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Lawrenceburg SDA Church

Joelle McNulty

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Father in heaven, Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity I have to share this morning.

I pray that you would speak through me and bless somebody here and help us all to hear you speaking today.

Any of you enjoy doing ancestry work and looking up, seeing what's way up that family tree?

I am pleased to say I actually don't have to do any research because it's all been done for me.

At least back 14 generations, I know on my maternal grandmother's side, I go back to William Bradford who came over on the Mayflower and on my maternal grandfather's side, what do you know, but I go back to William Brewster who also came over on the Mayflower.

I don't know what they would have thought if they knew that their descendants would have ended up hooking up later on.

But it's kind of an interesting scene you have there.

That story of The folks that came over on the Mayflower, that's something that usually we talk about around Thanksgiving time, because we all know about the pilgrims and their giant Thanksgiving feast, but what led up to that feast?

There was a really hard time that they had when they first came to Massachusetts and landed there at Plymouth Rock.

They gave thanks to the Lord that they made it through on that Mayflower boat.

But then they went through some intense, hungry times.

And they really had a very difficult winter, that first winter that they were there.

Now in the spring, They happen to meet up with this warrior Massasoit Indian and he knew of his buddy Squanto that needed to come over and network with these newcomers to the new world.

And so he goes over and he gets Squanto and he says, Squanto, you need to meet these people.

Now, Squanto had his own little story because years earlier he had been kidnapped and taken to the old world and sold as a slave to some monks who taught him, I believe it was Spanish, they were Spanish monks who taught him their language, and then they felt sorry for this poor Indian guy, and they said, you know, let's send you back to Great Britain because there's some good folk that we know there that maybe could get you back to your home and your own people.

In Great Britain, he stays at this trader's house for years.

And finally, finally, finally, after several years, he gets on a boat, he goes back to the Massachusetts area, and he discovers when he gets there that his entire tribe has been wiped out.

He's hoping to run into his family, maybe meet up with his old cousins that he used to go fishing with, and he gets back and nobody is there.

Well, he finally makes it to a neighboring tribe and they said, oh, we thought you were dead.

I went across the sea and came back and he catches him up on his old story and meets up and talks to Massasoit and that's where he and Massasoit get to know each other a little bit.

Massasoit learns his story and Swanto doesn't really enjoy living with that tribe, though, so he just kind of goes and lives off in the woods by himself until the day that Massasoit shows up and says, man, there's these British people you need to meet.

He said, I think you could translate for me, in fact.

I don't know how much English Massasoit knew compared to Squanto, but Squanto had learned English quite well in Great Britain there.

And so Squanto shows up and he says, hello, what's your name to the British people?

And they're like, whoa, where did this guy learn to speak English so well?

And Squanto ends up teaching them all these agricultural techniques.

You plant fish with your corn seeds, and I don't think that they even knew how to grow corn.

He shows them building techniques, and they learn so much from Squanto, and Squanto ends up saving the pilgrims due to some little providential leadings that happened a few years before that seemingly would have been very, very hard for Squanto to deal with, but God had it all worked out in Providence.

And this story reminds me of another story in the Bible, a story about Joseph.

And Joseph, you know, he's this perhaps spoiled 17 year old guy.

He gets sold by his brothers to slave traders, goes to Egypt, he becomes a slave.

Well, he may not have been that good, but he decided, let's trust in God.

And as my Bible friend said, when he swept in the corners, he made sure he swept everything, you know, and he did exactly what he was supposed to do and he worked his way up the ladder as we would say.

In Potiphar's house, he had it made soon.

He was in charge, overseeing the whole house, and things were going very well, as well as you could expect for a slave, until Mrs.

Potiphar decides to interject herself into the mess and she tries to have an affair with Joseph and Joseph asks the question, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Which is a very good question that we all should consider.

You know, whenever there's a temptation, no matter how small or how great, We should all ask ourselves, how can we do this and sin against God?

People don't just go out and kill someone, or go out and have an affair.

There are little steps that lead to greater sins.

And it starts with purposing in your heart, I'm not going to compromise, I'm gonna remain faithful to the Lord.

And you know, Joseph had good reasons to rationalize.

He could have said, you know, I'm a slave, I'm supposed to do what I'm supposed to do, it's in my contract, I gotta do everything that they tell me to do and otherwise I'm gonna end up in prison, I'm gonna end up killed, I just better do what I'm supposed to do and do what I am told.

But Joseph decided to be as true to duty as the needle to the pole, as we've heard in other places, and he said, I'm gonna remain faithful.

And how many Christians do we see that fall into sin who aren't in as tough a situation as Joseph?

It's really sad lately, we've seen the whole Ashley Madison nonsense that happened and a lot of people got their covers blown because this big, hackers blew up this site on the internet where people could go to have an affair.

I was reading an article about it this week by Matt Walsh.

I don't necessarily agree with everything he writes, but I thought he had some good points here.

Sin are choices, that's why they are sins.

You don't trip and fail and accidentally break the seventh commandment.

You do it on purpose because you want to.

That's what makes it such a hideous, terrible thing.

In our culture, personal responsibility and accountability are in danger of extinction, which is why so many have rushed to the defense of these cheaters by explaining that there are circumstances and situations and gray areas and reasons why someone makes a mistake of engaging in an extended secretive attempt to find sexual partners outside of marriage.

Here's Joseph, who is a slave, and he says, no, I'm gonna put my life on the line, basically.

And I'm not going to do this great wickedness against God, and then there's even Christians who have engaged in this Ashley Madison nonsense, and 1 does not just happen to commit adultery or kill someone or tell a big lie.

There are little compromises along the way and we need to remain faithful to God and choose to follow him in every little thing.

Later, so Joseph goes to prison because his master throws him in prison because he believed his wife's lie.

And Joseph, once again, he remains faithful to God, trusts in him no matter what, and he works his way up in prison again.

And you find him soon taking care of all the prisoners.

He must have been a very caring individual, because here he is taking care of the butler and the baker next to him, come in and are extremely disgruntled, of course, about their condition that they've been thrown into jail.

He makes friends with them, interprets their dreams, and then says to the butler, please, when you go before the king, remember me.

And tell the king to let me out of here because I was thrown in here wrongly.

Well, the butler forgets for 2 years until the king has his own set of dreams and then Joseph goes and interprets dreams for the king and makes suggestion of what should be done about the situation because the king dreams that famine is coming, need to prepare.

So Joseph, who's made wise choices all the way along and made little, made good choices, He wins the heart of the king, and the king tells him to become the prime minister.

And he gathered up all the food of the 7 years which were in the land of Egypt and laid up the food in the cities.

The food of the field which was round about every city laid he up the same.

And Joseph gathered the corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he had left numbering, for it was without number.

So Joseph did a fantastic job gathering up all the corn for this oncoming famine.

And then we go over to the next chapter, Genesis 42 and verse 5.

And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came for famine was in the land of Canaan.

So not just did he provide the corn for those in his own country, but people from all over the world were soon coming to buy food from Egypt.

And Joseph sold his brother's corn and saved that civilization and saved the Egyptian civilization.

Just like a few thousand years later, someone else would come and be a savior to the world in a greater sense.

Let's talk about some different corn in the New Testament.

Here Jesus is talking about himself in John 12, 24.

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