EVERY WORD and PROMISE was FULFILLED
-by David Wilkerson (2011).
Joseph was in one of his darkest hours—lonely, downcast, about to give up his dreams, questioning his place in God. Suddenly, the call came from one of the king's guards: "Joseph! Get cleaned up— Pharaoh is calling for you!"
In that moment, I believe the Spirit of God came mightily upon Joseph and his heart leapt with excitement. He was about to understand what it was all about!
As Joseph shaved and trimmed his hair, he probably thought, "This is the beginning of what God promised me. Now I know I heard from him! The devil has not been in control and my life hasn't been wasted. God has been directing everything the entire time!"
In a matter of minutes, Joseph was standing before Pharaoh, listening to his dream. Joseph gave the interpretation of the coming famine and told Pharaoh he had to gather and store the nation's grain: "Someone must be in charge of the storehouses. You have to find a man who's full of wisdom to oversee it all" (see Genesis 4l).
Pharaoh looked around and then turned toward Joseph: "You! Joseph! I appoint you second ruler. Only I will have more power in the kingdom than you. You will oversee it all!"
How quickly things had changed! The day came when Joseph stood before his brothers and was able to say: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Genesis 50:20).
"God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to
Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt" (45:7-8).
Dear saint, very soon you're going to understand your present fiery trials. God is going to bring you into the promise he gave you and suddenly it's all going to make sense. You'll see that he has never forsaken you. He had to take you this way, for he has been training you, preparing you, teaching you to trust him for everything. He has planned a time for you to be used—and that time is just ahead!
JOSEPH's GREATEST TRIAL was THE WORD of GOD!
"He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant . . . until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him" (Psalm 105:17, 19). Joseph was tested and tried in many ways but his greatest trial was the word he had received!
Consider everything Joseph endured: At only seventeen, he was stripped down and cast into a pit to starve to death. His cold-hearted brothers laughed at his pleas for mercy and sold him to Ishmaelite traders who took him by caravan to an Egyptian slave market and sold him as a common slave.
Yet Joseph's greatest trial wasn't his rejection by his brothers or even the human indignity of being made into a slave or being cast into prison. No—what confused and tried Joseph’s spirit was the clear word he had heard from God!
God had revealed to Joseph through dreams that he would be given great authority that he would use for God's glory. His brothers would bow before him and he would be a great deliverer of many people.
I do not believe any of this was an ego trip for Joseph. His heart was so set on God that this word gave him a humble sense of destiny: "Lord, you have put your hand on me to have a part in your great, eternal plan.” Joseph was blessed just by knowing he would play an important role in bringing God's will to pass! But the circumstances in Joseph's life were just the opposite of what God had put in his heart. He was the servant—he had to bow! How could he believe that he would one day deliver multitudes when he was a slave himself? He must have thought, "This doesn't make sense. How could God be ordering my steps into prison, into oblivion? God said I was going to be blessed but he didn't tell me this was going to happen!"
For ten years Joseph faithfully served in Potiphar's house but in the end he was misjudged and lied about. His victory over temptation with Potiphar's wife only landed him in jail. During such times he must have pondered the awful questions: "Did I hear correctly? Did my pride invent these dreams? Could my brothers have been right? Maybe all these things are happening to me as discipline for some kind of selfish desire.”
Beloved, there have been times when God has shown me things he has wanted for me—ministry, service, usefulness—yet every circumstance was the very opposite of that word. At such times I thought, "Oh, God, this can't be you speaking; it must be my flesh,"
I was being tried by God's word to me but God has given us his promises and we can trust them, all of them!
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