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Hello everyone and welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want

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to share with you sermons that inspire and encourage you in your faith journey, as together

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we are learning to love Jesus, live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus. Now this is episode

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two of our sermon series, Live in the Dream, and today Rob Perkmans will be with us where

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we are continuing our journey through the story of Joseph and learning about how to

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manage life when life is less of a dream, but more of a nightmare. And before we begin,

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we'd like to invite you to follow our podcast, check us out on social media, and please visit

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our website at trinitystreetsville.org. Thanks so much for listening and we hope you enjoy.

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God bless.

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Good morning everyone.

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I am reading today from Genesis chapter 37 verses 12 through 36.

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Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph,

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As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send

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you to them. Very well, he replied. So he said to him, Go and see if all is well with

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your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me. Then he sent him off from

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the valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around

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in the fields and asked him, What are you looking for? He replied, I'm looking for my

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brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks? They have moved on from here,

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the man answered. I heard them say, Let's go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers

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and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance and before he reached them,

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they plotted to kill him. Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other. Come now,

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let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured

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him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue

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him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into

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this cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue

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him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they

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stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing, and they took him and threw

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him into the cistern. The cistern was empty, there was no water in it. As they sat down

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to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.

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Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take

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them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain if we kill our brother and

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cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him.

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After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. His brothers agreed. So when the

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Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold

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him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. When Reuben returned

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to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to

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his brothers and said, the boy isn't there. Where can I turn now? Then they got Joseph's

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robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back

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to their father and said, we found this, examine it and whether to see whether it is your son's

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robe. He recognized it and said, it is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured

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him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth

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and mourn for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he

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refused to be comforted. No, he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the

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grave. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Mennonites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar,

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one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. This is the word of the Lord.

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You know, when I was holding little Ainsley there this morning, I couldn't help but think

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back to the days when we used to tuck our own children into bed and how sweet it was

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just to kind of cozy them up and, and, and tuck them in and, and maybe read them a little

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story and say a prayer with them. And then, then as you walk out of the room, you turn

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off the light and you, you turn around and you say sweet dreams, sweet dreams, little

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one. You know, why do we, why do we say sweet dreams? Why do we do that? I think the reason

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is, is because we know that not all dreams are sweet and that sometimes the dreams we

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dream are actually bad dreams. Sometimes we in fact dream nightmares. And I should say

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it's not just children who struggle with dreaming nightmares. Adults as well have some really

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bad dreams with regularity. So here is a quick question to just kind of get us started. How

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many adults do you think report having a nightmare at least once a year? How many adults have

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a nightmare once a year? Take a moment, just turn to one or two people around you, try

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to think what your answer is to this question. How many adults have a nightmare once a year?

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All right, let's do a little show of hands here. How many would say A 15%? Nobody, nobody.

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How many would say B 25%? I see that hand. Thank you. Two, two of you. How many would

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say 55% just over half of us? Yep. Yep. How many would say 85%? Oh, D everybody thinks

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it's D and you know what? You're correct. It's very interesting. In fact, I'll just

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tell you some other fun facts about nightmares. And that is the women have more nightmares

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than men. And, and those over the age of 70 have more nightmares than those under the

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age of 70. And actually during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was this thing going around

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it was just called the COVID nightmare. I'm not sure what that was or what it was about.

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But if you think about it, that means if you're a woman and you're over the age of 70, then

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during the pandemic, you are probably having like nightmares every single night, you're

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probably like a nightmare machine. Right? I, when I think about nightmares, for me, I

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think there's, there's four main categories of nightmares, four kinds of nightmares. The

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first nightmare, you find yourself in a scary place, right? You're walking down a dark alley.

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You're in a haunted house or you're in a creepy basement. It was just a couple of weeks ago.

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I had a dream. I won't call it a nightmare, but I had a dream that I was in an abandoned

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asylum. Right? That's a scary place to be. I don't know what that dream meant either.

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But, but the second kind of nightmare you can have is not just that you're in a scary

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place, but you find yourself in a frightening predicament, right? Your, your car breaks

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down and you, you don't know what to do. Your, your house is on fire. Or one of the most

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common frightening predicaments is that you show up to school and you realize that you

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forgot to put on any clothes. Right? That have you, you've probably had that one, right?

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The third kind of nightmare that you can have is what might call deadly peril. You're being

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chased. You're being attacked. You're falling or you're drowning. You're drowning. And then

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the fourth kind that you can have is where you're going through some kind of agonizing

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pain. You, you're suffering an injury, illness, or even death. Some people dream dreams of

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their own death. It has been shown that the pain center of our brain can actually be activated

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during an especially vivid nightmare, which means that your nightmares can actually cause

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you to feel pain. Why does this happen? I mean, we don't have to go into all the details.

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There's a bunch of different reasons why we have nightmares, everything from stress. Some

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people say some of the diet, what we eat, medications, traumatic events. Many people

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with PTSD actually, their nightmares are just are replaying some especially traumatic events

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that they suffered earlier on in their life. Wow, Rob, you're probably saying what the

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heck? This is a kind of a creepy way to start a sermon. Why are we talking about nightmares?

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Well, the reason we're talking about nightmares is we're doing this teaching series for a

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few weeks called live in the dream, live in the dream. And of course, when you hear someone

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say I'm living the dream, what does that mean? You know, if someone said, Rob, how are you?

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And I said, I'm living the dream. What it means is I'm doing great. Life is going along

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in a great direction. Everything's happening as it should. I'm living the dream. And that's

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why we kind of had these t shirts printed and you guys got little notepads last weekend

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and all that stuff. But here's what we got to talk about today. Let's be honest. Often

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life is not a dream. And often when we think about our life is certainly not a sweet dream.

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It's more like a bad dream. And what do you do? What do you do when life actually becomes

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not a dream, but a nightmare? When you find yourself in a scary place, you're like, how

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did I end up here? I don't want to be here. Well, how did I get in this situation? Or

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you find yourself in a frightening predicament. You know, you're trapped. There's a crisis.

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You don't know which way to turn. You don't know what's coming. Or you find yourself facing

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some kind of deadly peril in your life. Maybe it's a sickness. Maybe it's the loss of a

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loved one or something like that. Or you find yourself suffering agonizing pain. When those

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things happen in our life, we are not living the dream. Instead, it's a living hell. We

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are living a nightmare. And when that happens in our life, one of the hard questions that

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comes to our mind, and I think you probably know this, is you would say, well, why is

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this happening to me? Why am I suffering this way? Whose fault is it? Is it my fault? Is

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it somebody else's fault? Is that why these things are happening to me? Or is it God's

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fault? Because listen, isn't God in control of everything? And if I'm going through this

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problem, this pain, this predicament, this peril in my life, then surely God could have

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prevented that so it doesn't the blame ultimately end up on God? Have you ever been in that

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moment in your life where you're like, God, what are you doing? What is going on? If you've

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ever been there, and I dare say most of us have, then you probably can connect really

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well with the story of Joseph. Joseph, as we learned last week, was a dreamer. He was

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a big time dreamer. But today we see how Joseph's dream descends into a nightmare. Last week

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we learned how Joseph dreamt that he was going to be a leader. He was going to be a ruler.

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Everybody was going to bow down to him. He had great dreams of grandeur. But now we see

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it's all turned into a gigantic nightmare. And it's the worst kind of nightmare because

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if you look at Joseph's story, all four types of nightmares are blended together in his

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story. In Joseph's story, you'll see he finds himself in a scary place, in a frightening

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predicament, facing deadly peril and agonizing pain. All of it coming together. It's the

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perfect storm. So we're going to look through Joseph's nightmare and see what we can learn.

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Maybe there's something we can learn here that will help us as we struggle through our

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own bad dreams, the bad dreams of our life. Let's start with the very first piece of his

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nightmare. Joseph finds himself in a very scary place. What do I mean by that? Well,

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let's read the text again here. It says, now his brothers have gone to graze their flocks

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near Shechem. And Jacob, Joseph's father, said, Joseph, as you know, the boys are down there.

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They're grazing the flocks near Shechem. So I want you to go down. I want to send you

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down there. Now, let's just get a little context here. Actually, Jacob was world famous rancher.

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He was a world famous shepherd. His flocks grew and grew and grew so much so that he

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couldn't even keep all the sheep and goats in that valley in Hebron anymore. So we had

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to start sending the flocks to different places to graze. And one of the places he ends up

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sending them is 50 miles down the road to a place called Shechem. And ladies and gentlemen,

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I want to tell you Shechem was a very, very scary place. Let me tell you why. Years earlier,

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when Joseph's family had been traveling by Shechem, the men of Shechem raped Joseph's

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sister Dinah. You can read about that earlier on in Genesis. It was a horrible, horrible

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thing. It caused great anguish everywhere. But two of Joseph's brothers say, we're going

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to take matters into our own hands. And so one night, you know what they did? They drew

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their swords and they slipped into the village of all the Shechemites and they slipped the

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throats of all of the men. At least the Bible tells us all of the men of Shechem. They killed

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them all. It was an absolute bloodbath. And when, and when the father realized what these

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two sons had done, they were like, do you realize what you've done? This is very, very

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dangerous for us now because there's so many Shechemites and they have friends and they

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have neighbors and they all team up against us. We're done for. We're totally outnumbered.

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So Joseph and his brothers and his father, they all had to gather up and they had to

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scoot out of Shechem and go find another place to live. And, and you got to believe, you

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got to believe the Shechemites had never forgotten that moment. Surely they're still furious

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with Jacob and his boys for what they did. Surely they're looking for revenge. And so

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when dad says, Hey Joseph, I'd like you to go on a long journey, 50 miles from here alone

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as a 17 year old boy, I want you to go alone to Shechem. I imagine Joseph kind of went

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gulp, right? Because this is the stuff nightmares are made of. If it were me, I would have said,

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dad, no way. Sorry. Too scary. I wouldn't even go into the basement as a kid. I was so scared

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of that. I'm not going to go 50 miles to our arch enemies, you know, village. So he says,

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but that's not Joseph. Joseph is way more courageous. I'm way more brave than me. He

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went, he went and it gets even scarier. I'll tell you why it gets even scary because when

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Joseph actually gets to Shechem, he looks around and his brothers aren't there. He's

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like, Oh my gosh, where are they? They're not where they're supposed to be. They're

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supposed to be in Shechem. And I bet his mind said, Oh my gosh, the Shechemites, the Shechemites

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have got them. They're probably all dead or they're being tortured. They're all captured

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and tied up somewhere. And I'm next. He probably thought, and then this creepy guy starts coming

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through the field and he's like, Hey little boy, what are you looking for? And, and he's

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like, Oh, I'm just looking for my brothers. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me.

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Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. And, and actually the guy turns out to not

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be that creepy. And I took a huge amount of license. He's probably a really great guy,

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probably a great Dothanite or a great Shechemite fellow. I don't know. But anyways, he says,

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actually, no, they, they went on a little further. I saw them. They went out to this

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other town called Dothan. Dothan. Okay. So if I were Joseph again, I would say, okay,

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all right, I did what my dad said. Dad said, go to Shechem, check up on your boys, check

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up on the boys, see what they're up to. I did that. So I'm going to go home and I'm

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going to tell them what I did. But no, Joseph's better than me, probably better than you too.

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He said, no, I'm going to keep on going. I'm not just going to go to this, to this dark,

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dangerous place, but I'm going to go to this distant place, 25 miles further to Dothan

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to look for my brother. So listen, it's a scary place. It's a scary place. He finds

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himself in, right? And I just wonder if part of the, if you're, if your life is like a

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bad dream in any way, is it partly because you find yourself in a place that you just

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don't want to be, right? I don't want to be in this relationship. I don't want to be in

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this job. I don't want to be in this school. I don't want to be in this program. How did

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I end up with friends like this? How did I end up alone? I don't fit in. I want to go

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home. I think we, that, that, those are scary thoughts. Those are scary places to be. But

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somehow Joseph, I don't know how he pushed through and he kept on going. But that was

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only the first part of the nightmare. It wasn't just that he faced a scary place. Now he faces

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a frightening, frightening predicament. What do I mean by that? Well, listen, you remember

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last week, last week we learned that from time to time, what Joseph would do is he would

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see his brothers doing something they shouldn't be doing, misbehaving, and he would bring

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back word or bring back a bad report to his father to say, dad, this is what my brothers

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are all doing and go punish them or something like that. So what this tells us though is

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that two things, one, Joseph's brothers were often up to no good. And secondly, Joseph

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would often rat them out. So this puts Joseph in a very frightening predicament because

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these guys were bad news. You don't mess with these guys. A quick read through Genesis 30

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to 40 and you will see time and again, these guys are guilty of multiple crimes. I wrote

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a few down wholesale slaughter, incest, murder, jealousy, kidnapping, lying, adultery, prostitution,

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really bad judgment. In fact, in Genesis 39, you can read about one of Joseph's brothers,

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Judah, and he decided he was going to have his daughter-in-law killed, executed because

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he found out that she was pregnant outside of marriage. And so they're getting ready

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to burn her to death when he finally realizes, oh, wait a second, I'm the father of that

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child. I had sex with her. That's my child. Oh, that's right. That's right. Put the fires

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out. We're not going to burn her after all. I mean, these were horrible, horrible guys.

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Like what kind of, you can't make this stuff up, right? This was a frightening, frightening

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predicament. These are frightening people that Joseph finds himself around. But what

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added to that predicament was that they obviously hated Joseph. So that, you know, Joseph, there

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was tension between them and his brothers. He was a snitch. He was Jacob's favorite.

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And so here's the predicament. Here's the predicament. Joseph has a bunch of brothers

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who already hate him with a passion. And he's being sent to go visit them far, far away

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from home where dad can't see. And they've been quiet for a long time. In fact, that's

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why dad sent him. They've been quiet a long time. And when you know, you know, when kids

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are quiet for a long time, they're usually up to no good. And so, and so they're, they're

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doing something they're not supposed to be doing. And he puts himself into this predicament,

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right? Why, why did he throw himself into this predicament? He's courageous. He's courageous,

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more courageous than me. And maybe the reason why your life right now feels like it's this

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bad, bad dream is that you like Joseph, you find yourself in this frightening predicament.

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You don't know what to do. You know, right, wrong. Yes, no. Maybe, maybe your career right

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now is in a frightening moment. Maybe your marriage right now is, is hanging on a thread

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and then you feel trapped or vulnerable or helpless or hopeless and, and you don't know

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what to do next and you don't know what's coming next. And, and I think that's exactly

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how Joseph felt as he proceeded through this dream that became a nightmare. But more than

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that, it keeps on going, right? It wasn't just that he was going to a scary place or

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a frightening predicament, but he experienced this deadly, deadly peril. Even before Joseph

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gets there, his brothers have decided to kill him. But when they saw him in the distance,

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they said, here comes that dreamer. They said to one another, come now, let's kill him and

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let's throw him into one of these cisterns. Hey, it says that they saw Joseph from a distance

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and they recognized him. How could they know it was Joseph from such a far away away? The

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coat, right? He had that multicolored coat on. Oh my gosh, that thing, you can see it

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a mile away. It must be Joseph. And so this is not like involuntary manslaughter. This

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is premeditated murder. They are going to kill this guy when he shows up. And so they

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decide to kill him and they decide to throw him into one of the cisterns that were kicking

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around there. Now, this is what cisterns look like in the ancient world where we're talking

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about. You can see it had a very narrow neck on the top and then it kind of went out like

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this at the bottom, which means that if you were thrown into one of these things, there

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was no way you were climbing out of it, right? It was a death trap. In fact, I was doing

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some research and I found out that in the area where they think Dothan was, archeologists

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have unearthed cisterns like this. And get this, some of the cisterns have had skeletons

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in them, right? So I'm telling you, these things are a death trap. There was no question.

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The plan was to kill him. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his

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robe, that ornate robe that he was wearing, and they took him and they threw him into

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the cistern. We're told the cistern was empty. There was no water in the bed. It didn't matter.

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This was the end, right? What a nightmare. And here's the most callous bit of all. We're

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told that after they had done this, the brothers sat down to have a meal. They sat down to

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eat, right? So here, here, can you imagine? Here comes Joseph, grab him, strip him of

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his clothes, beat him up a bit, throw him in the cistern, put the rock over the top.

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And now, hey guys, what do you want to have for lunch? What do you sit down? Right? He's

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screaming. He's screaming, guys, let me out, please don't kill me. They're like having

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a sandwich. These, I don't understand how these guys are so cold and callous and heartless.

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Right? In fact, we know if you go on and read, let's just skip ahead for a moment. You go

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on further in the story. Later on, when Joseph actually confronts his brothers, we find out

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that, yeah, they heard him screaming and they say, we are truly guilty concerning our brother,

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for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us and we would not hear. How

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nice guys, not nice guys. Eventually, they say, oh, I got an even better idea. Let's

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sell them. Let's sell them and make some money from his life. And these merchants come by

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and they pull Joseph out of the cistern and they sell them for 20 shekels of silver, which

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you might be like, how much is that? It's not a lot. I think I want to say it's something

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like 50 or 250 dollars. It's not a lot of money. They sold him. And friends, this is

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the stuff that nightmares are absolutely made of attacked, threatened with death, thrown

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into a well, sold as a slave. I hope you never face deadly peril like this in your life.

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But I know some of you have actually. There are some of you, many have come to Canada

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from other countries and you have fled violence. You've had to run for your life and maybe

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some of your family members are still back there and they're hiding for their life. Or

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maybe some of those family members have even perished in the deadly peril that they faced.

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Others of you, you're facing a different kind of deadly peril. You got a diagnosis. The

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doctor told you something and it doesn't look good. Or you've been through an accident.

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You survived an accident, but just barely. Yeah, you say, Rob, I've never been thrown

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into a sister. I've never been thrown into a pit, but I know what it feels like to be

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almost dead and buried, to have your dream turn into a nightmare. And that means you

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probably also know this fourth aspect of a nightmare. You know what it's like to have

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agonizing pain. Joseph's nightmare. I mean, Joseph suffered agonizing pain. Good grief.

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He was sold, taken to Egypt. He was a slave, separated and isolated from his family for

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30 years. That is a lot of suffering and pain, but he wasn't the only one. Everybody suffered

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as a result of this horrible nightmare. His own father, we read, suffered greatly. Then

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when he found out that his boy was dead, when the brothers came back and said, look, a wild

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animal must have eaten him. We read that Jacob tore his clothes and he put on sackcloth and

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he mourned for his son. He refused to be comforted. He said, I'm going to mourn until the day

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I die, until the day I join my son in the grave. This boy, my boy, my boy, my favorite

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little boy, he's no longer with me. He's been taken from me. And, and you know what? 30

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years later, he is still mourning every day for the loss of his son. And I know there

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are even some of you here and you know what that kind of pain feels like. It is the bad

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dream that you can never, ever forget. But I wonder if those who suffered the most pain

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in the story weren't the brothers themselves. Because if you read between the lines, it

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means that day after day they watched their father and they saw their father's pained

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face and they knew what they had done to hurt him. And that memory would never go away.

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Joseph's tortured face, they could never forget that. The sound of his blood curdling screams

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from the well or as the merchants took him off to Egypt. You see, they could not forget

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that. It haunted them for the rest of their life, I am sure. And, and that's the thing

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about pain. Yeah, sure. Some of us suffer pain because of things others have done to

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us. But sometimes our pain is a result of things we have done to hurt others. And it

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haunts us. Those skeletons in the closet, they just never go away every day. It's a

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different kind of bad dream, but it's still a bad dream. Still full of pain. So there

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you go. The perfect storm of a nightmare. And I just wonder, if you look at this, where

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do you see yourself in this at all today? Maybe you'd be like, Rob, total sweet dreams

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over here. I'm living the dream. And we're all like, amen, God bless you. Go for it.

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You live your best life. But there's others of us who are like, you know what? Yeah, I

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had a sweet dream. It became a bad dream. I'm going through a dark place right now. Are

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you in a scary place? Do you find yourself in a frightening predicament? Are you facing

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some peril? Are you coping? Are you coping with some pain? If so, probably asking those

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questions again, right? Whose fault is it? Whose fault? You could say some of this was

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Joseph's fault. I mean, he was a bit of a braggart. He was a showboat and he was a snitch,

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a tattletale. So we can probably blame him to a point. And maybe there are things in

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your life that you actually have done that have led to some of the pain that you're experiencing

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now. So yeah, maybe, maybe some of it is our fault. But certainly a lot of the fault and

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the blame falls at the feet of Joseph's brothers in the story. They were horrible, horrible

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people. They were bad apples, bad to the core. They and you maybe blame other people in your

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life for the suffering that you're experiencing right now. And that's certainly happens. But

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then there's the God question, right? And come back to that one. Is it God's fault?

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Surely Joseph could have said, God, this is your fault. God, you could have delivered

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me from this. God, you could have saved me from this at any time. Couldn't God have intervened

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in Joseph's life? Couldn't God have intervened in your life? Saved you from that place, that

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predicament, that peril and that pain? Why didn't he? Right? This is the question of

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suffering. It would take a million sermons to even begin to scratch at why good things

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happen to bad people, why we suffer and where is God in the midst of it all. So we're not

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going to get there today, but I want to show one piece of this story that might shed just

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a glimmer, not always, but a glimmer that might explain some of the nightmare and that

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is this other P word, providence. Could it be that in our bad dreams or nightmare of

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a life that we're living that actually God is doing something behind the scenes, something

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that we do not know? That's providence. Providence. Think about it this way. Think about it. If

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Joseph had never dreamed the dream, he never would have been attacked by his brothers.

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He never would have been hated. He never would have been sold. If Joseph was never sold to

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Egypt, then he never would have risen to power in Egypt. And if he had never risen to power

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in Egypt, he never could have formulated the plan by which Egypt would survive the coming

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famine by storing up grain. And if Egypt didn't store up grain, then all the neighboring people

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around Egypt also would have perished in the famine. And among those who certainly could

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have perished would have been Joseph's own brothers and his father. And if Jacob and

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the brothers, if that family line had ended, then how would the Messiah Jesus of the line

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of Judah come to be? Right? Had he not been in that place, in that predicament, gone through

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that pain, then maybe the promise would never have arrived. You see, what everybody saw

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was evil and wrong. What everyone assumed was a huge mistake on God's part was just

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God's way of allowing this dream to be accomplished. The brothers said, let's destroy that dream.

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And they tried to destroy that dream, but actually in the very process of destroying

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that dream, they enabled the dream to actually come true. That is what we call the providence

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of God when God brings about his plan in ways that just seem totally backwards to us. In

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fact, it makes me think of Jesus. You know, Jesus on the night he was arrested, he said,

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God, take away this nightmare. God, get me out of this bad dream. But Jesus said, if

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this is the way it has to be, then your will be done and not my will. See, Jesus saw that

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nightmare, but he believed that God would turn the darkness of death into the dawn of

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new life. And he did. So you see, God has a plan. God has a dream for your life, for

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my life. Sometimes that dream feels more like a nightmare, like a very bad dream, and we

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would do anything to avoid that place, avoid that predicament, avoid the peril and the

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pain. Jesus knows what that's like. And if you're going through something like that in

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your life right now, I really hope as a church, we can surround you and love you and support

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you as you deal with your pain. We also need to remember God's providence. Sometimes you

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got to go through the scary place to get to the good place. Sometimes you got to go through

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the predicament to get to the peace. Sometimes you have to go through the peril to get to

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the pleasure. And sometimes, sometimes you have to go through the pain to get to the

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promise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Thanks so much for joining us today, and we hope that you found the sermon inspiring.

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And if you enjoyed the show today, please take a minute to rate and review our podcast

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so that we can continue to spread the good news with others. Please come back again next

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week, and thanks again for listening. Today's sermon was taken from the 1115 service on

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November 5, 2023 at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario.