Fundamentals of Bible Prophecy

Well, brethren, last Sabbath we began a series of sermons on Bible prophecy. Last time we discussed how prophecy is basically a promise from someone who can either see the future and predict what is going to happen or he can make it happen according to his will. Now how many beings do you know that can actually do that?

I don't know very many that can actually do that. They can pull that off. I don't know a single human being that can pull that off unless God himself is directing that person and giving them wisdom and understanding, giving them prophecies on his behalf. Now last time we spoke of a very important fundamental of Bible prophecy. We talked about the role of the Messiah to some degree, although we didn't really get into that a whole lot.

But we talked about it to some degree and how it is the first important key to understanding a biblical prophecy to recognize the role of the Messiah, to understand that almost all prophecy relates to the intervention in human affairs of one key player. And now, of course, is Jesus Christ the Messiah, the anointed one. Last time we went to the book of beginnings, we went to the book of Genesis, and we spent a lot of time there. We discovered that many prophecies are in the book of Genesis, and they relate to the patriarch Abraham.

We also saw that Abraham was called by God, and the God that interacted with him specifically was the Word, was the spokesman, was the Logos, who obviously became the Christ. So the role of the Messiah was even huge when it came to interacting with the patriarchs of old, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with Adam and Eve, with Noah. We talked about quite a bit of that last time. That's important to understand. It just gives a greater, richer understanding to all of it when we realize that.

We see a consistent pattern of the Word's involvement throughout the Old Testament, where God is speaking and appearing to mankind. It's always going to be the Word, because Jesus Christ said that no one has seen the Father at any time. No one has heard His voice. Now there are some instances where the Old Testament does speak of the Father, but they're much more limited than the times when it's speaking of the One who became Christ. And I think it is important to understand that and to realize that as we read through the Bible, as we consider the Bible.

In some ways, it brings a greater meaning to our Savior who emptied Himself and came and died for us, certainly not diminishing the Father's role in any way, because He carried out the Father's role to a T, or the Father's will. He carried out to a T. I mean, He was very submissive. He showed us how to cooperate, to interact with someone in authority.

He did submit to His Father's authority throughout history. So it is important to understand that as we read the Bible, it was the Word who appeared, spoke, and prophesied in the book of Genesis. We talked about Genesis 3 15 as the first prophecy in the Bible, where it talked about the woman's seed, seed being capitalized, was the Messiah, and the Messiah would bruise the serpent's head, that Jesus Christ would eventually take care of Satan the devil. We discussed that to some degree. Of course, the serpent was to bruise the heel of the Messiah as well, and Jesus Christ was crucified.

But the Father resurrected Jesus Christ. We know He's now at the right hand of God. He is our high priest. So His heel was bruised, but He lives forevermore. Satan will be cast into outer darkness for eternity. We don't know necessarily the full fate of Satan the devil. I know it says He'll be thrown into the abyss, into outer darkness. What exactly that means, I guess we will understand more fully in the future. Now we went through a number of promises and prophecies regarding the blessings that God promised to pour out upon Abraham and his descendants. The most important point I wanted everyone to realize and understand from the first sermon is that God is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Now it specifically says that about Christ in Hebrews 13, but it certainly applies to God the Father and the Word, the Logos who became Christ. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we can always count on God. God is faithful. God cannot lie. God will not lie. We can always count on Him to keep His promises and to fulfill His prophecies. Just like Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, we need to believe God as well.

We need to have that same faith as our Father Abraham, who is referred to as the Father of the faithful. We need to be faithful as well and realize that it's the same being who kept His promises to Abraham. He will keep His promises to you and to me, and all the prophecies in the Bible will come to pass just as they have been prophesied. Now that's very, very important that we get that and we realize that, because times will get hard in the future.

If we're living when just prior to Christ's return and these prophecies in the book of Revelation and Daniel and other places and in the prophets, if they're going to be fulfilled, and they will be fulfilled, but if we're there living, we're going to be in some pretty difficult times and we're going to need to have faith and trust God and believe in Him and know that He's going to see us through everything that's going to happen, everything that's been prophesied.

It talks about Jacob's trouble as a time worse than any other time, and there's been some very bad times on the earth. So things are going to get worse before they get better. So it's important that we comprehend that, we understand that, we have faith and believe in that. Also, I want all of us to see that in the beginning there was an intimate relationship between some members of the human race with the divine being, the Word, the Logos, the spokesman, the one who became Christ.

The Father has a plan and the Word along with Him, I'm sure they devised the plan together. They were together forever. They devised this plan and God's promises and His prophecies have to do with the fulfillment of that plan. So everything is important in the Bible. Everything that's there, that God inspired, it's all God breathed. So we have to be careful when we read the Bible that we understand it. And that's one of the reasons I'm taking as much time as I am on the foundations of Bible prophecy. When we start in the book of Genesis, we should be aware that there are prophecies throughout the Bible.

So this intimate relationship was developed. Abraham was called a friend of God. He truly was God's friend. And God appeared to him and God spoke to him. Same with Jacob, with Isaac.

So God is calling us now. And we too must also have an intimate relationship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ. Now, God isn't appearing to us. I mean, I think that's pretty safe to say that God hasn't appeared to me. I think he's spoken to me to some degree, not audibly.

But as I pray and as I read the Word of God, as I study the Word of God, I believe God does still speak to us. And we need to listen and follow what he wants us to do. But we can all have an intimate relationship with God. Times are different than they were back at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Things are different. We have the Word of God now. We have a Bible. We have all of this. Abraham did not have this. Isaac and Jacob, they did not have this word.

This is the complete Word of God. This is what we need to understand God's will, to understand His plan. It's a very, very important book. And it's one that I hope you are studying faithfully and diligently, because these are the words of life. And if you're not studying the words of life, you are missing out. So it is important that we go to God in prayer, that we meditate on His ways throughout the day, and that we read the Word of God on a daily basis. If we're going to have an intimate relationship with God, we have to read His Word. We have to pray to Him. We have to talk to Him. We have to believe in Him. We have to know that He's hearing our prayers. We have to know that He loves us. And when we have that kind of relationship, we will stay faithful in the days ahead. When times get darker and more difficult, we will cling to the Word of God. It's important that we understand. Now, another very important principle I want all of us to grasp from the first sermon is that if we believe that God fulfilled all the promises and prophecies that He made to Abraham, He will also keep the promises that He made throughout the Bible. All of them. And I've mentioned this, but it is important that we understand and believe these prophecies that we went through last time and prophecies that we'll go through today. Because today we're going to continue in Genesis. I will try to speed things up a bit, summarize a little bit more. I'll try to move as quickly as possible, but Genesis is the foundation. It is the beginning of Bible prophecy, and we need to see clearly how God works in prophecy. We may make it to Exodus 12 today. We'll see. That's the Passover, right? Passover is coming soon. Prophecy ties into the Passover, and we'll talk about that some today or possibly next week. But we will be getting into some of the prophecies regarding the Passover and what that means to us. Now, let's go to Genesis 21 as we carry on with the sermon that I gave last week. Genesis 21.

This is a prophecy of Isaac being born, and this is the actual fulfillment of that prophecy. We talked about the prophecy last time. Here we show that God fulfilled this prophecy just as He said He would. In Genesis 21, the eternal, the tetragrammaton, visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. He spoke to Sarah. He spoke to Abraham. He did as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him. So God saw the future. God made it happen. God fulfilled this promise. He fulfilled this prophecy just as He said He would. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him. Remember, at first he thought, well, it's Ishmael who you really are going to work with, right? It's Ishmael. No, it wasn't Ishmael. It was indeed to be a son called Isaac through Sarah, his true wife.

So then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, just as God had commanded him.

And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him, Sarah, of course, being ninety years old. And Sarah said, God has made me laugh, and all who here will laugh with me. And that's what the name means. She also said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age. So this is a miracle, too. Oftentimes miracles are involved in the fulfillment of the prophecies that God gives as well. There are oftentimes miracles. Now, in verse 18, if we drop down to verse 18, this has to do with Ishmael. Arise, lift up the lad. God is talking to Hagar.

He says, Lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation. Again, this is a prophecy. It is a promise that from Ishmael will come a great nation. I would recommend that you read the Middle East in prophecy, and you will learn more about Ishmael and the fulfillment of that promise. We could go on for a long, long time if I cover everything. You need to do some homework as well. The Middle East in prophecy will give you understanding that you need to have.

God will give you the understanding, but reading the book will help.

Ishmael's descendants are to become a great nation. In Genesis 22, notice verse 15, Then the angel of the Eternal, the messenger of the Eternal, called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, By myself I have sworn, says the Eternal. This is a reference to the word, the Logos, the spokesman.

By myself I have sworn, says the Eternal, Because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your Son, your only Son, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants.

So we skipped over the sacrifice of Isaac. It's an important one, but again, I don't want to take too much time on this, but we understand that God told him to go and take his son Isaac and make a sacrifice. And he was willing to do it. He had Isaac down on the wood that he had taken, or piled up for him to sacrifice him. And he was going to do it. But, you know, he understood that somehow God was going to work this thing out. He must have believed that God was going to resurrect Isaac. If he sacrificed him, then God would resurrect him. Because Hebrews essentially says that. That, you know, he understood that God had the power to resurrect, and that God would resurrect him. So that takes faith, though, doesn't it? That takes a lot of faith to take your son, your only son, the son of promise, and do what he left early in the morning to.

Now, he was about doing his father's business. So Abraham sets a wonderful example for us that we need to be willing to sacrifice whatever God shows us we need to sacrifice. Whatever God wants us to sacrifice, we need to be willing to do that.

Abraham was willing to do that with his son Isaac. God did not require it. As the knife was above him, he said, hold on, not necessary. I see what you would do. I see your faithfulness. And, of course, God did not require that. So in verse 15, Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said by myself, I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and you have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. This is another tidbit of information of prophecy that would would be fulfilled in history, that they would possess the gate of their enemies.

And you can read this booklet right here if you want to read more about that and how that was fulfilled, because this is the United States and Britain in Bible prophecy, and it goes into the gates of the enemies and discusses these particular passages of Scripture that I've been going through.

So if you haven't read—I'll bet you a lot of you have never read this booklet.

You read the old one, but you haven't taken time to read this one. This one's been out quite a while. So if you haven't read this booklet, and some of you that are newer, you probably haven't read this booklet at all, it is an important booklet that will give you understanding in regard to prophecy, as well as other things. Now, in Genesis 25, we see that Rebecca is barren. Rebecca is barren. This is Jacob's wife, Rebecca. She's barren. Wait a minute.

No, that's Isaac's wife. I'm sorry. Rachel is Jacob's wife, and Leah, and several others.

But Rebecca is barren, and Isaac prays and pleads with God. Let's see that in Genesis 25, verse 21. Isaac pleaded with the Eternal for his wife. So again, an intimate relationship. Isaac is pleading with the Eternal, with the Messenger of God, for his wife, because she was barren. The Eternal granted his plea, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived. So he heard the prayer and the pleading of Isaac, and he intervened. He did something. He opened her womb. Before that, her womb had been closed. Now he opened the womb, miraculous. But the children struggled together within her. Ah! And she said, if all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Eternal. She didn't know she had twins. I don't think she knew it. She wondered what was going on. So she went to the Eternal, and he said to her, two nations are in your womb. Okay, is this not also a prophecy? Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other. And the older shall serve the younger. Okay, so that's something only God knew, that the older was to serve the younger. So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. So this was a prophecy that God revealed to her that she would have twins. And sure enough, she had twins.

So you can read more about that, about Jacob and Esau, and the situation that develops between Jacob and Esau. And we'll talk a little bit about that as we continue here. Now one of the key scriptures in all the Bible is Genesis chapter 26 verse 5. This is one I committed to memory many, many years ago. Probably 40 years ago, I committed this verse to memory. And it is a very important verse because it tells us why God chose Abraham. Now why did God choose Abraham of all the people at that time? Why did he choose Abraham? Now in the first part of chapter 26, we see that God appears to Abraham, telling him not to go down to Egypt, but to live in the land, which I shall tell you, dwell in this land, and I will be with you. I'm in Genesis 26.3.

I will be with you and bless you. For to you and your descendants, I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. So this is being passed along, of course, here to Isaac. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven. I will give to your descendants all these lands in your seed, all the nations of the earth, and in your seed that which will come from your body, your children, your offspring, and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And why? Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. That's why. Because Abraham was obedient. And we really can't overemphasize the importance of obedience. Even though we're saved by grace, and we should all understand that, God is very strong about obedience.

Because Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws, this is why I'm working through Abraham and his seed. Very important.

And I hope we can see again how prophecy and all this ties in together.

God prophesied these things about Abraham. He saw his character, and he was determined to work through Abraham. Now, in Genesis 26, verse 24, And the Eternal appeared to him, again, this is Isaac, I believe. He appears to Isaac, the same night, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you. I will multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake, because of your father and because of his faithfulness.

Because, well, you know, Isaac was also a good example, wasn't he? He was, in fact, a type of Christ. Isaac was willing to be sacrificed. You know, he didn't fight his father a whole lot. He was a young man. He probably could have put up quite a fuss. But he submitted to his father and was, you know, was going to be sacrificed. So he is a type of Christ, Abraham being a type of the father as well. So again, we see God working with Abraham's seed with Isaac. He says in verse 24, Do not fear, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there and called on the name of the Eternal, and he pitched his tent there. And last time I showed you how Abraham would continually seek God and worship God and build an altar and go to God in prayer and in thanksgiving and sacrifice to him. And so Isaac is following that same example. Okay, so again, we see these promises being passed along from Abraham to Isaac. And in Genesis 27, we see Isaac pronounces the blessings of the Eternal upon Jacob. Okay, let's look at that. Genesis chapter 27 verse 27.

And he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing.

Now, this was a part of a big deception, wasn't it? Jacob was deceiving his own father.

Jacob means basically deceiver, and he was living up to his name. God calls things as they are.

He said, you will call him Jacob. So he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing. He blessed him and said, Surely the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Eternal has blessed. He thought it was Esau, the older. Therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, let nations bow down to you, be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you pulses you, blessed be those who bless you. And now, let your mother's sons bow down to you. And let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, blessed be those who bless you.

So this was a blessing upon Jacob that he had intended for Isaac, but God knew exactly what was going on. And he was pronouncing a blessing from God upon Jacob according to God's will.

So it's important to realize that. Now in verse 36 through 40, we see Isaac pronounces the blessings of the Eternal upon Esau. He had discovered what was happening by then.

So let's go down to verse 36.

And Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times he took away my birthright. Now Esau agreed to that, didn't he? No, Esau agreed to take that bowl of soup for the birthright. That was really foolish. That was stupid. Way stupid.

And it just showed that he was not connected very well to God and God's will and God's ways.

So he's blaming Jacob. He has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright. And now look, he's taken away my blessing. Now I could see where he would be pretty upset about this one because he clearly deceived his father and that was not good. I mean, that was not a good thing that Jacob did here. He was lying. He was deceitful. God allowed it, but God wasn't pleased with it. God was not pleased with that kind of behavior at all. So he says, now look, he's taken away my blessing. And he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me?

Then Isaac answered and said to Esau, indeed I have made him your master. I've done it. It's going to stand. It was God's will. I think he understood that. And all his brethren I have given to him as servants with grain and wine. I have sustained him.

What shall I do now for you, my son? And by the way, Jacob himself didn't have the power really to pronounce this kind of blessing. This blessing was coming from God. It was the blessings of the Eternal. And Esau said to his father, have you only one blessing? My father, bless me also. Oh, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

Then Isaac, his father, answered and said to him, behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. And it shall come to pass when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck. This is a prophecy, so we should look for the fulfillment of that in the Bible and in history. So again, the Bible is a pretty interesting book. There's a lot of intrigue in the Bible. There's a lot of very interesting reading there if you'll just open the book and read it.

So Isaac pronounces the blessings of the Eternal upon Esau, but he was to serve Jacob. He would also be blessed in many ways and had many descendants. Esau, you can read about the descendants, the chiefs of Edom in the Bible, descended from Esau, and then there's even implications today in regard to Esau's descendants.

Again, the United States and Britain—no, not that one, the Middle East in prophecy. I think this is the one that talks more about that. So in Genesis 28, Genesis chapter 28, here we read about Isaac blessing Jacob and sending him to Bethuel, to Rebecca's father, to find a wife. So I'm not going to read all that, but I do want to consider Jacob's ladder. Do you know what Jacob's ladder represents? Some of you no doubt do. Some of you may not really understand what this is all about, so I'm going to at least speculate as to what it means, because the Bible doesn't specifically say this is what it means.

But I think we can look at it and consider what this may mean. So in verse 12, then he dreamed, Jacob dreamed, and behold a ladder was set up on the earth, and his top reached a heaven. So this ladder is going from the earth all the way up to the third heaven, all the way up to the throne of God, you might say, or up to the third heaven.

So the ladder was set up on the earth, its top reached a heaven, and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Now I'm assuming it was going all the way up to the third heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending, going back and forth on the ladder. And behold, the eternal stood above it and said, I am the eternal God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.

Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, you shall spread abroad to the west and the east to the north and to the south, and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.

Again, God is faithful. God will keep His promises, and He was bound and determined to keep these promises to Jacob. Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the eternal is in this place, and I didn't know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So that's how he looked at this this loz, this bathal, called the house of God. So Jacob rose early in the morning. He took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.

And he called the name of that place bathal, which means house of God. But the name of that city had been loz previously. And Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and keep me in this way, that I am going, and give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my Father's house in peace, then the eternal shall be my God. So he's kind of bargaining with God.

He's basically saying, God, if you'll bless me, then you can be my God.

If you'll just give me everything I want, then you can be my God. And this stone, which I have set as a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you. He was going to tithe to the eternal.

Now, I'm not going to go back to chapter 14, where it talks about Melchizedek and how Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, but like Father, like Son, like grandson. You know, these things have been passed along from generation to generation. We may not read about all of it in the Bible, but that's likely what's happening here. I will surely give a tenth to you.

Now, I think that Jacob is still pretty deceitful. I mean, he's not totally converted yet.

He still has issues. You know, his name is still Jacob here. So what does this Jacob's ladder represent? Now, this actually may be a prophecy. In fact, I believe it is a prophecy, this vision of Jacob's ladder. It's a depiction, it's a symbol of Jesus Christ, who will come and show mankind the way to the Father and to the kingdom of God, not to heaven when we die, because there's plenty of other scriptures that show that a person doesn't go right off to heaven when they die.

But this is a ladder, and there are angels ascending and descending upon it.

And it very likely does represent Jesus Christ. That's what a number of commentaries say.

I looked at a number of different commentaries, such as the Gateway Bible commentary and Matthew Henry's commentary. And I didn't have a time to look into a bunch of others, but I would imagine that there's probably a number of others that would show that they believe, anyway, that this represents Jesus Christ. And the way to the Father and the way to the kingdom of God is through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, again, it's somewhat speculation, because the Bible doesn't spell that out. It doesn't tell us exactly. But there is an interesting scripture in the New Testament that I think we can tie in to some degree, and that's in John 1. John 1, let's look at verse 45 here. John 1, John 1, verse 45.

Philip found Nathanael. Philip was a disciple. Nathanael was a disciple.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him, him as capitalized, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth. Moses talked about the prophet that was to come. He talked about the Messiah and the prophets prophesied of a Messiah to come. So Philip found Nathanael. He said, We found him. We found the Messiah. And also the prophets wrote of him, This is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So he's all excited.

And he's telling Nathanael this. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

He didn't have a lot of respect for that little town of Nazareth and was wondering if anything that good could come out of Nazareth. Philip said to him, Come and see. So Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no deceit.

Okay, so now you have a person in whom is no deceit. This is what Christ says about him.

You've got Jacob, who is full of deceit. In fact, that's what his name means.

So I just find this interesting, an interesting parallel. Let's read a little further. And Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before Philip called you, When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

I mean, it didn't in a way, it didn't take a whole lot to convince him that he was the Son of God. This was miraculous. He knew that this was a miracle, that Jesus had seen him.

Miraculously, God had revealed this to his Son, and he had, and he says this to Nathanael.

So he says, You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.

And he said to him, Most assuredly I say to you, Hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

So that's very similar to the language that we find in Genesis, chapter 28. So I think there's an interesting parallel here.

And I think it does add some credence to this idea that Jacob's ladder does represent Jesus Christ.

Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to me except through the Father. The Father must draw him. John 6, 44, No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.

And then we know that Christ reveals who the Father is.

So I think it's very interesting to consider these things.

It makes Bible study more interesting and exciting.

All right, what time is it? Oh yeah, 3.29.

Well, my wife wanted me to quit early today. Let me maybe go just a little further, but we will stop early.

In Genesis, chapter 35, we're going to see that Jacob's name is changed to Israel.

I don't think I'll go there. You can look that up sometime later. But Jacob's name is changed to Israel here. This was after he wrestled with the one who became Christ. He wrestled all night long with him. He prevailed. He struggled with him. He showed his determination. And now he's called Israel, which means Prince of God. No longer a deceitful man, but now one who has come a long ways. And it's no longer so deceitful. He's repentant. He's converted. And now his name is changed to Israel. Now, in Genesis 37, we're moving on to Joseph now.

Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Israel. Joseph talks about some dreams that he had in Genesis 37. He dreamed that he was a sheaf out in the field, and all of his brothers were sheaves as well. And they all bowed down to him, to his sheaf. Now, if I was his brother, I probably wouldn't really appreciate that very much. I know I had three brothers, and if one of them was that cocky and talking to me about, you know, you're going to bow down to me, and you're the youngest of the ones there, I'm thinking, we'll see about that. But that's, he shared that dream. Might have been wise to have just kept that one to himself. But he shared that with his brothers, and then he had another dream. This was about the sun and the moon, and the eleven stars.

There were twelve sons of Israel. So, he, you know, he's the twelfth, and again, Mom and Dad, moon and stars, and all the sons, they're all bowing down to me.

Again, maybe he would have been wise to have just kept that one to himself, or maybe he told his father, because his father, it says, did ponder these things when he told him. The boys just got incensed and angry about it, but the father did kind of, at first he thought it was also very proud of him to be having such dreams. But who gave him the dream? The dream was not from his own mind. The dream was from God. God gave him that dream. So, again, it's interesting that God was working with Joseph here. Now, it turns out that they were embittered because of him sharing these dreams. And we know that Joseph's father, that Israel, favored Joseph, that he loved him more, he favored him more, gave him a coat of many colors. The boys decide, here's an opportunity to get rid of Joseph, and they take it. They get rid of him. They sell him off to Midian. Some of them would have had him killed. I think it was Judah that intervened and made sure that didn't happen.

Of course, God was the one that I think intervened and made sure that didn't happen because God had plans for Joseph, and God was going to fulfill these dreams. They would come to pass because they were prophecies. They were prophecies. Now, in chapter 40, now Joseph ends up with the Midianites. He ends up in prison, and I don't know how to go into all of that, but he ends up in prison for doing the right thing. And there are some prisoners there that have some dreams as well.

The Chief Butler and the Chief Baker. Remember that? No, those dreams were also from God.

They were to fulfill a purpose. They were prophecies. What was going to happen to the Chief Baker? What was going to happen to the Chief Butler? God gave Joseph understanding. He was able to interpret those dreams.

So, again, when we read the Bible, we need to read it for all it's worth.

I can't say that I really looked at all of this until I started thinking about it more and started doing this sermon. You know, I never really looked at these things as prophecies. That the dreams of the Baker and the Butler were prophecies. Sure they were. They hadn't yet taken place, had they? Someone had to know the end from the beginning. It wasn't Joseph, and it wasn't the Butler or the Baker. It was God. God is behind all of this. God knows what's going on.

God can be your friend. Just as he was Abraham's friend, he can be your friend. You can have an intimate relationship with God. God can speak to you. God can work with you. God can show you how to change, how to become a better person. But you have to have faith in God. You have to believe in Him. You have to seek Him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might. You have to love Him with all of your soul, with all of your heart, with all of your might.

Then you will come to know God as He truly is. The Bible will open up to you in ways you never have seen before. There is much to be understood. We didn't make it to the Passover, did we?

Okay, we will get there next time. We're going to go ahead and end it today.

I hope these things are interesting to you. They're helpful to me if no one else is gaining anything from this. I believe I am. I believe that there are others as well who are benefiting from this as well because it's God's Word. It's the truth of God. It's something that should enthrall us, really. We should be enthralled to come here on the Sabbath, even if a guy is a boring speaker. The Word of God is not boring. The Word of God is living.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword. So, whenever you come here, don't let the guy up here get in the way. Don't ever let him get in the way, no matter who he is, because God is here as well. And that's who you need to see.