40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 47

Episode Date: May 5, 2016

Bad parenting, bad reports, one colorful coat and two dreams you should keep to yourself. Chad, Daniel and Brandon dig into the first part of Joseph's long story. 

welcome back to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel emery price and i am with chad bird and brandon hansen how you guys doing this morning hey we're good i'm doing good uh ready to ready to go doing great yeah okay you guys sound real excited you know what the the the source of all this excitement is that we're about we're going to get into joseph today and we're all just bummed out about how perfect joseph is and we're just feeling real crappy about ourselves so i just i just don't feel like i can you know measure up to joseph he's just he is jacob you know it's gonna be hard to say goodbye to jacob because jacob is somebody i can i can identify with on so many levels and then we come across joseph and he's

just like too clean so joseph is checking all the boxes he's checking all the boxes yeah so uh this is going to be an interesting exercise uh what the kind of kind of get into uh get into his story and see what we found our place in it okay all right so we're here we go we are on mission figure out if joseph was or was not a sinner yeah that's right that's that is the first priority we got to figure that out go from there okay let's do it all right so uh we are we are kind of uh skipping a chapter here uh i hope that hope that's fine with everyone i think if you look at it you will uh you'll understand why we uh we finished up with chapter 35 in genesis last time chapter 36 is a let's see uh 43 verse genealogy of uh of our friend esau and uh i

didn't think that there would be too many objections to skipping over that so that's what we're gonna do okay unless dan you want to you want to talk about the the uh the etymology some of these names and the geographical geographical importance of i mean there is one verse here which says that that anna found the hot springs in the wilderness when he was passing the donkeys to his father we wanted to maybe exegete that there's a town there's a town about three hours south where i live called hot springs i am wondering if that is there's any correlation there obviously there is yeah you have you have a biblical basis now for hot springs arkansas there it is that is how many people realize that so put that in your in your bible

trivia box in your head next time it comes up hot springs was where anna found the donkeys we go that's it all right all right and that is the about the only extremely interesting verse in chapter 36 so we're going to move right on to chapter chapter 37 so uh we are beginning a really a huge section in Genesis. This is by far the lengthiest, most detailed story that we have in the book of Genesis. Several chapters about Abraham, not many about Isaac, several chapters about Jacob, but now you get to the story of Joseph, and it starts in 37, and it doesn't finish until the end of the book, chapter 50. And there's a couple of chapters in there which aren't focused primarily upon him such as chapter 38 which is about judah and chapter 49 which is

where jacob blesses his uh his 12 sons but otherwise the story mainly revolves around him and that's why many people have talked about this as sort of a uh a short novel a novella because it has all that has a character develop it has the uh kind of the psychological manipulation of readers uh like techniques of character development all that kind of stuff suspense that novels have and also this is kind of interesting too this sets it apart from the other narratives because um it's almost at times secular in tone because joseph doesn't build any any altars he's not associated with any worship centers uh for you know there'll be uh quite a of the story goes by and there's no mention of God whatsoever. God doesn't speak. God doesn't

explicitly act. It's like he's in the background and he's the one who's guiding the events that take place here. And that really is one of the major themes that you see here in the story is the, I guess what you might call the present absence of God. That is, he seems absent from the life of Joseph, and yet he's present the whole way through. And it's only really at the end of the story that we see how God was at work, hidden within the narrative, hidden within the life and the sufferings, the deprivations, the backstabbings, everything that's going on to bring his people to the place where he wants them to be. So, I mean, that's one of the major themes we're going to see here, which is what we often call the theology of the cross, where God

hides himself under under the opposite we see that exemplified time and time again in in the life of joseph in fact uh luther several times refers to the life of joseph as a uh as as joseph's suffering crucifixion and resurrection so he sees throughout the the life of joseph really a pattern And that is foreshadowing what's going to happen to to Christ. So he sees him as a as a tie for foreshadowing of the Messiah. So lots of good stuff we have to have to go over here. But we will get started at the beginning. We know a little bit about Joseph already.

We know that he was one of Jacob's many sons of his of his four wives. And he was the he was the favorite son, as we're going to hear in just a minute. Because he was the first son of his most beloved wife, Rachel, who at this point has already died. So that's kind of the background. That's really all we know about Joseph up to this point, is that he is the son of Rachel, who then later had Benjamin and died in childbirth. So let's pick it up. We're here in chapter 37. so here's how it starts we got jacob living in the land where his father had sojourned so he's

in the land of in the land of canaan and then it jumps immediately to a description of joseph so here's what we know about him from the opening opening verses uh first of all and this this is important to uh to bear in mind he's a teenager he's 17 years old in fact uh this just dawned on me. Joseph is the same age as my daughter. She's a senior in high school. So when you're thinking of Joseph, just kind of think of a junior or senior in high school. And I think that kind of gives you a little bit of a clue as to what kind of person we're dealing with here. So, I mean, he's not like 35, 40 years old. He's not 10. He's fully into his teenage years. So he's 17. It says he's pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was young.

It goes on to talk about who they are. And one little note here, it calls Bilhah and Zilpah the wives of Jacob. Now, one thing to bear in mind here is that, first of all, Rachel's dead, and Leah might be dead. As seems to be consistent with her story, she's basically ignored. we're not even told when she died her death is never mentioned but uh there's a possibility she's already she's already dead at this point so the maidservants are the only two mothers of jacob's children who are living and so they seem maybe now to be elevated to to full wife status they're called the wives here they're not called the concubines or maidservants or anything like

that so uh uh that kind of sets the stage we got a teenager and he's pastoring the flock with his with his brothers and then uh the first note of negativity is given to us at the end of verse two joseph brought back a bad report about his brothers to their father that's all we're told a bad report in the hebrew it's uh devara which means just a bad word so so joseph is a snitch yeah yeah there's jacob never said hey uh if you're if you're if your brothers do something do something wrong i want you to i want you to let me know what they what they did all it says is he brought back a bad report about his brothers Why would he do that?

It must be like an Old Testament thing. That didn't happen today. No, I mean, I've heard of it happening, but I just haven't personally experienced it myself. I'm guessing it went down like this. It's fallen on me to tell you this. I feel it incumbent upon me that God has laid this on my heart to bring back a bad report about my brothers.

This hurts me more than it hurts them. it pains me to say this father but yeah it pains me to say this but this is what your sons my brothers are doing and obviously i am not or i wouldn't be telling you so do what you want with that so right away we're uh we're told a little bit about joseph you know you kind of got to get into the mind of these characters uh because as the scriptures usually do they they don't tell us as much as we want to know uh what was this bad report and uh how did jacob react and how did his you know what did his brother's take and so on and so forth well we're not told all we're told is that a 17 year old who was the favorite of his father brought back a bad report about his

brothers it's yeah and it's interesting like it it doesn't tell you what it is but it does tell you that he did it which which tells you that it does matter because it doesn't the bible doesn't give you a lot of details of stories so the details it does give you matter somewhat so because of how joseph's relationship with his brothers is going to play out um this is this is setting up that relationship it is it is uh it is a pawn on the board that says well okay so this this this is something that happened or was happening yeah yeah that's exactly right any any detail is significant especially in a narrative like this so this does already move us toward a greater understanding of his relationship with his brothers and up to this point uh at least

that i can remember anyway there's there's there's no situation that has happened so far where there's uh at least friction between the brothers that we're told about no doubt there was but we're just not told about it so this is the beginning there was between jacob and his sons we learned that with the whole rife of niner right uh but the uh the first recorded incident is is here and it's just going to get worse and worse and worse i guess my only question is did he did he go and approach his brothers before he brings this bad report to his father or did they just kind of get they just kind of get snitched on sidelined or or just uh like t-boned by this thing is they they're like what like you just you just went and told dad about that like

okay okay as a guy with brother's best interest in mind yeah as a as a guy with brothers like Like, there is, like, a certain, like, bro code. Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't go tell dad stuff. Like, that's not, that's, you can't do that. Unless you want to get beat up. Yeah, that's not what you do. And to answer your question, Brandon, of course he went to his brothers.

That's a given. That's what we always do. We go to our brothers first. and then they they just told him to go fly a kite so then he went to their i mean of course he did he probably talked to him two or three times before he uh he went and talked to his to his i'm sure as all pious believers yes good yeah yeah right so uh that's the first thing that happened and that is the we have three different uh uh causes of of animosity between these brothers and this is the first of them the bad report now uh verse three this it just gets worse

we're like you know in this uh we're just going down down down here in this spiral because we're told now israel loved joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age so i mean that's bad enough but then the verse concludes and he made him a coat of many colors or as my translation has it a very colored tunic we're not exactly sure what it was but uh anyway he made him this special special coat now how do you think that would have played with his brothers this the snitch gets a gift yeah that doesn't go over well yeah so dad's going to award our our kid brother for titling on us this is just getting better by the moment so he's got this uh he's got this extraordinary love for joseph and to just really kind of throw it in the face

of the other sons he he plasters all over all over joseph this coat which just screams this is my favorite even though he's even though he's the youngest or almost the youngest uh he becomes the one who is shown the favoritism i mean uh i i would think that in most households it would be uh either the firstborn or at least one of the older brothers who is the one who is in charge the one who's taking care of the other brothers so on and so forth but no here it's it's uh the one who's almost the youngest of all who's given this special privilege so the jealousy that happened between the sisters has now been transferred to their sons.

Their sons are going to be the ones who kind of bear this maternal jealousy on into their relationship with their own brothers and with their father as well. About the coat of many colors or the very colored tunic, it is mentioned one other time in Scripture. It's in 2 Samuel 13, I believe.

And there, it's a description of these special kind of robes that the the virgin daughters of royalty wore so you know maybe this was like a uh uh joseph was wearing sort of a regal tunic kind of kind of deal whatever it was the clothing was this you know neon sign that said i am the pet i'm the one that the father loves the most and not you so here's what happened his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers and so how did they react well they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms that's a pretty strong language you know we don't we don't move here from from anger

to jealousy to resentment finally then reaching hatred no it says they they saw that their father Father loved him more than all his other brothers. And so they hated him. And not only did they hate him, but, you know, sometimes we can't get along with people. We might even hate them, or at least we can't really stand to be around them. But we have to be. And so what do we do? Well, we fake it, you know.

We might pretend like, yeah, we can get along with you, at least have, you know, some sort of workable arrangement when we're around each other. We're not biting each other's heads off. But, no, they can't even speak to him. They can't even hide their contempt for Joseph. That's how serious it is. Well, it's interesting that this isn't like a perceived favoritism. So the scriptures aren't saying like, and so the brothers are like, gosh, dang it. Like, we think that dad likes Joseph more.

It seems that way. Seems that way. Yeah. So it's not like some kind of thing where that, no, no, no. Like, that is the way it is. Yeah, it's obvious. The scriptures are not denying, in fact, they're explicitly stating that, like, Jacob is, like, a horrific parent. And not only does he love one of his kids more than one of his other kids, which is kind of a no-no in parenting.

Right. Yeah, that's parenting 101. Yeah. You know, I mean, maybe when you were growing up, like, your parents would tell you, like, I love all you guys the same. Like, I love all my kids equally. uh that's not the case with jacob no he loves one of them more and uh is making it real obvious yeah you would think that the king of deception himself jacob would be a little bit better about keeping you know keeping this kind of you know uh at least in his own heart instead of making

it explicit that way being a little bit deceptive but no it's uh it's all out there he has made it abundantly clear by the uh special robe that he gives to joseph thought it was interesting that um i just noticed this that it says uh joseph sorry israel loved joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the son of his old age um now i've got a little bit of experience with this i know a lot of families and so in case anybody doesn't realize this when You've got like eight, 10, 12 kids in your family. You put your life blood into them. You make all of your mistakes.

You live by the skin of your teeth, working whatever jobs that you can to support this massive family that you have. And then you have that one last or couple kids in your older years where you've kind of established yourself. You can kind of sit back and enjoy a kid. it's almost like they're your grandkid even and you can just dole out you know love and attention and affection on them you can sit back and relax and enjoy the kid for once rather than chasing them around running around crazy you know disciplining them probably over disciplining them

being too rigid and now this one comes along and you're just like i'm tired of doing that and look at all the rest of them and how they turned out it doesn't matter what i do i'm just gonna have fun with it we're gonna be buddies well there's i imagine that's kind of a little bit what what israel does with joseph here yeah yeah me i just had this conversation with with my family was all together and uh the three older kids were talking about how much easier the three younger kids had it yeah and like and it was not and it was and it was not hypothetically it was like no no like you had it definitively easier than us three oh yeah i'm the oldest i'm the oldest of eight and i can see this extremely clearly the three youngest i mean and i i don't

feel any i'm i'm happy that like good like mom and dad kind of eased up a little bit but at the same time i always got to kind of rub it in their face like yeah um yeah i mean it's like the stories that you hear grandpa telling like all right when i was your age we walked uphill in blizzards to school both ways you know like so by the way my younger siblings also are like yeah but you remember all the stuff you put mom and dad through they are like that too so it's very exactly very similar it's like yeah well i mean i had to rebel in ways you didn't have to rebel because those rules weren't in place for you so it's a different thing man there's echoes of of jacob's familial uh dysfunction his family's dysfunction that just

kind of ripples through time and all families we've all got this going on yeah yeah that's just what i was thinking that uh it just shows how how contemporary these stories are yeah well jacob himself was was somebody who was like not liked by his dad as much as his brother and liked more by his mother than his brother was so so he doesn't have like a real good example uh set forth for how to how to raise kids it's like well pick a favorite yeah and then and then pick him up and abraham wasn't much different you know abraham had his favorite isaac who was the son of his old age so yeah i mean in every almost all these these stories we've looked at so far the parents are playing favorites one way or another it's maybe more pronounced and in the case of jacob

but it was the same with his father and his grandfather yeah there's just there's not a lot of there's not a solid self-sacrificial loving compassionate family example that these guys can look back on it's almost like all these guys are sinners it's almost like that yeah it's almost like that. And I've often referred to the stories about these families as Norman Rockwell's nightmare. I really think that's an appropriate description of this because, you know, this is anything but kind of the idealized Eden-like family atmosphere that a lot of people sometimes envision is in the Bible itself. It usually means they don't know anything about the Bible because it's quite the opposite i mean if you if you want to see if you want to see sin and all of its

grotesqueness usually all you have to do is look inside a family that's where that's where it comes out most of the time because i i think and i think the reason that is is because uh when people are are outside of their families you know at work or church or wherever wherever they are outside a family situation sometimes they force themselves to act appropriately or to speak appropriately but then when they get home they drop that guard and they're who they really are and so you you see a lot of times the the ugly side of people as well as the non-ugly side of people but you see the ugly side of people displayed a lot of times in families because they're they're not outside pretending they're somebody else they're who they really are which

which is sinners. And so we see some of the worst examples of what sin does to us inside families, not outside, not outside families. And so families end up being the exact opposite of what God designed them to be. You know, Joseph was like running up to his brothers, like, guys, guys, check out this coat.

Oh, yeah. And his brothers are like, bro, I'm going to choke you out with that coat. i'm gonna i'm gonna rip it up and make it into a noose we'll see how you like it then well it gets worse because okay he's got the coat on uh his brothers already know that dad likes him more than more than them he's already brought back bad bad report about them well we're gonna go for the frying pan into the fire now because uh it says that joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more yeah this is definitely this is

not like a martin luther king dream i had a dream where we were all equal no it's like the opposite of that dream yeah this is the exact opposite of this dream you gotta i don't know you gotta wonder what is joseph thinking you know he has a dream and so he he tells it to the very people that he's already given a bad report about the very people that he knows his father doesn't love as much how does he think they're going to react so anyway he says okay this is he said to them uh listen to this dream that i had and and the dream is basically a farming dream they're they're buying sheaves in the field and his chief rises up and stands erect and all of uh the other sheaves your sheaves he says his brother she's gathered around and bowed down to my chief

then his brother said to him oh that's great news we can't wait to bow down to you joseph no they uh uh it is interesting joseph doesn't even interpret the dream the brothers know immediately what the dream means so here's what they say are you actually going to reign over us are you really going to rule over us and then uh the third time hate is mentioned so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words yeah now this is a little tricky because like on the on one hand like this yes this is a prophetic dream and the answer to their question is yeah yeah he is yes he is uh which is you know really unfortunate for them uh and and fortunate when it actually comes to pass they're gonna need

that but um but yeah so but but still that's kind of a dream that you keep to yourself uh because you're basically being like check it out hey guys uh he runs up wearing his flamboyant coat and says hey guys uh just so you know your work's gonna bow down to my work that's not no man a little twinkle in his eye not that shrewd no i do think joseph grew in wisdom over the years because this was a very unwise action at this point and and um i was thinking about this this morning too that you know it's uh these dreams are prophetic to be sure but uh the understanding that that the brothers have of the dream and the understanding i'm sure that joseph has of the dream are are very incomplete because when these dreams come

to fulfillment it's it's not merely that joseph joseph's brothers are bowing down to him but you have to understand the whole context in which they're bowing down to they're bowing down to him as the one who has saved all of egypt as well as the surrounding lands by this plan to set aside grain during the seven years of famine so it's not as if they're bowing down to him as mere subjects to an overlord it's uh it the context is much much different than what they envision all they're thinking of is you know he's going to be a king over us and we're nothing more than his subjects But as it turns out, he actually ends up being the one who saves them and the one who forgives them and the one who ends up bringing them and their father and the whole clan down into Egypt so that they might have land and crops and so on and so forth. So at this point, anyway, in the story, I'm getting ahead of myself, but at this point in the story, they have a completely incomplete understanding of what these dreams actually mean.

And Joseph himself does. All Joseph knows is what he dreamed. And so probably in his young 17-year-old mind, he's thinking the same thing the brothers are. Hey, that's going to be cool because, I mean, I already had this coat, and I'm really going to have a crown later, and all these brothers of mine are going to bow down to me, and I'll be their ruler. Better go tell them about it. Yeah, I better go tell them about it, because I'm sure they need to know this. They'll be really happy for me. Yeah.

And then we have another dream. Just keep moving here. He had another dream, and it's similar to the first one, except this time. And he tells it to his brothers, it says. This time, the sun and the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to him. And so he tells it to his brothers and to his father. and uh his father rebukes him his father's his father's not too happy about about the dream or about uh joseph telling them the dream he says what's this dream you've had shall i and your

mother and your brothers actually come actually come to bow ourselves before you to the ground and we have this interesting verse added after that it says and his brothers were jealous of him but his father kept the saying in mind so it was in the back of his mind you know his dad rebukes him but there's i suspect because of jacob's own experience uh there's this little voice in the back of his head that uh is saying hmm i wonder if there might be something to this who knows but we have different reactions from uh the father and from and from the brothers i'm kind of surprised that joseph i mean that jacob himself wasn't happy about it because after all joseph is his father's his father's favorite maybe that's why i mean that's why he like kind of kept a

little bit he has to rebuke him a little bit because maybe even jacob even though he makes the dumb move of giving him the coat knows that hey sharing this dream is not that prudent yeah maybe so yeah he's trying to mollify his other sons right he probably he's got to realize that uh they're uh they're angry that uh maybe he realizes that they hate joseph and so he's got to do something to kind of put the brakes on this before before it gets uh it's too far now there is also this um kind of ragging on jacob and joseph here too but then there is the reverse which does show our inability to be uh it shows it shows how jealous of creature we are too yeah because you do have his brothers who well they do hate him which is obviously a problem and you know

sometimes joseph jacob has to be like somewhat to blame for the way joseph is because if he's been if he's been favored since birth well a spoiled brat is a spoiled brat because he's been spoiled right yeah yeah so uh and so you know jacob is definitely played he's built that he's made this bed right and uh and so his brothers though don't they're not able to sort of divide that up and realize like okay so our brother is like he's kind of a punk but he's also a product of our our dad sort of favoring him forever but instead they do what we always do and it's they get jealous and hateful and and that's that's what sinners do and so it's like man he has they get he has that coat i don't so you got you got envy and covetousness going on there and like i'm not

bowing down to you you little twerp uh it's all all of that all of that kind of stuff so there's the whole thing is just like this mangled mess where where jacob favors joseph and this turns him into sort of this this guy that can't that doesn't understand why everyone doesn't just love him that much i mean he must be i must be so great i mean that's the that's the impression i get of joseph is that he's like i'm just really lovable you know and uh and and maybe he's even confused like why don't my brothers recognize my awesomeness you know and uh and his brothers are like why don't you recognize that there's you know that there's a bunch there's there's 12 of us and that you're you're a real pain in the neck yeah yeah it's a royal mess

yeah i mean there's nobody comes out of this comes out of this clean it's a good illustration too of of the fact that jealousy is almost always uh self-interested i mean there is there is a jealousy which is interested in the other uh you know if uh if i'm jealous for my wife that means i want to stand up for her uh i want her to uh not be not be uh harmed in any way or led astray or whatever it is and so i protect her i watch out for her there is a a true godly jealousy in that respect but but uh most of the jealousy that we experience is completely self-interesting it revolves around nothing more than simply i i i don't want to be hurt i want what's best i want what's best for me i will not be uh uh i'm gonna be ashamed i will not be taken advantage of

so on and so forth and so that kind of jealousy is uh usually interested in nothing more than the protection of self which uh is exactly what we have going on the case of the brothers here they're jealous of joseph because they're interested in what he has i mean there's there's none of them who would not want what joseph had they'd be great if if their father they love them more it'd be great if he'd have given them the coat of many colors it'd be great if they are they're the ones that have these dreams and because that doesn't happen to them but it does happen to their brother they're they're jealous of him yeah no i don't think his brothers are being like listen we're angry because we're all about equality here yeah we

just we just all want to be equally loved by by dad that's what we really want no we we all want what joseph what joseph has talk about a messed up family that's what we uh that's what we got here how much time do we have left here uh about oh we got about five minutes all right okay i think we can uh we can we cover another little section here before we run out of time which it's kind of interesting so uh i don't know how much uh jacob realized what was going on actually uh because of what he does next uh if he was fully cognizant of the hatred that his sons felt for joseph i don't think that he would have done what he did next because the brothers take the flocks down to shechem uh which we've heard about before that's where simeon and levi wiped out the

male population after they had him circumcised so we're familiar with shechem so the brothers take the flock down to the area of shechem to shepherd them and uh jacob says to joseph he says look your brothers are taking care of the flocks and shechem and i'm going to send you i'm going to send you down there i'm gonna send you to them and uh he said he said i'll go he says go uh go see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock and bring word back to me of course he could trust on joseph to do that because he showed his willingness willingness to do that earlier so uh so anyway he goes uh he sends him uh from the valley of hebron and he goes to shechem and this is a a small detail in story but i've always found it uh interesting i'm in

verse 15 it says uh so he gets down there and it says a man found him just a man a man found him and he was wandering in the field joseph was and the man asked him what are you looking for and joseph said i'm looking for my brothers please tell me where they are pasturing the flock and the man said they've moved from here for i heard them say let us go to dothan and so joseph went after his brothers and found them at dothan now uh dan you mentioned earlier that you know there's when the scriptures give details it's always significant because they're sparse on details most of the time and uh so we have these few verses here we have and this anonymous stranger who just shows up while joseph is wandering in a field and who just happens to

have overheard where joseph's brothers have moved their flock to so joseph is just you know okay wandering around aimlessly in his field and a stranger comes up to him and says oh yeah those guys yeah i was close enough to overhear where they were going and the reason i found this interesting is because i think this is a great example of uh one example in this story of how god is kind of behind the scenes who is who is guiding these events even though to the human participants and even to some extent to us who are reading the story it's hidden from us because he sends this anonymous guy to find joseph wandering in a field to send him the way the place that uh that he needs to go it's really exemplary of so many details that we're going to

see as we as we go through the life of joseph where things which are seemingly inconsequential or things which are blatantly negative all in some way fall into the divine plan that god has to bring joseph and then later all of israel down into egypt it's just a great thing to keep in mind too that you know in the uh in the confusion of our daily lives with all the stuff that happens to us some of it just quite mundane some of it some of it uh significant that uh it's often hidden from our eyes just how god is at work to use people and events to finally bring about what he uh what he what he desires for us it's a great example of how god is is hidden in these in these seemingly meaningless details of daily life in some way to point us in the

direction that he wants us to go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I read that and I'm like, angel, maybe. Yeah.

Maybe not. Just saying, just saying. Maybe so. I mean, we have plenty of other cases where, you know, a man appears and it's actually,

actually an angel. Yeah. No, this is a, yeah, this is a divine setup. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Clearly. Yeah. He's dude is being set up. He's leading him to the brothers, and then into the pit, and then finally into Egypt. So God's working this out, even though Joseph has absolutely no idea that it's happening to him. Yeah. And dude, that's it. Our time.

Our time. We didn't get far, but we see the divine stage being set. Joseph's being set up by God. God's giving him dreams and sending him messengers to get him down to a bunch of hacked off brothers and next week

we will see exactly how they respond and as you can imagine it's with much grace and forbearance so hey Christ Hold Fast is listening to supported stuff if you enjoy this podcast or any other stuff we do you can go over to

ChristHoldFast.org and go to the support page or the giving page. You can make a donation, one-time donation or a reoccurring donation, and that would help us out. Thank you so much to those of you who have done that. Christ Old Fast City events. We've got one in New York coming up

June 11th. That's coming up soon. And we've got one in Dallas on October 29th. For more information on those events, they're cheap. They're one day. They're all day, and they're jam-packed, and you'd want to be there if you're anywhere around those two areas. You can go over to ChristOldFast.org and get more information

about that. Alright, we're out of time, so we will see you guys next week.