The Lord of the Dreams

What is God doing? It’s a question we ask from time to time, and what we are really asking is how do we find out? How does God speak today?

 

Joseph’s life is about to take a radical turn. God is about to reveal the reason why everything has gone the way that it has and give another generation deep confidence in his ability to work through all circumstances, including through some rare means.

 

Central to this passage are these two dreams of Pharaoh and Joseph’s ability, with God’s help, to reveal the interpretations of them. We will see this pop up again in the Old Testament when we get to the prophet Daniel of Lion’s Den fame. These are the only two occasions where we will see a Hebrew practice dream interpretation, so this is a rare moment in Scripture (Matthews). Both times are strange visions with no real obvious interpretation. We know that God can speak very clearly, even with pagan rulers, through dreams. We have even seen that in Genesis when God warns Abimelech in a dream not to touch Sarah, Abraham’s wife: Genesis 20:3 “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” No ambiguity there, huh? God was able to protect Sarah even when Abraham wasn’t.

 

So why not just do that here with Joseph? Couldn’t God have intervened on Joseph’s behalf through a very clear dream like that to Pharaoh? Couldn’t he have just spoken to Pharaoh plainly about a famine coming and, oh by the way, you need to use Joseph as your administrator? He could have. So why? Let’s explore that as we tackle our main point today: God’s control is comprehensive, and God’s control is good