Genesis 40:1 “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.”

Genesis 40:2 “And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers.”

Again! today we are considering Joseph’s life, and in chapter 40 of Genesis, the flower of God’s word unfurls most beautifully once more as it has time and again.

We know the setting, Joseph is in Egypt, and he’s been serving Potiphar faithfully… not eyeservice (servicing the eye) and not because he was “Potiphar”… but as unto the Lord… but then he does not consent to or partake in sin with Potiphar’s wife and that’s where Joseph’s membership in that household gets testy. Having Jesus is a good thing until it’s not!

But this thing has been warming up a while. Things are often brewing a long time before they go to blow up phase. Potiphar’s wife wanted Joseph. But she didn’t like his rejection of her sin. And after chipping away at him to sleep with her and his final refusal, she turns on him. It’s amazing how quick things can turn hey, one minute she’s trying to bed him, the next minute he’s the devil in her eyes. This is why you should never consent to sin, because people tempting you to join them in it do not love you as much as they might invite you in with. Noone will ever love you like God does, there’s only one love commended by God in the Bible… and it’s his own, not ours.

As we read, we find that Potiphar’s wife feels “mocked” by Joseph’s refusal, how many times the Christian refusal of sin and holding their own line on righteousness is turned into a “you think you’re better than me” …and she makes up a lie complete with her evidence, as if that proves anything… but she’s gauged her husband well, she knows the man she married and how to pull his strings, she gets the other people on board… and Potiphar is more willing to believe her lie because the truth would’ve been much harder to confront. How many people wave the white flag to sin in their home… and would rather Jesus leave then sin leave.

This is why Potiphar never asked Joseph what happened. Joseph’s track record was good. But Christian, and anyone for that matter, always consult God’s word to get the full story, and the truth, if you want it!

This is called the book of life for a reason, because this is not the last time this story has played out in life. God didn’t waste time recording and preserving this to us.

Yes… in this world, it’s a game of twister while the truth will not, and doing the right thing doesn’t mean promotion, it often means demotion. And yet the Bible says Joseph was a prosperous man and God was with him and blessing him, in a situation which we would hardly feel so. Which should make you question, am I really prospering in my life? “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”

It’s interesting to note that Potiphar doesn’t kill Joseph, as he could have, and if it really was true that he really had tried raping his wife… he would’ve been tempted to. Instead, he puts Joseph in a place where he knows where he’s got him, where he can’t cause trouble, where he can’t move around freely and cause any problems at home anymore. This is true of many Christians, they’ve got Jesus shackled somewhere back in the recesses of their mind , and he’s never going to run their household or life again.

Their loss though. Potiphar removed Joseph from his house to keep his wife happy, and because there was not room enough for them both, and because he signed a peace deal with Satan… but the story will go on… because his captial gains loss that he wouldn’t yet realize was another man’s gain… because the prison warden was very thankful to have Joseph on board! People, if you reject Christ, someone else will happily take him… people still get saved today. Jesus story and God’s movements do not stop even if you check out.

The prisoner keeper knows quality when he sees it, and he quickly puts Joseph in charge over everything, because he knew Joseph would do a better job of it than he could… and did.

People, Jesus can do a better job in charge of your life than you can. If you’re looking for a spouse, he knows best. Job, he knows best. Home, he knows best. Identity, he knows best. Time, he knows what best to do with it. He knows what to do with your drugs, depression, dysfunction, unhappiness… everything. Man can’t help you… God CAN! And you can’t exalt him high enough! Make him number one, he is the most High after all, he can take you higher than you can get yourself, as Jacob learned on the road that first night he met Jesus… because he is from above, stands above and we are from beneath.

No matter who you are, where you are, what state you’re in, the one good wise and eternally consequential thing you can do is trust in Jesus and bring him into your life, every area, every room “I surrender all”… “that in all things he might have the preeminence” Our society and lives and churches are in such a state not because of God’s word, but because we forsook God’s word.

On we go… did you know the Bible says in Genesis 39 “… and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it” … if you’re going to get anything done, it’s going to be Christ that did it. I’m nothing, none of us are, in the end it’s all Christ, what did I really contribute other than provoking God and tempting him with my unbelief? “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Thank you Lord.

And so in Genesis 40, we come to the story of the butler and the baker. Because while Joseph is in prison, these two men offend their lord. Kind of like we have offended the LORD God. …Did you know sin is an offense to God? We care about how offended we are and treasure those offenses against us, most of which are imaginary like Potiphar’s wife holding Joseph’s coat waiting for her husband to come home when her behaviour was what had been offensive… but have you ever considered our and your offensiveness to God? Every sin is a trespass, you’re on God’s land, using God’s breath… and he is offended “God is angry with the wicked every day”.

And Pharaoh is “wroth” against these both. Guess what “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”…. and I know we are in the business of rebranding sin, but the unchanging God has not become more okay with sin or changed it’s definition… you may believe in evolution, but God hasn’t evolved… and as Pharaoh was wroth, so the Bible says “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”

All means all. Which means we are all guilty. Which means we all need to be saved. Which means we all need this same truth. Even if you invent your own truth… and now make right wrong and wrong right… God’s angry with that too! Why make your own lie to believe in? “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.”

So Pharaoh puts them in prison awaiting sentence… oh no, oh no. Did you know we are all in that place, there is a judgment day booked and coming, and these two are going to have a poles apart experience before that judgment because of what happens in the dark place down here in prison. One will see a vine, the other won’t. One will get saved, the other won’t. But the time is ticking. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should repent. We are all in the prison of this world, it’s a dark place, there are a lot of offenses. But God gives us time to get right with him, he puts a Joseph… he puts JESUS, the inside man who he sovereignly placed there in the darkness to give you the message of hope or to tell you you’re not going the right path.

Joseph had a blunt message as possible to these two. He told one he was going to live and one he was going to die. He told one he was saved and one he was lost. He told one was going to be restored and one was going to be hanged.

And although they’re down there with Joseph, the difference is, they’re there because they did something wrong, Joseph is there because he didn’t. And yet they are all there together “he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Thank God that the lowest place we go in life, and in our place far away from God in sin, awaiting sentence, awaiting judgment, in big trouble, no hope, future looking bleak… with God’s wrath against us, restoration a distant dream … God has placed Jesus there. We truly are without excuse. If you go to hell, that will be a failure on your own head, that you can’t hang God with.

Note how the Bible says that Pharaoh put them “in ward”… and yes it’s a play on words… but in ward… INWARD is where the problems really are in life. And the real problem in our lives, our society, our nation and this world is inward. Thank God that he’s got someone on the inside… Christ comes to live in the inside … and that flows into the outside… how could such glory live within you at salvation and it not change your life and the world around you?

Joseph is the inside man people, Jesus is your inside man, the Son of God, the Son of man. I’ve got someone on the inside! Do you?

And there is a season of visitation. They were there for a season. Did you know our life is made up of seasons. Sorry, climate change is a scam, the seasons go on. And your seasons are rolling in and out too. There is a season for God’s visitation. God will not always move on your heart, there will not always be the season where he invites you to salvation.

But in this season of their life, in their night season, God gives them his word via a dream, and Joseph pays them a visit, after all he’s been tending to them daily. You know that you experience God’s grace every day, that he’s always been the good thing in your darkness? …And he asks them why they’re so sad. And why shouldn’t they be. They don’t have meaning, they don’t understand God’s word, but Joseph is going to interpret for them. Hopefully you as a Christian can add clarity, not further muddy the waters.

Joseph’s interprets the dreams that God gave them that showed them the destiny of their decisions and path of life. If you want to interpret this world around you and the meaning of life, where you came from and where you’re going… you need Christ and Christians with an open Bible “do not interpretations belong unto God?” The inside man, the Spirit of God, he will open your eyes.

And what I really want to write about today, but the word count is about busted is this verse … Genesis 40:9 “And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;”

We are in significant gospel territory now! For in John 15:1 the Bible says that Jesus said “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

Down in the prison the butler found Christ! And he is going to experience glorious liberty that every child of God experiences in being saved, he will get out of prison and be restored because of Jesus Christ. It is Christ’s blood that satisfied the wrath of God. It is Jesus Christ that will make your life fruitful and pleasing to God.

Christian and lost person… Jesus Christ is your way out. There is no other way. The baker did not make it out but to the gallows… he had a dream about the best he could do to please Pharaoh and satiate his wrath… and it didn’t go so well. You will never please God in the flesh… we are saved by his grace… nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

Please trust Jesus Christ. We are all sinners… but God is putting a cup in your hand, his cup “I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.” You are going to have to take what you have heard and do something with it! Will you take it? Or is your sin going to come piling down on your own head in the end. The baker never took the cup. That’s why there was no good news for him. This is the cry and call of the gospel… and it’s a pressing issue, time was ticking down QUICKLY for these two… yet 3 days! Not long! Life is short.. your and my most present issue… what have you done with Jesus Christ?

Is he before you? Have you taken the cup of salvation? If you have refused and swiped him out the way like a bad tinder match… there is no hope for you, there is no way out. But if you have, the best is yet to come! as it was for the butler. And now Christian, if you are saved, you have been saved to serve him, as the butler did when he was restored… saved to serve, saved to serve… and if you are now serving as he did… don’t forget him, like Joseph was left forgotten… for now… in prison. Don’t forget the Son of God, his day will come, and it’s never been closer than now!

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