In Genesis chapter 42, Joseph’s brothers make their way to Egypt to buy food for their families because of the famine. Guess who they had to deal with? Joseph, their baby brother! They hated him because he had dreams! Just before they threw him into the pit when they saw him coming from a long way off, they laughed amongst themselves and said, “Here comes that dreamer.” Joseph not only had some dreams that came true, but he interpreted the dreams of others. Dreams which elevated him to a superior position to them. They could not see themselves bowing down to their little brother. But that’s what happened symbolically in one of Joseph’s dreams. Their stars bowed down to him! Verse 6 says, “Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.” Notice, then, in verse 9; it says, “And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.” It struck Joseph that after all this time, 20+years, most of which was spent in the pits, his dreams had finally come true.
Dreams have a way of dying on us when we’re in the pits, like Joseph. But God won’t let them die! He will fulfill every dream you’ve ever had. I’m not talking about your sleeping dreams. For many of us, to have them come true would be more like hell rather than heaven. No, I mean the aspirations for happiness and contentment with the people I love—Joseph names one of his sons Manasseh. The name means God eliminates all my pains! The other son he called Ephraim. That means He has made me fruitful in every way. You may be in the pits right now and have lost sight of all your dreams. You have been falsely accused, others have forgotten you, and you have lost everything that matters to you. God speaks to you now through Joseph. Hear him. Max Lucado writes, “If you’ll celebrate a marriage anniversary alone this year, he speaks to you. If your child made it to heaven before making it to kindergarten, he speaks to you. If you lost a loved one in violence, if you learned more than you want to know about disease, if your dreams were buried as they lowered the casket, God speaks to you.” I hope you can hear him.
Max has a unique gift for encouraging us when we’re in the pits. I always like reading his stuff. Yet, Joseph’s life is a preliminary picture of the coming of the true deliverer, our Lord, Jesus Christ. It’s about him. Jesus was crucified and buried and descended into the “pit that had no water in it, ” symbolizing hell. Humanly speaking, Jesus had a covenant of blood with the Father. None of those that belong to Jesus will be lost. So the Prophet Zechariah speaks to the children of God in Zechariah 9:11-12, saying, “As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” Could this be a reference to the “double” that Job received from the Lord after all his trials and sorrows? At that time, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! In Mark 5:36, we read that when all the friends of Jairus were mourning the death of his daughter, “Jesus overheard them, and said to Jairus, ‘Don’t be afraid, just have faith.’”