Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #10 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:5-8:

And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

In our last study, we saw the link between a “dreamer of dreams” and prophets.  God connects the two in several Scriptures.  And we also understand that Joseph is a type of Christ in the first instance, but he can also be a picture of a true elect child of God, or representing the elect children of God.

We find that his brethren hated him.  To begin with, they hated him because he was favored by their father.  In this case Jacob would be a picture of God, and we could say that God does have different types of children.  God created Adam, and we read of Adam that he was a “son of God” in Luke’s genealogy.  So God created mankind in general, and all human beings are children of God based on the fact that they are descendants of Adam who was created as a son of God.

But among all mankind, God has chosen certain ones to save.  He granted them His grace, and they have obtained his favor, and these are called His elect.  They were chosen before the foundation of the world, and it is this group of people that are the “few,” the smallest number out of the whole of mankind.  God determined to save them specifically, and He laid their sins upon the Lord Jesus at the foundation of the world, and Christ paid for those sins only.  God has loved them with an everlasting love because the Lord’s atoning work took place in eternity past.  The Father loved these elect children more than he loved mankind, like Adam, who was created from the dust of the ground.  More than that, mankind’s fall into sin provoked God to anger, and it resulted in God’s Law pronouncing the judgment of death upon them.

So this was the situation for this biblical family, a true historical family that lived thousands of years ago.  God has recorded these things for our benefit, and in that family there was a man Joseph whom God had chosen unto salvation, and this is pictured by Jacob’s preference for Joseph.  Jacob favored Joseph.  Remember what it said in Genesis 37:3:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

Now this is “bad parenting” as we would look at it today.  We try to show no favoritism among our children.  But spiritually there is a reason that Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his other children because Joseph was a great type of Christ, as well as a child of God himself.

So his brethren saw this: “And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.”  So it does not go unnoticed that God has love, favor, and grace toward an individual.  He has a preference for that person, and of course that would be the case because the Lord Jesus shed His blood for them: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” and that was done for the few elect people.  It was not done for the many that are unsaved because their sins were never paid for, and the unsaved of the world can perceive this in various ways, especially when a saved person lives among them in a close situation such as the same family, or at the same job.  When God saves someone, He gives that person a new heart and a new spirit, and the individual begins to do the will of God.  In a spiritual way, he produces a light within that shines, while those around him in the home or workplace are in the darkness of sin, and the darkness of the world.  So even a little ‘light” can be noticed, but when someone lives faithfully in accordance with the Word of God, the light can really shine forth, and people will begin to notice the difference.  They cannot help but notice the difference when a true child of God is in the midst of a group where the rest of the people are not God’s people.

And it appears that was the case with Joseph among his brethren.  I do not think that means we are saying that all the other sons of Israel remained unsaved except for Joseph.  Maybe later on God did save one, or two, of them, but as far as this picture is concerned, I think we could say they were not saved at this time, and Joseph brought their evil report back to their father.  That was the first reason they hated Joseph because they could perceive that through the action of their father in giving Joseph the coat of many colours, and, perhaps, in many other things.  Their father loved Joseph more than he loved them, and that made them angry.  They were envious of something that they did not have, and that is their father’s love that was shown in this deep kind of way.

Secondly, Joseph dreamed a dream.  Again, we saw that this was spiritually equivalent to prophesying in Deuteronomy 13:1-5, where God said, “If there be a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams…”  He said this three times.  So Joseph was prophesying, and that is why it says in Genesis 37:8:

…And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

The dreams were spoken.  They were declared, and they were as prophecy coming from God.  This was divine revelation that was delivered to Joseph, and Joseph spoke it.  He prophesied, and as a result they hated him more.  We can understand that they were hating Joseph for his dream, and this dream sequence was revealed, as it says in Genesis 37:7:

For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.

To “make obeisance” means to “bow down.”  They were in submission to Joseph’s sheaf, and he was supreme and above them, meaning that they were servants to Joseph.  It was very humbling to them.  They were proud men, and that is the nature of the sinner – he is proud in his heart.  And the nature of the Word of God is to humble man, and to bring him down, and to show man that he is not the one who is in charge of everything.  Man is not God.  God is God, so God speaks His Word, and man sees his true place; he is a little creature, a finite being.  And more than that, he is a fallen creature in rebellion against God.  The wrath of God is upon him.  God had a salvation program, but the Saviour was Christ, and man must be broken and humble before Him, and God had to do the saving, and so forth.  The Word of God consistently comes against the proud and arrogant heart of man, and brings it low.  This is unacceptable to the sinner, and this is why he flees from it and tries to get away from it.  If that is not possible, he will show hatred toward it.

And these men represented the nation of Israel, the outward representation of God’s kingdom on earth, and they represent the (unsaved) people who populate the churches and congregations who, for whatever reason, came into the churches.  Maybe it was through family ties, or they heard a false gospel, which is darkness, and which does not deliver the “light” that is offensive to them.  So they entered in under these circumstances, but when the light of truth reached them somehow and the true Word of God was declared, they heard the prophesy.  They heard things like the church age has ended, and judgment had begun at the house of God, and all must depart out.  But this was unacceptable to them, and there was very negative response to those who would bring that message, or any message that is true to the Bible. 

For example, there is the message of election, a wonderful and beautiful and glorious message that the Bible lays out, but it is reviled, dismissed, and spoken against by the multitude in the free will gospel churches.  The truth is always rejected by men, and this prompts the hatred of men toward those that identify with the truth.

That was Joseph’s situation.  God had given him the dream.  We are not told the exact circumstances of how he received the dream, but we read in Genesis 37:5:

And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren…

So what would normally have happened was that he went to sleep, and he had a dream.  It made an impression on him because it was not an ordinary dream.  This was a dream from God, and we know that without any doubt because it is in the Bible.  So he had a dream that God gave him.  It was divinely inspired, and he could not just “keep it in,” and hold it back.  So he good-naturedly, kindly, and lovingly told his brethren, and he probably told them with much excitement.  Can you imagine having God communicate with you in a dream?  So he told it to his brethren, and we read, “…and they hated him yet the more.”  We read that at the beginning of verse 5, and then we read it again in Genesis 37:8: “And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.”  But Joseph told them the dream, accurately and faithfully.  He did not alter the dream.  He probably would have noticed that as he was beginning to speak they were “rolling their eyes,” or doing things to let him know they did not want to hear it.  But he spoke it, and he did not hide any part of it.  He told it in full.  “This is the dream.”  And the impact upon them is seen in Genesis 37:8:

And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?

Should Joseph have known how they would receive it?  Yes.  “For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.”  Surely he would have understood that.  Joseph was not dumb in any way, and he could see how it would be perceived, but he said it anyway because that was the dream.  One does not alter or change the Word of God to make it more palatable, more kind, or more gentle.  One does not put it a different way so as not to offend.  We are not to do those things with the Word of God.  “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.” (Jer.23:28)   That is the mark, or the sign, of a true prophet.  And when I say, “true prophet,” it means any of God’s true people that speak forth the Word of God. 

What you look for in a true prophet is the one who tells the whole truth, and as much as he knows of the truth, to anyone who will listen.  He will share it to all.  When we say, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” or when we say, “The church age is over, and the Spirit of God has departed out of it, and Satan entered in;” or when we say, “The door of salvation is shut, and the light of the Gospel is out,” we know that among the listeners are many who will hear words of condemnation, and words that judge them, or indicate God’s displeasure toward them.  But that is what we are told to do, and that is what we must do.  That is what God’s people do when they share the Gospel, the truth of the Word of God in its proper time and season.