Explore the compelling journey of Joseph, a young man whose dreams set him on a path from betrayal by his own brothers to becoming the viceroy of Egypt. Despite facing immense obstacles, Joseph’s unwavering faith and resilience serve as a testament to the power of divine calling. This episode delves into how Joseph navigated immense challenges and ultimately fulfilled his purpose, emphasizing the importance of staying true to one’s calling beyond traditional spiritual domains.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Do you suppose God would ever call a man to be a lawyer or perhaps a governor? And no, I’m not about to tell a lawyer joke or talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is commonly called the governator. There’s a funny thing about Christian thinking when it comes to a divine calling. We tend to think of God’s calling having solely to do with church work or ministry. But is that the right view of it? There are two men in the Bible that caused me to think otherwise. They weren’t called to be lawyers, but they were nonetheless called to a surprising vocation. Let me tell you their stories. Once upon a time, there was a man named Jacob who had 12 sons. All of them were born to him while out of country. The last was born of the wife that Jacob loved. His name, Joseph, which means, by the way, added. And they named him added because he was added to an already existing family and well rather beyond the expected family. And because he was the son of Jacob’s old age and of his most beloved wife, he was a favorite son. And Jacob made him the coat of many colors. Now when the lad was a mere 17 years old, he was bringing performance reports to his father that did absolutely nothing to endear him to his brothers. And when his brothers saw the favoritism, and beyond that when they came to see him as a snitch, they hated him and couldn’t bring themselves to speak to him with any civility at all. Then something happened that could only make things worse. Jacob had a dream, and he had the poor judgment to tell that dream to his brothers. I say poor judgment, but it will turn out that it was very important that he did tell the dream. Joseph dreamed a dream. The story is in Genesis chapter 37. He told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more. What he said to them was this, Here I pray you this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were all out binding sheaves in the field, and look, my sheaf stood upright, and your sheaves stood all around him and bowed before my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Do you think you’re going to reign over us, or shall you have dominion over us? And they hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words. Notice it said, dreams, plural. Because he dreamed yet another dream. And he told it to his brothers and said, Oh, behold, I dreamed a dream more. And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said, What do you mean by this dream? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to you and the earth? Well, his brethren envied him. But his father took note of the saying nonetheless, because Jacob, a man of God in his own right, knew that something was going on. Now, what we can take away from this story is that at this very early stage of his life, age 17, God has a calling for Joseph. And what he is seeing in this dream is the result out far into the future of what this calling is going to be and what its results will be. Now, let me underline something important here. Historically, Christian people think of the gifts and the calling of God only for ministry or service to the church. And you’ll find churches that will hold gift surveys they hand out among their people, and they’ll get together and have seminars on spiritual gifts, and they’re thinking entirely… about the work of the church. Now, we’ve been taught for centuries that our spiritual life is on one hand, and our vocation, our job, our work in the world is on the other hand. We are divided in this way. It’s a kind of dualism that has so shaped and formed our thinking that we are as unaware of it as a fish is unaware of the water in which he swims. Now, this man, Joseph, is going to prove a major corrective to that idea. At age 17, Joseph was called by God and notified, given kind of early warning of that calling in a dream. He wasn’t given the precise nature of the calling. He wasn’t told what the work to be done was, only that there was a calling, and it would have the results that he saw in the dream. Now, Joseph being the youngest serves as an example of another, what shall we call it, proclivity of God. The first shall be last, and the last first. Don’t overlook this. This is fundamental in God’s character. He often promotes the younger over the elder, and he takes the one that’s in last position and puts him up front. Now, without a doubt, Joseph was a little cocky about this, but this was going to be corrected in short order. What follows in here is one of the great stories of the Bible, and the chances are you already know it. It is such a great story. It’s been told so many times that it’s hard to become culturally literate without at least knowing about this story. Well, Joseph was sent off to find his brothers and to bring back a report of how things were. So he put on his coat of many colors and headed off across the landscape. It was a fateful decision. Because when his brothers looked up and saw him coming way off, before he even got close, they started talking against him to kill him. One of them said to the other, look, this dreamer is coming. I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s kill him and throw him into a pit. And we’ll say to our father, well, some evil beast must have devoured him. Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams. Well, Reuben, one of the older brothers, heard it, and he made up his mind he was going to deliver him out of their hands. He says, no, no, no, let’s don’t kill him. Shed no blood. Let’s cast him into this pit over here in the wilderness and lay no hand upon him that they might rid him, or rather that Reuben might rid him out of their hands to deliver him back to his father. That was his motive. He would get him thrown in the pit, and later when the boys were out of the way, he’d come back and get him and let him go. Well, it came to pass when Joseph was come to his brethren, they stripped him out of his coat, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it or he’d have drowned. They sat down to eat bread. And as they were eating, they lifted up their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going down to carry it to Egypt. And I imagine all of us can envision this because of the number of times in movies where we have seen caravans with camels and Arabs and all of them making their way across the sand dunes. So Judah, sitting there, said, Now wait a minute. What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? why don’t we sell him to the Ishmaelites? At least we’ll get some money out of it. And let’s not let our hand upon him. After all, he is our brother in our flesh, which really seems kind of strange for him to say this. Hypocritical, perhaps. His brother said, okay, that’s a good idea. So the Midianite merchantmen came on by, and when they got there, they took him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. And they carried Joseph into Egypt. Now, here’s what you need to know about this story. This had to happen. The longer-term plan that God is working here is very complicated, and a lot of bad things have to happen to get to the ultimate purpose of the plan. There is no way to get from here to there without some pretty uncomfortable circumstances for our boy Joseph and for when his calling would finally be revealed. Now, there is a stop and think point in this story right here. Someone wrote that to be discontent is to covet against God. What they meant by that is that God has his plans and we have ours. And when we moan and groan about our lot in life, we are running contrary to what God may be trying to do with us. Now, Joseph had every reason to think that God had deserted him. That was emphatically not the case, but he surely had plenty of reason to be discontent. His brothers had grabbed him and stripped his coat off of him and threw him in a pit, and then finally when they did drag him up, they sold him off as a slave to a bunch of Arabs. So, as I said, he had plenty of reason to be unhappy about this. But there was, in all of it, a purpose. Grab a pencil and a piece of paper.
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When I come back, I’ll explain to you what that purpose was. What in the world is God doing? Does he have something in mind, or is life just a grand soap opera and God a spectator? For a free introductory CD in the series titled, What Is God Doing?, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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So Joseph was brought down to Egypt. A man named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, in fact, an Egyptian, bought him off of the Ishmaelites, the Arabs that brought him down there. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man, and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. It kind of sounds funny, doesn’t it? A man is a slave, and he’s prosperous. Well, what happened was that his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made everything he did prosper in his hand. Now, this is crucial. His master saw that God was with Joseph. Now we’re talking, though, not about spiritual things. We’re talking about managing the affairs of the captain of the guard of Pharaoh. This would involve logistics, personnel, economics, weapons, all manner of military issues. Now why would God call a man to manage such matters? What would his objective be? Well, we do know that Joseph went way beyond this to manage an entire country. But the road from here to there is still very rough. Well, Joseph found grace in his sight. He served him. The man made him overseer over his house. Everything he had, he put into his hand. And it came to pass that from the time that he had made him overseer in his house and over everything he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake, and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field. You know, this was so strong that he left everything he had in Joseph’s hand. He didn’t even know what he had beyond the bread that he ate on his table. Good grief. Think about it. A man with the kind of responsibilities he’s got, he gains such trust in Joseph that he can go fishing. He doesn’t have to think about it. He doesn’t bother looking at all the reports. He doesn’t have to worry about logistics. He doesn’t have to worry about finance. He just turns it all over to Joseph and goes and has a good time. There was, however, a problem. Joseph was a good-looking guy. And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, Lie with me. I would have to conclude from this that Potiphar was probably spending too much time out fishing. But in any case, Joseph refused. And he said to his master’s wife, look, my master doesn’t even know what’s going on in the house. He has committed everything he has in my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I am. And he hasn’t kept back anything from me but you because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Now, you have to understand this about Joseph. Joseph knew God. His faith in God involved the whole man all the time. His life was not divided into the moral on the one hand and the secular on the other. It wasn’t divided in the spiritual and the material. He was an undivided man. Joseph stuck to his guns. He never broke faith with God, even under the greatest temptation. You want to make a special note of that. Now, it came to pass that she kept pressing on this issue, and he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t lie by her. He wouldn’t even be with her. But one day, it caught up with him. He had to go into the house to do some business, and none of the other men of the house was there. She caught him by his coat and said, Lie with me. And he left his garment in her hand and fled and got him out of there. Well, he left his coat. No way she was going to keep him in the house. Well, as Shakespeare said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And so when she saw what happened, she called the men of the house and said, Look, my husband has brought in a Hebrew to mock us. He came in here to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it came to pass when he heard I screamed, he left his garment with me and fled and got him out. And she laid that garment by until her husband came home. And she spoke to him, saying, That Hebrew servant which you brought to us came in to me to mock me, and it came to pass, when I screamed, he left his garment with me and fled out. Well, what was the master to do when he heard the words of his wife? When she heard all this stuff, well, he was furious. And he took Joseph, put him in prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were bound. And there he sat in the prison. Once again, there’s a chance to break faith with God and to covet against God, to be discontent with where God had placed him. Joseph did not do that. He continued to be a man of God in all of his affairs. And something really fascinating happened. First of all, You have to understand that this step had to take place. It had to be done. There was no way to get from where Joseph had been to where God wanted him to be without going through this prison. Well, the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. The next thing we know, Joseph is running the prison. The Lord was with him, showed him mercy, gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison, and he committed into Joseph’s hand all the prisoners in there. Whatever they did there, Joseph was the doer of it. The keeper of the prison didn’t look to anything under his hand because the Lord was with him in all he did. The Lord made it prosper. Now, this is really staggering to consider. There’s not a hint, by the way, from the beginning to the end of this story, that Joseph ever engaged in anything we might call evangelism. He didn’t engage in argument. He didn’t engage in preaching. He didn’t do any of those things. What he did was to live the life of a man of God. And because he lived that life, because he lived by the principles of a man of God, he Everything he did worked. Now, through a series of strange dreams, Joseph is brought out of prison. Now, at last, he will arrive at his calling, but even Joseph will have no idea of the consequences of this calling. Pharaoh had a dream, and it was a very troubling dream, and he sent and called Joseph. You’ll find this part of the story in Genesis chapter 41. They brought Joseph hastily out of the dungeon. He shaved, changed his clothes, and came into Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I’ve dreamed a dream, and there’s no one here who can interpret it, and I’ve heard tell of you that you can understand dreams. Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It’s not in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. So Pharaoh said to Joseph, In my dream I stood on the bank of the river, And out of the river, up out of it, came seven cattle, fat-fleshed, well-favored, and they fed in a meadow. And then seven other kind came up out of the river after them, poor and very ill-favored and lean-fleshed. I’d never seen anything that bad in the land of Egypt before. And the lean and ill-favored kind cattle did eat up the first seven fat cattle, just ate them up when they’d eaten them. You couldn’t even tell they had. They were still as bad a shape as they had been at the beginning. So I woke up. That made me sweat, that dream. But then there was another dream. This time it was corn. Seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good. Then seven ears, withered and thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. I told this to the magicians, and there was absolutely no one who could explain this dream to me. I didn’t get it. Joseph will now explain this dream to him, and out of it we learn what his calling really was. Stay with me.
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I’ll be right back after this quick message. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled The Undivided Man. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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What Joseph told Pharaoh was this dream, because it was repeated twice, was established and not very far in the future. And what was going to happen was a sequence of events that would, if something wasn’t done, destroy the economy of Egypt. Because those seven good years that were coming, where everybody was going to get fat and there was going to be plenty of all the crops and cattle and everything else, would be times that would tempt people to overdo on nearly everything. But these were going to be followed by seven years that were so bad, Egypt had never seen anything like it. And unless something was done, it would destroy the economy of Egypt. Now, the story of how Joseph ultimately handled this is in the Bible, and I’ll leave it to you to read it. But the upshot of it all was that Pharaoh said to his servants, where are we going to find someone who can manage this problem for us? A man in whom the Spirit of God is more than Joseph. And he said to Joseph, For as much as God has showed you all this, there is nobody as discreet and wise as you are. You will be over my house, and according to your word shall all my people be ruled. The only place anybody is going to be over you will be me in the throne. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. The pattern of Joseph’s life is unchanged. He rises to be in charge. Now he is the viceroy of all Egypt. Egypt is probably the greatest power in the world at that time, and it is totally pagan. And there is not a hint of evangelism in anything Joseph does. He doesn’t preach to the Egyptians. And if anyone was converted to God, it isn’t significant enough to tell in the story. That’s not why Joseph was there. Okay, so why was he there? He was there to save Egypt so Egypt would be a sanctuary for the family of his father Israel. His father and his brothers did indeed come and bow before him as the viceroy of Egypt. They settled there. They flourished there until the times changed and they were made slaves. Now try to grasp the big picture. Joseph saved the economy of Egypt, making the country even stronger and more powerful than ever before. Then, at a later time, the economy of Egypt came to be built on slave labor, making the Israelites serve in hard bondage, even killing their male children. So when the time came to bring Israel out again… God took away from them everything that Joseph and Israel had built. He destroyed their economy. He left it in a shambles. It was Joseph who was called to lay the foundation and to make all this possible. And he was able to do this because he did not compartmentalize his life. He was a whole man, an undivided man, who served God in everything he did, from managing a division of infantry to running a prison and to running a country. And everyone knew why he succeeded. It was because God was with him. Now, mind you, Joseph knew nothing of the complexities that we would later call Judaism. Joseph would have been totally at sea with all the doctrinal niceties of Christian theology. But he knew the God who created all things. And he knew that God was there. And he managed his life according to what God was like. Now, who was the other man I talked about? Remember I said there were two? The other man’s name was Daniel. Daniel was also carried away captive. Daniel was also sorely tempted to compromise, but he flat refused to do it. Yet he wound up in total favor with the man who was in charge of the division that he was in, in Babylon. Now, how does this sort of thing happen? Well, it happens because of the kind of men these are. The kind of men they are is shaped by a sense of calling and destiny. They never coveted against God. They didn’t complain about where God was taking them. They were humble and repentant for the things that they had done wrong because there were plenty of those things. But they never complained about their lot. And once again, through a series of dreams, something similar to what happened with Joseph happened to Daniel. Through this series of dreams, as God opened these things up to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel, Daniel, like Joseph, ends up running a country. Not just any country. The most powerful empire of the time and one pagan to the core. And once again, his role is not that of an evangelist. He is a governor. People came to know about God, not through the preaching or the arguments of these two men. but by their example, by a life lived before God, by a calling fulfilled by men of God, which goes to show that the calling and the gifts of God are not restricted to church work. These men did not divide themselves between God and their job. They were whole. Now, we’re not wrong to think of the calling of God as a call to salvation. But there can be other calls and other gifts, and some of these may have to do with church and ministry, and some may have to do with being a good manager of logistics and not just for the church. Like Christians, for nearly 2,000 years, we have fallen into the error of dividing our lives and our thoughts into two separate channels, secular and spiritual channels. And we’re going to have to start retraining ourselves to be whole men and women, not divided within ourselves. There’s a great old hymn where we sing, We are not divided, all one body, we. Well, when we sing that song, we need to understand the place to start is inside. People who are divided in their own hearts will find it impossible to remain undivided in the faith. Before I go, I need to ask a favor. Take a moment to grab a pencil and a pad, because sometimes we cancel a station only to hear a chorus of moans and groans from our listeners saying, where did you go? We need to hear from you now before we make any decision on this station. And we make that decision based upon whether we have heard from you.
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The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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