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Tehachapi SDA Church

David Obermiller

Farm Boy that Saved the World

Father in heaven, we want to bow humbly, not just on our knees, but in our hearts.

As we open the sacred word of scripture to hear the story of Joseph, realizing that it's a calling, not just a story from the past.

You're calling for men and women today to be faithful like Joseph.

You're calling today for those of us sometimes in low, depressing positions in life to meet a much higher calling than our hearts could imagine.

Lord, the story of Joseph is not just a memoir from the past.

It's a story of what you want to do with each and every 1 of us.

And I pray this morning for my own heart, for all of our hearts, that we would be open to the God of the present and his great desire to be present and active in our life today.

We'd realize the stories of the past are not glimpses of a God who did something for them, but of a God that doesn't change, and a God who wants to be that and make that for us individually today.

The God of the living, not the God of the dead.

Lord, I also pray that you would take my words, speak through me, open my ears, let me hear, and I may learn from you myself and from the scriptures myself as I have the privilege of sharing this morning.

Lord, is that text, that scripture reading, the Pharaoh said of Joseph, where can we find a man like this in whom the Spirit of God is?

Lord, place your spirit in our hearts that the people around us could see and ask the same question of Pharaoh, where can we find people like this?

I pray that would be the case for all of us today.

We ask it upon the grace and upon the blood, upon the love of Jesus Christ.

I'd like to go to a couple of scriptures in the New Testament very quickly.

If you'd go to Romans chapter 15 verse 4.

I don't have a favorite verse of the Bible, but these are 2 of my favorite verses of the Bible.

Scripture talking about the purpose of Scripture.

The Apostle Paul speaking in Romans 15.4.

Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the...

In other words, Paul's saying everything that happened and was recorded in the Bible from time past was written for you and for me that we could have comfort and we could have hope.

Paul carries this theme on in a little bit more detail.

He's talking about the Israelites going through the wilderness.

Scripture says, Now all these things happened unto them.

That's the Israelites in the wind the desert.

You know, there's this unfortunate thought in society, and very unfortunate this thought is also found within the church, the Christian church, not just the Adventist church, but the Christian church, that the scripture, that the Bible is somehow culturally dated.

You know, perhaps you've heard someone say this, maybe even about the spirit of prophecy as well.

Victorian America, 19th century Victorian America.

You read stories in the Bible, and there's often the temptation, certainly promoted from the academic world, that the Bible is a history book.

Cool stories, maybe true, but just history, and not relevant to you and I today.

I like 1st Corinthians 10 verse 11 because it says something very specific.

It says that all these things happen to them as an example and they are written for our admonition and then he places a time qualifier in the verse.

What Paul is saying is all the stories of the past are relevant to the people that live at the end.

I would actually say to you that what he's suggesting is that with each and every day that we add to the history books, the Bible becomes that much more relevant.

Instead of becoming less relevant to you, less relevant to me, with every day that we wake up in the morning, this book is actually more important than it was yesterday.

And it will be that way until the day you and I die, or the day when Jesus comes.

I wanna go to Genesis 41, the story of Joseph, with those 2 verses in mind.

With the thought in mind that the story of Joseph in Egypt is not just relevant because it's cool and interesting, but because the details of his story might mean more to us today than they did to him then.

What I'm saying to you in a different way is that the details of Joseph's story may have more implications, more practical relevance for us than it did for him or for anybody that's lived between him and us.

Genesis 41, you might be familiar, is the story of Joseph sitting in jail.

Joseph had been sold into Egypt by his brothers, very kind family act there by them, because they were jealous of his relationship with his father.

True, his father had spoiled him, but it didn't deserve the punishment they gave him.

True, He flaunted his relationship with his father, but his brothers didn't do him service by selling him into Egypt.

You knew he was there until Potiphar's wife tempted him.

And though he was faithful to God and did not touch the woman, he still wound up in jail, unfairly treated again.

You'll remember then that the baker and the butler in chapter 40 came to Joseph in prison, imprisoned themselves.

And they each had a dream 1 night in jail.

And they related their story to Joseph, who interpreted their dream.

And just as he had interpreted, the dream came true.

You'll remember at the end of verse 40, chapter 40, that the butler, when returned to his position in Pharaoh's court, forgot Joseph.

And we pick up our story in chapter 41, verse 1, that Joseph had sat for 2 full years in jail, entirely forgotten by the man he had given hope, the butler.

So verse 1 says, and it came to pass at the end of 2 full years that Pharaoh this time dreamed and behold he stood by the river And that would be the River Nile.

Verse 2 says, "...behold, there came up out of the river 7 well-looking, good-looking cows fat-fleshed, meat on their bones, and they fed in a meadow.

The Hebrew here is actually borrowed from the Egyptian word, it's a specific word, meadow, that refers to a grassy piece of ground that was growing next to the River Nile.

So not only was Pharaoh standing in his dream at the river, but these cows came up and fed in a meadow next to the river where Pharaoh was standing.

Verse 3 says, behold, 7 other cows came up after them out of the river, bad-looking and thin." The King James says, lean-fleshed.

And they stood next to the other cows upon the brink or upon the bank of the river.

Verse 4, the ill favor that is the bad-looking and thin cows ate the 7 good-looking and fat cows and then Pharaoh woke up.

Verse 7, verse 5 rather says he went back to sleep, he dreamed a second time, and behold, 7 heads of grain came up upon 1 stalk, fat, plump, and good.

In verse 6, the 7 fat heads of grain were followed by 7 thin heads of grain that were blasted with the east wind.

In verse 7, the thin heads of grain devoured the 7 fat and full heads of grain and Pharaoh woke up and behold, the scripture says, it was a dream.

Verse 8 tells us that Pharaoh was troubled.

In the morning when he woke up, apparently he had gone back to sleep, he woke up and he remembered his dream and he was troubled.

Some of you will relate to this Hebrew word troubled.

Some of you have feeling, you have felt, you've experienced the trauma of emotional distress.

And you and I, I use the word in English, I feel beat.

I don't know why in particular, Pharaoh was so sensitive to this dream, but he was.

He woke up heavy with the implications of this dream that he didn't understand.

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Farm Boy that Saved the World

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