THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

   Sometimes I wonder who is more miserable, the atheist or the rebellious, religious person. I will choose the rebellious religious person over the atheist any day! In our reading today we read about the brothers of Joseph still tormented in their minds for the sin they committed against their brother. Everything negative that happens in their lives is attributed to "God getting them back". This is how the religious person lives, they know enough religion to drive them crazy. They know enough to realize that they are not living right and because of that, everything negative that happens is of course God getting them back. At least the Atheist convinces himself (or tries) that there is no God and therefore bad events in life are either bad luck, bad karma or just life. If Joseph was 13 when he was sold into slavery by his brothers and now Joseph is 30 yrs old ruling in Egypt, that is 17 yrs (is my math right???) since their great sin. Imagine 17 yrs of every time somethin...

  There's a two step process here with Joseph. Joseph names his first son Manasseh "God has made me forget all my toil and all my Father's house". Joseph was devout to God, but that can lead us to believe that Joseph was above bad situations affecting him. And now we see that is not true, Joseph was hurt and affected by what went on back home. Second, he names his second son Ephraim, "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction". The land of my affliction, once again Joseph admits that it has been a rough and miserable time in Egypt, but yet we would never gather that by his attitude and faithfulness to God. Joseph brings up another key point that we should not miss and that is; that in the midst of our place, land, city or circumstance of affliction, if we keep our hearts right in our land of affliction we can say and testify as Joseph, "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction". Something beautiful can be born (figuratively...

  We've heard it before I'm sure, but it is worth repeating...."if God was with Joseph why is he in jail, if God was with Joseph why was he falsely accused in the 1st place". I remember visiting a church from another fellowship one time when I was on deployment in the Marine Corps. After service we had a fellowship and it was brought to my attention that the man that had preached that night was not their Pastor, apparently their Pastor was in Jail! He was in jail for some trumped up charges for sexual abuse. The church members were confident that their Pastor would be vindicated and all charges dropped. I kept my mouth shut, but I thought, "helloooooo....dummies, if he was innocent why would God have even allowed it to go that far, they are in for a rude awakening when they find out he's guilty". In my mind, God would never allow something like that to prevail against one of his sons or daughters, but was I wrong? Joseph is in jail, falsely accused of ra...

   It's hard to find much fault in Joseph. He is one of the stellar examples of Godliness, in the Bible. But here, in Joseph's youth, we see some flaws or perhaps naivety. It makes you wonder what would have prompted Joseph to share these dreams with his brothers; dreams that depicted his brothers would one day be serving him. Joseph already knew that his brothers were not all that favorable towards him, how could he think for one moment, that sharing these dreams would help matters? And we know, as he should have known, but apparently didn't or didn't care; that it would only make matters worse between them. And not only does Joseph do this once, but twice! Perhaps Joseph felt some animosity of his own, towards his brothers. What other reason would Joseph tell his brothers that he had a dream and they were bowing down to him? Our text tells us that "even his father scolded him, "what kind of dream is this, will we be bowing down to you?", his father asks...

    We know that the 1st altar is built on man's own initiation. It's interesting to see God now using a good thing. He tells Jacob go back to Bethel and build an Altar there. God understands "altars" are a good thing! A modern day name for an altar, a secular name for an altar is...."memorial". A memorial is a secular altar. It is a lesson, a remembrance in life that we never want to forget. However life's lessons should have God involved...I digress, so God encourages Jacob to go back, back to the place God met him. This proves that there are times in a believers life that their faith is dimming, struggling  and puttering away and God says, these altars, they are a good thing, go back to them. Build them and remember where I have met you and what I have done for you in the past and let that memorial, spiritual reference point, ALTAR, encourage you into the future. Notice verse 16 "Then they moved on from Bethel".   God brought Jacob back here...

   Not the results you anticipated or wanted? Oh well, to bad!  If you and I were God we would manipulate results to be what we wanted them to be. We would never look bad and everything we did would succeed. Every outreach would yield incredible results and everyone would always respond to our preaching. Nobody would tell us "no" and certainly nobody would "reject" us. But here is God in the flesh and he allows himself to be rejected. Jesus gives his very best outreach and the response is slim to nothing! Clearly not the “anticipated” results Jesus had wanted, but yet, He lets them be what they are.  I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't accept minimal results, at the cost of all my efforts, plus it makes me look bad, so add that in the mix. It is clear that Jesus is not at all thrilled about the results of his evangelistic efforts in Capernaum and Bethsaida. Jesus even performed miracles, yet they do not respond.  My ego would not have been able to handle this. ...