transgressions. He was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement from God that
should have been brought against us was brought on Him for our
peace to make our reconciliation to God. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ is in the prison here. And it says here that He served
them. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them
and he served them and they continued a season in ward. Joseph served
these two men, these officers of the king. They were men of
high dignity. They were men of high honor in
society because they were the servants of the king of all the
land of Egypt. And yet, they were thrown into
prison. And there, Joseph, who pictures the Lord Jesus, served
these two men. What is this Speaking of the
humility of the Lord Jesus Christ, He made Himself of no reputation.
He took upon Him the form of a servant. And as a servant,
He obeyed His Father even unto death by taking the sins of His
people and suffering for them. That's the highest form of a
servant. What the Lord Jesus Christ did.
It was the lowest form of service, but it was the highest form of
service. And so we see this in Joseph
serving these two men. Now in verse 5 it says that they
both dreamed a dream. Both of them, each man his dream
in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his
dream. The language there, the interpretation of his dream,
means the meaning that God had to give to these two men was
in their dream. The interpretation is what God
meant for that dream to signify. And so it says here, that both
the butler and baker dreamed while they were bound in prison.
They weren't just lying around on a couch watching TV. They
were bound. They were shackled. And Joseph
had to take care of them. He was free to move about and
care for them. And so he comes in and says in
verse 6, And Joseph came in unto them to see to them in the morning,
and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad. Joseph noticed
that their appearance was that they were sad. What does that
say about the Lord Jesus Christ? Doesn't it say something about
the fact that He sees our condition? That He knows our misery? That
He has compassion on sinners in their misery because of their
sin? And yet, He asks them, He says,
Why do you look so sad? In verse 7, He asks Pharaoh's
officers that were with him in the ward of his Lord's house,
saying, Wherefore look ye so sad today? Notice what they say
about why they were sad. It says in verse 8, And they
said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter
of it. Notice, these men have offended
the king. They were cast into prison. They
were sinners under the sentence of death, under the sentence
of wrath from the king against them. And they waited for judgment.
And while they were there, they received a message from God.
But as sinners, sin blinds us. Sin keeps us from understanding. the things of God. It says in
Romans 3.10, No man understandeth. No man seeketh after God. The
natural man, 1 Corinthians 2.14, cannot receive the things of
the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. Neither can
he know them. So here these men are in prison,
even though they have the Word of God, they have the facts,
they can't understand the interpretation of it. Even though we have the
Bible, even though we have God's own Word, unless God opens it
to us, We won't understand it. Jesus told Nicodemus, except
you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. You can't
perceive it. You can't know it. You can't
know the things of God unless God himself makes it known. And
so Joseph asked them. He says, do not interpretations
belong to God? Tell me them, I pray you. Tell me your dreams. You see,
God has so designed our situation here in this world as sinners,
under God's sentence of condemnation, facing final judgment. He's so
designed it that He will reveal His will to us only in one way,
in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's will is entirely in Him.
It says in Colossians 2.3, chapter 2, verse 3 of Colossians, it
says, All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. God has to make it known. Jesus
told his disciples, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
No man comes to the Father but by me. I'm the way, the truth,
and the life. You can't know God except through
Christ. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father. No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He
has revealed Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one by whom we can know God. And He remakes God known
to us in His own person and in His own work. Here we see in
this character of Joseph revealing the dreams, we see the role of
Christ as our prophet. As the prophet. Remember Moses
said, A prophet the Lord your God shall raise up unto you,
like unto me. Him shall you hear. You must
hear Him. God, the Father, spoke from heaven
at the Mount of Transfiguration and He said to His disciples,
Peter, James, and John, He said, This is My beloved Son, hear
ye Him. We have to hear Him. He's called
the Word of God. We have to hear from Christ.
And how do we hear from Christ? Well, all prophets in Scripture
reveal God's message in two ways. First, by what they say, and
second, by what they do, the circumstances of their life.
And so it is with the Lord Jesus. We see God. We see His character.
We see His will. We see His purpose and grace.
We see His wisdom and power. We see all these things in the
Word of the Lord Jesus Christ and in His life. In His compassion
towards sinners, in His sufferings, in His humility, in His laying
His life down in love to His Father and for His people. This
is the revelation of God's heart. Christ and His cross is the revelation
of God the Father. This is who God is. And He is
our mediator. And He reveals His compassion
towards us and His compassion towards sinners. Make the dream
known to me. I'll explain it. I'll explain
God's will. This is what Joseph is saying
to them. Because God put it in His hand. God put it in Christ
to make known. Remember Revelation 5? All of
heaven is gathered and there's a book sealed with seven seals
and the Apostle John weeps because no one is worthy to open it.
And then finally the Lord Jesus steps forth, the Lamb of God,
because He unseals the book of God's purpose, His eternal purpose,
and makes known to us His grace in our salvation, His purpose
to reconcile Himself to sinners. This is God's eternal work. This
was on His mind from eternity, to reconcile sinners to Himself. We had offended. It was not Him
that had offended us. If I offend you, if I do something
wrong against you, it's my obligation to come to you and make peace.
But God is the one that we offended, and yet He took it upon Himself
to make peace with us, and did so by the death of His Son. And
so that's what Christ is going to reveal here. And so, we have
the two dreams. First the dream of the butler.
It says here in verse 9, And the chief butler told his dream
to Joseph and said to him, Notice carefully, In my dream, behold,
a vine was before me. What is a vine? A vine is a plant
that grows that produces grapes. So it's a vine. A vine was before
me, and in the vine were three branches, and it was as though
it budded, and her blossoms shot forth, and the clusters thereof
brought forth ripe grapes." So this vine is very fruitful, and
in the vine is this life, blossoms, budding blossoms, and grapes. And the butler sees this, and
what does he do? He sees this vine producing grapes
and he says, and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand and I took the
grapes and I pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and I gave the
cup into Pharaoh's hand. The butler sees this vine in
his dream, the three branches, and he takes the grapes that
the vine produced and he crushes the grapes. squeezes it into
the cup that was Pharaoh's cup, and he takes the cup to Pharaoh,
and he puts it into Pharaoh's hand. And what happens? Because
he did that. Notice. And Joseph said to him,
he's going to explain the dream. This is the interpretation of
it. In verse 12, the three branches are three days. Yet within three
days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head. In the margin of my Bible,
and perhaps in yours too, it says lift means reckon. There's going to be a reckoning
here in what Pharaoh does. And so it says here, So what
happened here? The butler saw the grapes, he
squeezed the grapes, he took the juice and caught it in the
cup, and he took the cup, which was Pharaoh's cup, and put it
into Pharaoh's hand, and Pharaoh then restored the butler to his
former place as the butler, the chief of the butlers. What is
it all teaching us? Is it just teaching us that the
butler got out of prison? That he was put back in his butlership?
Is that the only thing it's teaching us? What is the lesson of this
dream here? Because it has a deeper meaning
to it. First of all, we notice right
away that the vine and the fruit of the vine were squeezed. And
that fruit of the vine is what? What do you get from the fruit
of the grapes? Don't you get wine? You get the grape juice,
don't you? And what is wine in scripture?
Remember what Jesus did on that night when he was about to go
to the cross and he was with his disciples and he took the
cup And in the cup was the wine, and that cup signified something. Remember what he said in the
garden? Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And
yet in that cup he gave to his disciples there was wine, and
that wine, he said, when he gave them the cup, he said, this cup,
what's in the cup, is the blood of the New Testament which
is shed for many for the remission of sins." And this is in Matthew
26, 28. This cup is... Let me read it to you because
I don't think I'm quoting it correctly. Let me read this.
Matthew 26 and verse 28. Jesus did this. This is significant
here because it explains the meaning of this butler's dream.
He says in verse 26, "...and they were eating, So as they
were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and
gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and he gave
thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it. For this
is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins." What was in the cup? Wine. What did Jesus
say it was? It's my blood. What you're seeing here in the
cup is wine, but what it represents, what it signifies, is my blood.
That's the way the explanation is often given in scriptures.
It says, this cup is my blood. But the cup isn't. What's in
the cup is neither his blood nor is the cup his blood. But
he's interpreting what that means. So he says, this cup is my blood,
the blood of the New Testament which is shed for many. What
is this teaching us? Well, it's teaching us that when
the butler in his dream saw the vine producing the grapes and
he crushed the grapes into the cup of Pharaoh, that it represented
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that blood, Jesus said, is
the New Testament. It made the Testament. What was
the Testament? What is the Testament? It's the
will. And the will is made by the testator. The one who makes
the will has to die in order for that will to go into effect.
This will is God's covenant. to save His people, an everlasting
covenant, and is made in the blood of Christ, because all
the conditions God requires to bless His people were fulfilled
in Christ giving Himself for His people in answer to God.
His blood was shed because His blood represented the propitiation,
the satisfaction that appeased God's wrath for His people. And so what we see here is that
in the cup that the butler had, he was bringing in this cup,
it was Pharaoh's cup, it was put into his hand. And it carried
the blood. And what is this signifying here?
That God has given us something. It's faith. Faith in Christ's
blood as our propitiation. And when we come to God, we only
come to Him in one way, and it's through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19 says,
let us therefore come boldly. Let us therefore come boldly
by the blood of Jesus. Actually, let me read that to
you. This is the culmination of all
of the book of Hebrews, really, in this one verse. What does
God think of the blood and what we are to do now that He's explained
it to us? He says in Hebrews chapter 10
in verse, I'll read verse, it's hard to jump in the middle here,
but I'll read it from verse 14. He, Christ, hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified, those given to Him, made holy by God's
electing choice, given to Christ by His one offering, Christ's
offering. He perfected forever, one offering,
forever perfected those that God gave Him, whereof the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. That's what Scripture is. It's
the writing of the Holy Spirit inspiring men to write his own
word, his God's will. For after that he had said before,
this is what the Spirit of God wrote in scripture, this is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their
minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. That's God's promise. There's
coming a time when I'm going to remember their sins and iniquities
no more. And when was that time? Well,
He just said in verse 14, by one offering He perfected forever
them that are sanctified. So He says in verse Verse 18,
now, where remission of these, of sin is, there is no more offering
for sin. Because God said He would not
remember it, there's no more need for an offering because
Christ's offering made full remission. having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." That's the
way we come. That's our only access, the blood
of Christ. And so the butler came by God-given
faith to God the Father through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he was received. He was reconciled to God. He
looked to the blood. Because Pharaoh received the
cup, it indicates that God the Father is pleased with Christ
and with his offering. And being pleased with Christ,
he received all those who come to him by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he was restored. He was
blessed, reconciled to the King. The word reckon here means to
make an account or to impute. Pharaoh imputed to the butler
what was the value that was in the cup. It was three days that
he was there in the prison before Pharaoh brought him out because
the Lord Jesus Christ in three days accomplished all of our
redemption. Have you ever wondered how the
Lord Jesus lived thirty some odd years? And all of his life
he was obedient to his father, he was doing miracles and working
good and teaching the gospel. And yet he had to suffer and
die. If he didn't suffer and die,
all those 33 years of his life would have accomplished nothing.
God's will that he gave his son to do was to accomplish our redemption,
to make satisfaction for sin, to bring his people to himself,
to reconcile us to God. And he did it in his sufferings
and in his death. In three days, the butler was
brought out of prison and the king of Egypt reckoned or imputed
to him What he came to the king with, which was the blood. He
imputed righteousness. He justified his butler. He was
reconciled. His sins were covered. This is
speaking about our redemption in Christ. And so we see this
in the butler. This is every believer. We come
to God looking to Christ. We don't look anywhere else.
We don't bring anything but what God has provided. We only bring
what pleases God, and that's Christ. We don't look to anything
that's ours. We don't think of bringing anything
but what God has given us in Christ. And so, listen now. He's going to go on. I'm going
to skip verse 14 and 15 and come back to it. Look, it says, and
when the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good,
he thought, oh, wow, that was really a good dream he had. I wonder if my dream will be
as profitable to me. So the chief baker saw that the
interpretation was good. He said to Joseph, I also was
in my dream. Both of these men were in their
dream because the dream is the interpretation by God of their
life and of their work, and of the end of their reckoning with
God. He says here, the chief baker
saw that the interpretation was good. He said to Joseph, I also
was in my dream. And behold, I had three white
baskets on my head. And in the margin, if you look
in my Bible again, it says white means full of holes. Something
full of holes. He says, three white baskets
on my head and in the uppermost basket there was all manner of
baked meats for Pharaoh. And the birds did eat them out
of the basket upon my head." It doesn't sound good, does it?
A basket full of holes, full of baked meats, and the birds,
and they were for Pharaoh, and yet the birds ate what was intended
for Pharaoh, they ate it, and so it never got to Pharaoh. Now,
in this word, baked meat, it reveals something that is very
helpful in understanding this dream. In the margin, white is
full of holes, but the word baked meats, if you look it up in the
Strong's Concordance, it means several things. It's used, let's see, I wrote it down here. Well, I did write it down, but
I'm not finding it. The word is actually used most
of the time to indicate Work in fact it says in my margin
the work of the baker, but golly I was looking for that Because
in Strong's it tells you how many times it's used I Apologize,
I don't know what I did with that The word is most often translated
work or works. It was something the baker did
in order to produce these pastries or whatever it was that he was
bringing to Pharaoh. And he had them in his basket
full of holes, probably a wicker basket, but it's significant
that it's called a basket full of holes. So here's a man coming
to Pharaoh, bringing his work. because that's what it was. It's
like 180 some times in scripture the word baked meat is translated
as work or works. And there's several other times,
but it's always translated as something that indicates something
he produced, something he worked at. So here, in contrast to the
butler, the baker comes to Pharaoh, he's got a basket full of his
own works, and when he gets on his way to Pharaoh, the birds
swoop down and eat up all his works. So when he gets to the
king, and the king reckons to him, what does the king do? He
imputes to him the guilt that he put him in prison for. He
charged him and put him in prison, and when he brings him out of
prison, he holds him to account for that very crime. The thing
that offended him. The thing that made the king
angry. That's what he brings on this man. The man comes to
Pharaoh by his own works. On the way the birds eat it up.
Because God is saying here that our works are going to be consumed. They're going to be empty. They're
of no value. They will not be able to redeem
our souls in the day of judgment. Remember, I referred to those
men in Matthew 7, they came to Jesus and they pleaded, they,
I prophesied in your name, I did many wonderful works, we cast
out devils, and all this in your name. They always referred to
something that they did. That's very interesting. Anytime
we come to God and we think in our mind, this one quality, I
have a good personality, or I had these religious experiences,
or I gave this, or I did that, always trying to grasp hold of
something in our past, something about us, or something we've
done. I raised my hand in church, I went forward, I remember that
time back a long time ago, I committed myself, and we go on about our
dedication or something like that. My parents, they understood
and they taught me and so I'm trusting in my knowledge. These
things, we're always thinking about our own selves. That's
called, that's something that is not going to give us peace in the Day of Judgment.
It will not be a sufficient answer to God in the Day of Judgment.
It will leave us naked without anything when we come to the
King. And so that's what this man does. The works of the baker. All those things about me that
I think the best of. Things that really make me glad
about myself. You know, the Apostle Paul said
this throughout Scripture, Romans 7, Philippians 3, 1 Corinthians
15, he said, Everything about me, all that
I did before, is dung. It's worthless. Nothing. And he says, all that I may be
found in Christ. And so, like Cain. Remember what
Cain did? He brought the works of his own
hand. The sweat of his own labors. He brought it to God. Surely
God's going to recognize it. Look at all this fruit. This
huge amount of produce I've brought. And God rejected him. And Abel brought the Lamb. He brought the blood of the Lamb,
which pointed to Christ, saying, I have nothing but what God finds
in Christ. That's the only thing that will
help us in the Day of Judgment, is what Christ has done. And
so Joseph interprets the dream. Notice, everything Joseph said
came to pass. Nothing of all that he said failed
because he is revealing future history. It cannot not happen. We will all be held to an account.
We must stand before God. And there's only one answer that
God will accept. One satisfaction to God that
will reconcile sinners to himself. And so we come by that, don't
we? If God has given us His grace of faith as the cup in which
the butler brought the fruit of the vine, if we have this
faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as all my satisfaction
to God, and His obedience as all of my righteousness, His
merit as all of my blessing, if we come to God knowing that
God can only receive us for what He thinks of His Son, And we
ask Him, O God, be merciful, be propitious, look upon your
Son for me. That's the faith of God given,
that's the grace of God given faith. But everything else is
just worthless and it will not hold up in the day of judgment.
But let's look now at verse 14. Remember what Joseph said to
the butler after the butler said, this is my dream and Joseph interpreted.
And Joseph said, you're going to be restored to your butlership.
Remember what Joseph said to the butler. Look at this very
carefully in verse 14. He said, But think on me, when
it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto
me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of
this house. So what did Joseph say? He says,
Think on me. That's the title of the sermon.
Think on me. What does this mean? Well, when
we understand that this scripture is speaking to us about the believer
and his relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
here, the butler in prison with Joseph,
Joseph is pointing the butler to what Christ has done for his
people in the crushed grapes, in the blood of Christ. He's
pointing us to see in the butler that this is the way we come
to God. But this is Joseph telling him. Remember, Joseph is the
Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet of God. Christ tells us about
himself, and he tells us about his work. And when he's speaking
to the butler, when you go to God, when you take that cup,
and he receives that cup from your hand, and he receives you
in peace and restores you to the butlership again, this is
what I want you to do. Think on me. Isn't that the message
of the gospel to every believer? Come to God through the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when you come, think on Christ. You've been received for Christ's
sake. Think on Him. Consider what He's done for you.
And think on him. Think of what you were. Think
of how you deserved prison and you had offended the king and
deserved eternal damnation. See his faithfulness. See his
truth. See his own substitutionary sufferings
and think on him. Think on him. Think on me when
it shall be well with you. This is the word of Christ to
every believer. Think of Him. Think on Christ. Think of who He is and think
of what He has done. Think of where He is and think
how it shall be well with us for Christ's sake. And give all
glory to Him. Don't think of anything that
you've done in order to make yourself acceptable. And when
you think of your sin, think on Christ. And when you think
of your confusion because you can't understand God's word,
think on Christ. Tell Him. What should you tell
him? What did the butler tell him
and the baker? They told Joseph everything that they knew. They
told him the facts and they waited on him to tell them the meaning
of it. Lord, I don't understand. Tell the Lord Jesus. Tell him
about who you are. You're a sinner. Tell him about
what God has said Christ has done. Lord, I found it in my
heart to tell you this because you told me in your word. You've
given me warrant to come to you, to look to you, to think on you.
And Lord, receive me for Christ's sake. Isn't that what this is
talking about here? When it shall be well with you.
When you have been received by God the Father for Christ's sake,
then think on Him. Never go beyond Christ, but think
on Him. And then he says here, think
on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray
thee, unto me. How do we show kindness to the
Lord Jesus Christ? How do we do that? We speak well
of Him, don't we? We speak well of Him. We think
about how we were delivered by His wisdom, by His faithfulness
to God to tell us the truth about how He saved us all by Himself
when we were deserving of God's wrath. how He delivered us from
prison by His own precious blood. We show kindness to Him and we
show kindness to Him because we desire, we want to know Him.
We want to know Him to understand how could He be so good when
we were so hateful and evil. towards Him. How could He be
so gracious to us to give us this salvation so rich and free?
So we think of Him in kindness. We think of His Kingdom. We think
of His people. We think of His will. We think
of His glory. We think of Him with this affectionate
desire for Him, that He would receive glory. That's kindness
to Him. Faith is kindly affection to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then He says here, And make mention of me to Pharaoh. Make mention
of me to Pharaoh. Isn't that what we do when we
come to God? Lord, You've shown me Yourself in Your Son. You've
redeemed me by His precious blood. You've reconciled me to Yourself
by the death of Your own Son. And I'm coming as a sinner, asking
You to receive me for Christ's sake. And we mention, we make
mention of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one we mention
when we come to the Father, isn't it? We are desire, we desire
to know Him, we speak of Him when we come to Him. We only
want to be received for His sake and we're thankful to the Father
for Christ. We're thankful to Christ for
His saving grace. The Son of God who loved me and
gave Himself for me. We speak about this, this is
all we talk about. The only thing we find in interest
is in this reconciling death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we want to know Him and we want to see Him exalted, and so we
mention Him. We make mention of Him to the
Lord, to God. We come to Him and we claim His
Word as our warrant to come. We look to Christ because God
has said we can look. We come because Christ has said
to come. We believe on Him because God has said He has been faithful
to save sinners and bring them to Himself. And so we say, Lord,
hear me for Christ's sake. Answer. Receive His answer for
me and save me. for his namesake, and so we think
of him and mention him. And then he says here, and bring
me out of this house. You see, when we mention Christ,
when we come to the Father, what are we asking? Lord, glorify
your Son. Give Him all the honor. Isn't
that what we're going to be doing in Heaven? All of Heaven will
be crying out, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. We want Him to be exalted. We want Him to be exalted in
His sufferings because of His sufferings, but we want Him to
be exalted because of His sufferings to the highest place of glory.
Hebrews 2.9, I mentioned it earlier, He was made lower than the angels
for the suffering of death, but now He's crowned with glory and
honor, and we want it that way. We don't want any credit for
our salvation. We want Christ to receive all
the credit. And isn't that what the Lord
tells every believer? We come to Him because of His
tender mercy as a wretched sinner, and we ask God to magnify His
name because of Christ and in Christ for what He's done for
us. It's an amazing thing, and yet it says here in verse 23,
notice what happens. When the butler gets out of prison,
It says that the Pharaoh restored the chief butler, verse 21, to
his butlership again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand,
but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to
them. And yet, it says, the chief butler did not remember Joseph,
but forgot him. How could that happen? How could
we forget? How could we be so unmindful
of the goodness of God in our Savior? This represents our fault,
doesn't it? Wasn't it His fault? Look over
in chapter 41, in verse 9, and Chief Butler said to Pharaoh,
I do remember my faults this day. The butler realized when
he forgot Joseph, that was a big fault. The one who was to be
credited for me getting out of prison, and I forgot him. He
was so good to me, so faithful and true. He has the wisdom of
God, and I forgot him. But that's our nature, isn't
it? We're sinners. And unless God, by His grace,
reminds us of Christ, and Pharaoh had another dream, and we're
going to read about it next time, about the famine, the seven years
of planting, the seven years of famine. And then the butler
said, oh man, I remember my faults today. And he tells about Joseph. God is gracious to us. He reminds
us of Christ. He reminds us of Him. Next week
I want to take the Lord's Supper together. Jesus said, when you
do this, do it in remembrance of Me. He wouldn't say that unless
we were prone to forget, unless the freshness and the sweetness
of what Christ is to us, His goodness to us, what He's done
for us to deliver us from the lowest hell and put us in the
place of the highest relation to God as God's sons and give
us all things that have been given to Him as the heirs of
God. Unless God makes that good news to us as if we hear it for
the first time, News. That's what news is. It's good
because God looked at it and said it's good. And He tells
sinners, and it's good news to us. And so it is. Lord, don't
let us forget. Help us to remember the Lord
Jesus Christ. And come to God at all times
by Him. Remembering Him. And making mention
of Him. And exalting Him. As we come
to God by Him. Let's pray.