Turn to Genesis chapter 40. I titled this message, Christ
the Revealer of Secrets. No man knows a father save the
son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. Now we have in this chapter four
persons. and two dreams. The four persons in this chapter are types. Pharaoh is a type
of God the Father. Joseph is a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The butler is a type of the believer. And the baker is a type of the
unbeliever. Now these two men, the butler
and the baker, see if I can keep them straight, they both, both of them have
a dream. And neither one knows what their
dream means. But there is one. There is one in that prison with
them who can interpret their dreams. And of course, Joseph
gives the glory to God. He said, God is the interpreter
of dreams. But God gave Joseph the interpretation
of it. There is one who can reveal the
secret things of God and the secrets of the heart.
And that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. This Bible, this book,
it is a closed book. It is locked up until Christ
opens it. Turn over to Revelation chapter
5. Revelation 5. John says in verse 4, let me
read start at verse 1. And I saw in the right hand of
him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside
sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming
with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book and to loose
the seals thereof? And no man in heaven nor in earth,
neither under the earth was able to open the book Neither to look
thereon. And I went much." Oh, I tell
you what, when I read that, I thought, when I opened the Word of God,
I wished that I would weep much for the understanding of it.
That the Lord would give me an understanding of this book. Of all that's written in this
book. More of an understanding than I have. He's given us an
understanding. We don't understand nearly as much as we think we
do. But He says here, I went much, because no man was found
worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not. Behold, the Lion
of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open
the book and to loose the seven seals thereof." There is one.
There is one who is worthy. There is one who is able to open
this book and reveal the secret things of God to us, to reveal
salvation to us. Now, Pharaoh is the king, and
the king has been offended by the butler and the baker. And because of their offense,
he has cast them both in prison, in the king's prison where Joseph
is. Both are under condemnation by
the king because of their offense. Both are guilty. When Adam offended
God, the whole world came under condemnation. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. I don't know what the butler
and the baker did to offend the king. But whatever it was is
nothing in comparison to our offense to God, to our sin and
how we have offended God by nature. I don't know how to describe
sin. When you really think about it, you know, most people think
of sin as just different acts, you know, different things that
people do and vices. But sin, the best description
I can give of sin is this, it is pure evil. It is pure evil. And sin is everything
that God is not. The opposite of God. And all
sin is against God. When David had committed the
sin of adultery, and he had Bathsheba's wife murdered. He said, Against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
All sin is first and foremost against God. It's against Him. And all sin must be punished
by God. It cannot go unpunished. God
cannot let sin go unpunished. He says in the Word of God, the
law says, the soul that sinneth shall surely die. It must be
dealt with. God must deal with it. He says
this, and this scripture used to, early, when I first heard
the gospel, this is one of those scriptures that just troubled
me. He will by no means clear the guilty. That scripture just
terrified me. He will by no means clear the
guilty. I was guilty. I felt the guilt of my sins.
I knew I was guilty. And I understood. I understood
how that in Christ I was put to death. My sin was put away
and that new man has no sin and not guilty. Not guilty. But God has to deal with sin.
I mean, even a thought of it. It has to be dealt with. He said,
in judgment, every idle word. Can you imagine the billions
and billions of people that have lived on this earth and every
idle word that every person has spoken will be dealt with? That's
strict, isn't it? You say, that's too strict. Well, if I think that's too strict,
that shows I don't understand who God is. How holy He is. I don't have
an understanding of holiness and righteousness. Well, these
two men, they dreamed. They dreamed, and because of
their dream, they were troubled. They were troubled. They didn't
know what their dream meant. They were troubled. You see, they could articulate
their dream. But they couldn't understand
it. I've heard people articulate the gospel, but not know the
real meaning of it, but not really know the meaning of the gospel,
not really know the meaning of substitution, not really understand
substitution, even though they could articulate it. And these
men, they clearly articulate the dream to Joseph. But until
Joseph interpreted the dream, They didn't understand the drink.
We don't know what it means. I can tell you about it, but
I don't know what it means. And Joseph, being the type of Christ,
being a man of compassion, he looks on them and he says, why
are you so sad? And they're in prison. Joseph's in
prison with them. And here at this, what encouragement.
Here he walks up to these two men and he's in prison for something
he did not do. And he walks in and says, why
are you so sad today? It's one thing to look at him and say,
Joseph, we're in prison. Why are you not sad? But he looks at me and says,
why are you so sad? And they said unto him in verse
8, we have dreamed a dream and there is no interpreter of it.
And Joseph said to them, Do not revelations and interpretations
belong to God. He's the one who gives them.
Tell me then, I pray you. So here's the interpretation
of the dream. Verses 9 through 14. The butler was given a revelation
of his salvation. He was given a revelation of
his salvation. Joseph said to him, and we'll
see this as we go down through here, but Joseph says to him,
you are going to be restored. You're going to be restored. You're going to be restored to
the place where you were before you fell. You are going to stand
before the King again and you are going to serve the King again. He had a revelation of his salvation.
Now, he would have never figured out the revelation apart from
Joseph revealing it to him, apart from Joseph interpreting the
dream. Christ came into this world to
save sinners and to reveal God's salvation to the sinners whom
He came to save. He's the one who came to reveal
our redemption, our salvation. It says in 1 John 5, in verse
20, the Son of God hath come and given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true. And we are in him that
is true. He's come and he's given us an
understanding. Joseph gave this butler an understanding
of the revelation that God gave him. God gave the man a revelation
of his salvation. Joseph being a type of Christ,
he said, well, this is what it means. And he revealed to him
his salvation. You see, salvation, first of
all, It does not come by education. Now, we can educate these children
in the Bible classes. We do it here in the adult class.
But I'm telling you, unless God reveals Christ, they'll never
be saved. There has to be a revelation
of Christ in you. Has to be. Our Lord said to Peter
in Matthew 16, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Well,
some said you are John the Baptist, some Elias, some Jeremiah, some
say you're one of the prophets. But who do you say that I am? And Peter replied, Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord said to Peter,
he said, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, Peter,
but my Father which is in heaven has revealed it to you. Salvation comes by revelation.
There has to be a revelation. Now let's look at this dream
of the butler. He says here in verse 9, And
the chief butler told his dream to Joseph. And this dream is
a revelation from God, is what it is. And he said to him, in
my dream, behold, a vine was before me. I saw a vine in my dream. Well, who does that represent? In John 15, Christ said, I am
the vine. I am the vine and you are the branches.
And there's something else about this dream of this butler. He said here, And the chief butler
told his dream of Joseph, In my dream, behold, a vine was
before me, and in the vine were three branches. And it was as
though it budded. It budded, and her blossoms just
shot forth. You know what he saw? Life. He said, I saw a vine and
I saw life. That vine was alive. It budded
and it just shot forth. And the clusters thereof brought
forth ripe grapes. And Pharaoh's cup. Pharaoh's
cup was in my hand. He saw himself standing before
the king as he restored. He saw himself standing before
the king, the king that he had offended, the king that had cast
him into prison. I don't know what the offense
was, but it was enough to throw him in prison. But he said, in
my dream, I saw this vine, and I saw this, it just budded and
it just shot forth and blossomed and it brought forth these ripe
grapes. And I stood before the king again, and I took the grapes
and guess what? I pressed them, squashed them. You know what that represents.
The blood. The blood. He said, I pressed those grapes
and the juice just flowed out of those grapes and filled that
cup. That represents the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When we take the bread and the
wine, that wine represents His blood. He had in His dream. He said, I saw in my dream a
vine And it was alive, it was full of life and blood. The fruit of the grapes, the
fruit of the vine, blood. Blood was in his dream. And he
presented it to Pharaoh, the king. Oh, we plead the blood, don't
we? We plead the blood. And then he says here, And I
gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, this
is the interpretation. The three branches are three
days. And I have no doubt this represents
the resurrection. Those three days. Our Lord was
in the grave for three days. And he says here, there are three
days. Shall Pharaoh lift up thine head? Now, if you'll look over
in your margin, it says over there, reckon. That word means
reckon. He's going to reckon to you. He's going to give you, he's
going to restore you. Now, if you'll notice, let me
point this out if I can find it up here, because the butler,
the baker says it. And he said in three days, now
look in verse 19. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh
lift up thine head. Now look over in the margin there.
Reckon thee and take thy office from thee. In other words, the
offense of the butler was gone. It was gone. It was reckoned to somebody else.
Because it doesn't say that over here. It just says reckoned.
But now when it talks about the baker, it says, yeah, your sins
are going to be reckoned to you and you're going to lose your
place. You're going to perish. You're going to perish. Our sins, listen, those who have
been restored to God's favor, been restored to the place where
you were before you fell. Well, our sins, for that to happen,
for that to happen, Our sins were reckoned to Christ. Our
offenses. He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. So our sins were reckoned to
Christ. That means this. They became His. They became
His sins. He said in Psalm 40, My iniquities
have taken hold of me. He became guilty. He became guilty. They weren't
role-playing. This actually happened. There was an actual transaction. This is not acting. This is transaction.
There was a real transaction of my sins to Christ. They were truly reckoned to Him. That's what happened. And God's
justice took it out on Him. In Christ, I'm not guilty. I'm not guilty. Even so, His
righteousness is reckoned to us and it really becomes ours. It's really mine. My righteousness is not based
upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ. My righteousness is His
righteousness. It is mine. It's mine. It's reckoned to me. It's mine. And all that is is substitution.
That's substitution. We have been restored. We have
been reconciled to God through the death of the blood and the
righteousness of His Son. And we have been restored to
God. His presence. He's going to bring
us into His presence without spot or blemish. Now we come to the baker. He
represents the unbeliever. Look here in verse 16. But now
let me go back here a minute. Let me read verse 14 because
I'm going to come back to that at the end. But think on me,
remember 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. 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." Now, when the chief
baker saw that the interpretation was good, he thought, well, I'm
going to tell him my dream. That's a good interpretation.
You know, he was just, he thought, well, man, let me tell you what
I dreamed. I dreamed a dream too. And he
said to Joseph, I also, I was in my dream. You know, the butler
said, I saw a vine in my dream. The baker says, I was in my dream.
And behold, I had three white baskets on my head. Now, I want
you to look over in the margin. It's got a five there. I had
three baskets, white baskets on my head full of holes. Full of holes. And that represents
religion by works. It's full of holes it will not
hold up. Full of holes. Everyone who believes
not on Christ as He is revealed in the Word of God will find
that their profession is full of holes. It will not hold up. He said, I had those three white
baskets and they were on my head. And in the uppermost basket there
was of all manner of baked meats. Now look over in your margin. Number 7. You have one like I've
got here. It's the meat of Pharaoh. It's
the work of the baker. You get it? He said these baskets
were full of the works of the baker. The first one, he said,
I saw a vine. It budded. It shot forth blossoms. It was brought forth grapes,
and those grapes, I took it and I squeezed the juice out of those
grapes, representing the blood of Christ. But here he says,
I had in those baskets all manner of my works. And that basket full of holes.
A wicker basket full of holes. No matter how good one's works
are, They cannot save. Cannot save in any way, shape,
or form. We must have Christ. We must
have His blood. We must have His righteousness. I want you to know something.
Joseph didn't go, hmm, I don't think I ought to tell him this.
He didn't hold back. Joseph told him the truth. Our
Lord, when He walked on this earth, threw out the whole Word
of God. He doesn't sugarcoat anything, does he? He does not sugarcoat anything.
Joseph told him the interpretation of the dream. And Joseph answered
in verse 18 and said, This is the interpretation thereof. The
three baskets are three days. And within three days shall Pharaoh
lift up thy head. Pharaoh is going to reckon to
you your offense. And you're going to die. Everyone outside of Christ will
perish. All those who are not under the
blood will perish. Whose sins are not under the
blood, washed by the blood of the Lamb. They'll perish. And
He said He's going to lift up thy head from off of thee. And
He's going to hang thee on a tree. And the birds shall eat thy flesh
from off of thee. Joseph did not hold anything
back. Our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed
that all who do not trust Him will be cast into the lake of
fire. Look, everything happened. Everything
happened just as Joseph said it would. Everything happened,
and it came to pass The third day, just as Joseph interpreted
the dream, the revelation, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that
he made a feast unto all his servants, and he lifted up the
head of the chief butler, he reckoned..." You know what? That's what God does to us. He reckons to us the righteousness
of Christ and restores us back to where we were before we fell.
Even to a better position, because we can't follow We cannot fall
again. He lifted up the head of the
chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants, and
he restored the chief butler. He restored him unto his butlership
again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged
the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted the dream. Everything
written in this book is going to come to pass just as our Lord
has revealed it. Just as He has said. One was
saved and the other one was lost. If we would find favor with God,
we must have Christ. We must have the blood. We must
have His righteousness. And don't dare, don't dare go
with your works at any time, in any way, any shape, or any
form. It's always Christ. Always Christ. Yet did not the chief butler
remember Joseph, but forget him. But now he did remember him two
years later. You know, I was telling Frank
on the first verse of chapter 41, and it came to pass at the
end of two full years that Pharaoh dreamed. And this is when the
butler remembers Joseph. And I wrote out by that verse,
trials must run their course. They must run their course. How
many times did our Lord say, mine hour has not yet come? Mine
hour has not yet come. But I want you to go back and
look over here at verse 14. I'm going to close with verse 14. I want you to notice this. Joseph
said this to the butler. He never said this to the baker. He never said to the baker, remember
me when you come before the king. But this one that was restored,
this one that would be saved, he said, now, when you go before
the King, when you go before the King, remember me. Remember my name. That's what he's saying. Remember
my name. Listen. But think on me. Remember me when it shall be
well with thee. When you go before the King,
remember my name. And you show kindness. I pray thee unto me and make
mention of me unto Pharaoh and bring me out of this house. Exalt
my name. Remember my name. Remember who
I am when you talk to the king. Mention my name when you come
before the king. Our Lord tells us to do that.
Whatsoever you ask him, my name. There's only one name given under
heaven whereby we must be saved. That's what he tells this butler. He says, you're going to be saved.
You're going to stand before the King. And when you do, you remember
me. You exalt my name before the
King. Well, what advice? When you go
before the King tonight to pray, exalt the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You exalt His name. Make mention
of His name. And remember who He is. Remember
who He is. Remember what He did. Remember
where He is now. Think of what He's done for your
soul. Oh, remember. That's what we
do this table for. When we take the Lord's table,
it's do this in what? Remembrance of me. Well, that butler is not any
different than us. It would be sad if it was revealed how often
we do forget the Lord. More than we want to know. Oh, he said, make mention of
me, exalt my name. Christ is the subject of our
preaching and he is the object of our faith. He is our salvation. All right,
Mike.