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When Joseph was 17 years old God communicated with him through a couple of dreams. The only problem was that God didn’t tell him what the dreams meant. One dream was an agricultural dream about “sheaves” bowing down to him. The other was a celestial dream about the Sun, Moon and 11 Stars bowing down to him.
Throughout his life he never forgot those dreams… when he was sold as a slave he remembered them, when he was thrown in an Egyptian prison he remembered and when he was elevated into Pharaoh’s house-hold he remembered.
At some point God quit communicating to Joseph in dreams (at least we have no record of that) and began interpreting the dreams of others. In the Egyptian prison he correctly interpreted the dreams of two fellow prisoners and started his reputation.
When Joseph was 30 years old he was called into Pharaohs presence to interpret his dreams and with the interpretation was made second in command of all Egypt.
Eventually we come full circle to Joseph’s dreams from when he was 17 years old. His brothers come to Egypt to buy grain because of the great famine. Genesis 42:9 says… “He remembered the dreams.” The “sheaves” and the “Sun/moon/stars” bowing down to him were his own family paying homage to him.
Hebrews 1:1-2, states that in old times God communicated to his people in different ways (including dreams) but in our times communicates to us through Jesus Christ.
We, like Joseph, may not fully understand everything about God and what he expects of us but if we will follow His simple truths about faith, hope and love all will be well with us.
Joseph had a lot of misfortunes in his life but held on to the message God sent him in his dreams and all turned out very well for him.
Sometimes the road might be a little rough for us and might take a few turns we hadn’t anticipated. We might begin to question our faith and wonder where in the world is God when I need him the most?
Remember Joseph and keep your faith in God and one day you’ll look back at your path just like Joseph did and see God was with you the whole time.
Philippians 1:3-11 contains Paul’s prayer on behalf of the Christians in Philippi. It consists of 199 words but the crux of the message is stated in 36 words… “That he who began a good work in you will perfect it unto the Day of Jesus Christ…” (1:6)
“that you may be sincere and void of offense unto the Day of Jesus Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness.” (1:10-11) Both phrases are connected with the “Day of Jesus Christ” and are therefore related to each other.
In the prayer Paul also gives instruction on how to be "sincere and void of offense"… namely by the growth of their love that is based not upon feelings but upon “Knowledge and understanding” so that they can recognize the “things that are excellent”.
In the rest of the letter Paul is going to illustrate for them those things that are excellent.
Sometimes it’s a good exercise to restate things in your own words. Let me take a stab at that.
I pray that as you start your Christian life that you will study to increase your knowledge and understanding so that you can see clearly the things you need to do. Namely, that you rid yourself of every sin in your life and replace it with works of service to others and then you can stand tall on the Day of our Lord.
Joseph had two coats that were very significant in his life.
The first was a very distinctive coat that his father gave him. His brothers knew their father loved Joseph more than them and every time they looked at Joseph wearing that coat they were reminded of it. Finally they could take no more and sold Joseph to some slave traders and took his beloved coat and doctored it with blood and rents and presented it to their father Jacob. Jacob looked at it and concluded the worst… some wild animal had killed and devoured his beloved son.
The second coat was given to him when he served as a slave to the Egyptian Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife made aggressive sexual advances to Joseph and when he was trying to get away she grabbed his coat to hold him back and he slipped out of it and got out.
Later she told her husband… your Jewish slave raped me and I cried for help and he ran away… here is the coat he left. Of course Potiphar saw the evidence, believed the story and had Joseph thrown in jail.
Note this… both Jacob and Potiphar were presented evidence and a contrived story and they believed it. They trusted the story tellers and failed to examine their motives.
I personally have been told by believable people that others, whom I also have trusted, have said bad things about me (in confidence). What do you do with information like that?
As for me… I did nothing. In one case I refused to believe it because I knew the character of the accused individual. In the other case I accepted that it might be true but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. I didn’t let it affect our relationship. I just pretended it never happened and kept being me.
Jacob lost a beloved son (for a period of time) but found him again.
Potiphar lost a servant (forever) who had made him rich and that servant went on to make the King of Egypt rich.
I guess the lesson of the Two Coats is that you can’t believe everything you see and you can’t believe everything you hear. The Two Coats also teaches that there are people out there who are evil schemers trying to separate loved ones.
Carefully consider what you see and what you are told and who is telling it so you don’t suffer the same kinds of loss.
Last week in Bible class the question was asked… “could Jesus have forgiven Judas Iscariot?”
Interesting question but before we can answer a question like that we must consider the question… “Are there any sins that cannot be forgiven?”
Certainly the answer to that question is yes there are.
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28-29)
“If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” (1 John 5:16)
So Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable and there is a Sin unto Death that we are cautioned not to pray for.
Next we should consider exactly what sin Judas was guilty of. Of course we know that he identified Jesus to the Jewish officials but was that really so bad? Well yes… it was very bad.
Judas knew that the Jewish officials were trying to kill Jesus. By selling Jesus out he was complicit and even responsible for the murder of Jesus Christ. He rejected Jesus as Lord and savior in spite of all the spectacular evidence that he intimately witnessed and joined Team Caiaphas/Herod/Pontius Pilate/Satan.
Judas therefore was guilty of the sin of blaspheming and rejecting deity in the form of Jesus Christ.
Could Jesus have forgiven Judas? No he could not or he would make himself a liar by violating his own revealed word.
There are many Bible beliefs and practices that are based upon human conceived premises.
The one I want to address is the idea that “God will not violate our freewill”. By the way I could not find any scripture that states or infers this and google could not either.
Here are some questions to consider…
Can Satan violate freewill? Obviously yes. Satan empowered his demons to possess and manipulate the speech and actions of his human victims. Would God allow Satan to do something that he himself would not do?
Did God violate man’s freewill when he told his prophets or tongue speakers to say things that sometimes they didn’t even sometimes understand?
Did God take away Balaam’s donkey’s freewill when he caused the donkey to speak and reason with Balaam?
A plain and clear statement found in the Bible is that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” Seems pretty simple right? Sometimes Pharaoh hardened his own heart and sometimes God did. However, if we are married to the premise that “God cannot violate anyone’s freewill” (not found in the scriptures) then to make this passage fit that premise we have to massage it a little bit and explain away how God might have done this without really doing it.
A similar thing would be the question… “Did Judas have a choice?” Could he have changed his mind about the betrayal? I think not.
In Romans 9:21-22…
“Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?”
In my opinion God (as a potter) prepared special pots (Pharaoh and Judas) to accomplish his purpose. What if men like Pharaoh and Judas were already condemned (because of their own actions) and destined for the fires of Hell and God merely used them for his purposes before they reached their final destination?
Thanks for thinking with me.
In my middle school Bible class today the topic was “How involved are you in the work in your congregation?” One of the students on a scale from 1-10 gave herself an 8 the others were at 6. A scenario was painted in the lesson book about a Christian who was depressed because he couldn’t lead songs, preach, or teach classes.
In my opinion, as important as those things are, they just represent the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). You can excel in those areas and yet be a failure as a congregation.
Here are a few things that I have observed our members being active in that might inspire you.
- Sending cards. It’s nice to get a random unexpected card in the mail. Julie used to send a card out for everyone’s birthday in the congregation (now she does other things). We had an older member who is in a racial minority who hadn’t attended in a while. We sent a card that everyone in the congregation signed. He came back and told me… I didn’t know that many people cared about me. A terminally ill neighbor asked me to do her funeral (which I had never done before). In the audience was some bigwig from the newspaper. He sent me a card (which I still have) that was very complimentary.
- Visiting members. Several of our women go visit on a regular basis. Just today John and Nelda went to visit sister Carrizalez. Marc drops in one people on a regular basis.
- Being friendly. Especially to visitors. I have had several visitors tell me that parkway is the friendliest congregation they have ever visited. Gospel Meeting Preachers tell me that they are encouraged by Parkway’s friendliness. They say that it is discouraging when five minutes after the closing prayer everyone has left and they are locking up the building.
- Prayers. Praying is incredibly important especially when praying for others.
- Encouragement. Always find some way to encourage others… don’t withhold encouragement. Many, many, years ago I gave a talk on a Wednesday night and sister Edna Osborne came up to me and said… you’re going to make a wonderful Elder one day. I’ve never forgotten that.
- Attendance can be encouraging. I’ve had many times when I didn’t feel like going to services but did anyway thinking… I’m feeling bad but I can feel bad at services as easily as I can at home.
- Being prepared for Bible class and participating in the discussion.
- Communion prep. I told the kids they can tell their parents… I want to be more involved and signed us up for communion preparation.
- Building Maintenance. Several of the older men meet at the building and work.
- You can give money or gifts. Sometimes it’s nice to receive a gift (unexpectedly). You might do that for a Bible class teacher, the preacher or just anyone. Larry White is stationed in Washington DC for 120 days and Josh and Tiffaney contacted a few people about financing air plane tickets so he could visit his family more. Boom! Widows need a little help from time to time but will not ask for it. Do something.
- Holiday Baskets. Amy and others every year prepare Holiday baskets for our shut ins and others. Members contribute and some like Jeanne Conway and Marie Edmonds knit and sew.
- Marc mentioned in his lesson this morning that one of the members makes quilts for the shut ins and made one for him too. I have no idea who that is.
- We have these social groups that have been working very well. Dru had the idea, got the OK and followed through with it.
- I never had heard of “meal trains” but it’s some kind on internet things where you can sign up to provide meals for our families in need. Jessica excels in this.
- Members donate services and other things. Doc (our retired Chiropractor) adjusts people for free at the building. Glenn shares the fish he catches with members, the Cargile’s slaughtered some steers recently and brought meat to the building. Others bring citrus, books, clothing, etc.
- Sharing information. This is like the nervous system of the church body. We have a private Facebook members page where all sorts of info. and needs are shared.
- Arlie Cooksey and the Turners arrange spring and fall picnics at the “Arlie park”.
- The Cargiles have their annual Hayride/cookout/activity every year.
- Antia (on her own) started working with the young men on presenting “talks” on our Wednesday special service once a month.
- I send out email once a week and have three email lists: members, former members and others.
- Several years ago I started a blog and started writing articles. That blog has had over 60,000 views from all over the world. I have people who email me that I don’t even know who tell me how much they appreciate it. If you visit in Russia and say… you don’t happen to know Rob Perkins do you? You might be surprised. Lol! I never expected that when I started the thing.
Thes are just the things I know of. Cast your bread on the waters. Give a little effort and you might be surprised how the Lord transforms you and transforms the congregation.
Most of those familiar with the cotton industry are also familiar with the Boll Weevil. The Boll Weevil is an insect that feeds on cotton bolls and can devastate a cotton crop. The Weevil entered the US from Mexico about 1892 and by the year 1920 had devastated cotton crops all over the USA.
In fact the Boll Weevils decimation of crops in the south was the primary reason for poor farmers leaving their lands and moving to northern cities.
Today Boll Weevils have been eradicated in nearly all of the USA and it happened in large part because of understanding the life cycle of the Boll Weevil.
There are three main elements in the eradication of the Boll Weevil…
- Plowing of the fields after harvest to reduce habitat for the weevil.
- Selective and planned herbicide use
- Reduction of Weevil populations by Pheromone baited traps.
The Boll Weevil kind of reminds me of sin in God’s cotton field. Sin, uncontrolled and rampant, can ruin God’s harvest of souls.
What to do… oh what to do?
- First of all God gave us Jesus Christ to save us from our own sins. His all-powerful blood is like the strongest of insecticides to totally eliminate the impact of sin in our lives.
- Then God identified the life cycle of sin. So we could see clearly how it occurs. James 1:14,
“But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death”
- And then God gave us the courage to conquer and eradicate sin. 1 Cor. 10:13,
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it”
I hope when God sends his harvesters and they come to our Parkway congregation that they step back and say…
“whew… would you look at all that cotton. This congregation understood the seriousness of sin and the great price that was paid for it. They understood the pathogenesis of sin and had faith in God’s promise that they didn’t have to sin and the results speak for themselves… boys let’s start picking... the master is going to be happy today”
