Genesis 40 Series, Part 9, Verses 5-8

Hello, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #9 in Genesis 40, and we will read Genesis 40:5-8:

And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to day? And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.

We have been looking at this account concerning the butler and the baker that had been cast into prison. They were officers of Pharaoh, the chief of the butlers and the chief of the bakers. They each had a dream in the same night, and the dreams caused them sorrow. They were sad, and Joseph asked of them, “Wherefore look ye so sadly to day?” They said they were sad because there was no interpreter, and Joseph pointed out that interpretations belong to God, and indicated that he could interpret their dreams.

So what is this talking about? We always have to remember that this is the Bible, not some secular worldly history book telling us about historical events. Every historical event we read of in the Bible is, of course, actual history, and it did happen the way the Bible described it, but that is not the Bible’s main purpose. The purpose of the Bible is to teach the spiritual truths of God, the deeper spiritual meaning. We know that Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak, and Christ is the Word made flesh – we cannot separate Christ from the Word. So all scripture is profitable for doctrine, and doctrine is finding the spiritual meaning. Then we are taught and we learn. Otherwise, we would be just biblical “history buffs,” just like so many history buffs in the world that are interested in the history of the Old West or the history of the Civil War. As biblical history, it still would be far more profitable than any secular history, but my point is that there are much more abundant riches that are hidden in the history. Please read Galatians 4:22 to the end of the chapter where God moved the Apostle Paul to speak of Abraham’s two wives, Sarah and Hagar, and God says that these things are an allegory, or parable, and these women spiritually represent the two covenants. And yet if you read the historical account in the Old Testament, God did not say that these two women were an allegory that represented the two covenants, and yet that was the spiritual meaning. But if you follow the hermeneutics of the churches, you will pass right over the spiritual meaning and miss it because their hermeneutic is not a biblical hermeneutic, and it empties the Bible of its glory and its power and its spiritual truths.

But here the dreams are taking center stage, and the big focus is on these dreams. Joseph had dreamed dreams concerning his brothers and his parents. And soon Pharaoh will have dreams, and Joseph will be called out of prison to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. The Lord completely involved Joseph with dreams beginning in his early life, and now while he is in prison, and later when he is called out of prison. And the rest of his life is a result of the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream regarding the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine that followed. It caused Pharaoh to lift Joseph up and make him second in command in all Egypt, and it changed his whole life. So dreams are very important in the Bible, and we do know that God used dreams as another mode of delivering divine revelation.

God could simply speak audibly to His servant the prophets to give them His Word, or He could cause them to have a vision like He did with Ezekiel. In the book of Isaiah we read in Isaiah 1:1:

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

The whole book of Isaiah was a vision from God, and yet it is scripture because it was a way that God would bring divine revelation. God revealed these things to Isaiah through visions, as well as with some other prophets.

In Joseph’s case, it was through dreams. Not only that, but God gave Joseph the ability to interpret dreams, and he would interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker, and later the dreams of Pharaoh. This is an interesting sidenote, but often God gave dreams to people who were not saved, like Pharaoh and King Nebuchadnezzar, and Abimelech of the Philistines, which we read about in Genesis 20. In the case of the butler and baker, it is probable that neither of them were truly saved. It is possible that the butler was saved, but that is also unlikely because we are dealing with the Old Testament, and very few people were saved at that time. But the butler (or any unsaved individual) could be used as a type and figure of Christ or of the elect children of God. The baker gave every indication of being an unsaved man. The interpretation of his dream was not a good thing for him. It was an interpretation that he was going to soon die.

But what do these dreams represent? Why is God moving in the lives of these unsaved people, causing them to dream a particular dream? It is written in the Bible, and it is inspired, and all scripture is given by inspiration of God. God moved holy men of old to pen His words. But when wicked men would receive a dream of God and it was recorded in the Bible, that dream came from God.

By the way, this is something I just noticed here. Notice the statement in Genesis 40:5:

If we read that carefully, we see that each man had a dream in the same night, and they had similar dreams that had to do with the number “3,” and they also had a similar experience in that they dreamed a very intense dream that troubled them. But notice that it says, “each man according to the interpretation of his dream.” Or to say it another way, each man dreamed a dream according to the interpretation of his dream. What does that mean? They did not have an interpretation of their dreams yet. Joseph had not yet arrived and noticed their sadness, and he had not yet offered any interpretation. So why are we told they dreamed a dream according to the interpretation of their dream? I think there is a very significant answer, but we are going to look at that later.

Right now we want to look at the dreams. What do dreams in the Bible represent? What is the importance of dreams? Let us start with Jeremiah 23:25-28:

I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith JEHOVAH.

Then it says in Jeremiah 23:30-32:

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith JEHOVAH, that steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith JEHOVAH, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith JEHOVAH, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith JEHOVAH.

God is speaking of prophets that prophesy false dreams. They prophesy lies in His name. In what way do they tell people that they have a message from God? They say, “I have dreamed.” The Old Testament people of God had a definite problem due to the fact that God was breaking the barrier of the supernatural. He was coming to certain men and giving them a dream, just as He did with Joseph or Daniel. He also came to certain men and gave them a vision like He did with Isaiah, and God spoke with certain men like Moses. These things were being done as God was compiling the Bible in generation after generation. The nation of Israel was God’s outward representation of the kingdom of God on earth at that time, but the Jewish people had the problem of discerning whether God had actually come to a man and given him a dream. As the prophet would declare it, it was divine, and it was written down and became part of scripture. But the people had to determine whether it was truly Word from God, or was it a false message? They had the same problem we have in that there were many false prophets.

In our day we are greatly helped because God completed the Bible by the end of the first century A. D. It was completed from Genesis through Revelation, a total of 66 books, and there would be nothing more. With the last chapter of the last book, the Lord gave us this statement in Revelation 22:18:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

Whoever dared to add to the Word of the Bible would come under the wrath of God, the Author of the Bible. In essence, what God did in Revelation 22:18 at the close of the volume of the book was to “set a seal upon the Bible.” Do not add to or subtract from God’s holy Word. It was complete and it was to be received as God’s divine communication to man. When God finished the Bible He ceased all supernatural activity in bringing divine revelation. We are now in the 21^st Century, and ever since God finish the Bible in the 1^st Century, He would never again come with divine revelation outside of the Bible. And yet people say, “I have had a dream. This is what God told me.” And this is not only false, but it is lethal. It is deadly. God did not give them His Word in a dream, but they dreamed it because they had something on their mind that they were trying to work out in their subconscious, but it had nothing to do with God. They may have read the Bible, or they could have heard someone preaching, so in their dream there may have been biblical context or ideas, but that was not from God. God only communicates with us through the Bible.

Likewise, some people might say, “I had a vision. The Lord gave me a wonderful vision! Let me tell you about it.” But our response should be, “No thank you. Keep your vision to yourself because it was not from God.” The only one who is still working in this manner in the supernatural realm is Satan, and Satan comes as an angel of light, trying to imposter Christ. He may come with context that appears godly, and he may even use scripture. And yet for the elect child of God, the answer is, “No. I do not want to hear it. I have the Bible. I have all I need, so do not tell me about your dream or vision.”

And the same is true if someone comes speaking in tongues. For a short time in the early church at Corinth the Lord brought divine revelation through “tongues.” God really set that up as a trap and end time snare for the carnal lusts of the apostate church at the end of time, and they ran after “tongues.” And 1Corinthians 14 tells us that tongues were a sign not for those that believe but for those that believe not. In other words, it is a sign of an unbeliever like “falling over backwards,” and “holy laughter.” These things are often fake as people just see others doing this, and they raise their hands and mumble something. But if it is truly supernatural, it is of Satan, one hundred percent of the time, and they are in violation of Revelation 22:18. It is only the Bible that is legitimate. It is the “still small voice.” It may not seem very exciting or dramatic, and yet we read of glorious, exciting and dramatic things in the Bible like the parting of seas, water coming from a rock, or David slinging a stone to slay a giant. We read of all these great events, and we know the power and glory of God. So for some people, they want some of that excitement and drama. And yet God’s plan for the New Testament era when He would save a vast majority of His elect was relatively dull and quiet. During the New Testament church age, it was often just sitting in a pew and following along in the Bible as the pastor was preaching. And after the end of the church age, it was the same thing as God used the electronic medium to bring the Gospel outside of the churches. It basically still studying the Word of God from the Bible, a divine and holy book that we can hold in our hands. Nothing “jumps off the page,” and there is no movement of the cloud or pillars of fire, but it is a “still small voice.” And yet it is a powerful voice filled with greatness. It truly is a glorious thing when God opens the eyes of a sinner to the spiritual depth of meaning and the incredible wisdom and knowledge of God.

And yet when the people of the world come to the Bible, they yawn. It is boring to them. It is dull. It is not fleshly or carnal. It is so slow to this “instant pudding” society. “Give me what I want right now! I can click here, or click there!” So professed Christians that entered into the churches perverted the Gospel and changed it to something more suitable to the carnal desires of a spiritually dead sinner. They wanted something they could “see” and experience. They can see people jumping around, and they brought in rock music. They wanted more excitement. But it is all the working of Satan, and not the working of God. God works with His people using the methodology He has wisely chosen, and it is something that does not appeal to the flesh but to the spirit.

When we get together next time, we will look more at what the Bible says about dreams. We saw that false prophets use dreams to support their false prophesies, and we will understand this a little better in our next Bible study.