his desire to just see God's will done in the service, and that is what it's all about. We schedule these meetings and make all these plans and invite people to preach and sing and all that we do, and that has to be done. But when it comes down then to this moment, why, it is all about, Lord, what do you want done? How do you want it done? Who you want doing it? And sometimes he'll change our plans and all of that. And so anyway, it's been sweet to be here. It's a good sweet spirit in the service tonight, is there not? Kind of stormy on the outside, but sure is sweet in here tonight. I like it like that, don't you? I like it. Well, he's sweet Jesus, isn't he? And when he comes around, buddy, when he feels, I think when the Lord feels welcomed, he, I don't know, somebody said he'll never come where he's wanted. I think he went a few places he wasn't wanted when he came the first time. But I'll tell you, if he comes where he's welcome, I'll tell you what, he'll just, he'll just get sweet. It'll get sweet, brother Arnold. Good to see y'all from the Philippines. Not a blessing? Amen. Come all the way from the Philippines to hear me preach. Thank you, brother. I met him at a missions conference three or four years ago, and I've kept up with him close. I'm thankful for the work they're doing in the Philippines. Thank you, Brother Mark. That was great tonight. I just met Brother Mark this afternoon and have been fascinated by his story and the work that he's doing and God using him. and then to get up tonight in that circumstance in just a moment and share those truths with us. And that was sweet. I enjoyed that. The meal was good tonight, ladies. Y'all done it again. And so it was good, good food, some good fellowship. Good to see you preachers, several of you we've seen before. God bless y'all. Thank you for being here, old brother Mark. dared to sit on the front pew again tonight. Bless you, brother. Amen. Amen. The Lord's good. I'd like to talk about that a few moments. I think it'd be just totally out of picture for me just to kind of rip and, you know, I'm such a sweetie anyway. But I have this message on my heart for several days. For this service, I just come out of a meeting in Texas And it was, it was different, different meeting. It was a good meeting, great meeting, but it was different. So, you know, I want to be, I started to say I want to be on cue, but I don't want to be on cue. I don't want to, I don't want to do that. I'll never use that letter again. Thank you very much. Amen. Amen. Well, one of them's good, quitter. Quitter was good. I, I, of course, I don't know what the other cue was, but anyway, what, whatever. And then the singing, thank y'all so much for that good singing. Man, these folks just keep, you know, if you can get better and better, they're just doing that, amen. All right, Genesis 50, if you have your Bibles, Genesis chapter 50. And so if you have your Bibles, turn there with me, I wanna read a few verses of scripture and it'll go along with what we've already been hearing, even with what, Brother Mark has said tonight, and certainly with the songs, and this will, I think, fit right in. It's a message that's meant a lot to my heart and to many even in our church. And some have got some help from it along the way. So that's what we want. Thank you again, Brother Andy, for letting me come and fill the pulpit. All those pictures out there in that foyer, on both sides of that banner have all preached here. Is that right? What year did y'all have Spurgeon? Oh, okay. I'm Facebook friends with Charles Haddon Spurgeon. All I know is one day I was driving down the road and I got a friend request from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. You say, what'd you do? What do you think I did? I got on there and I said, could I get some more of your books? And they hadn't been friendly to me ever since, so anyway. All right, Genesis chapter 50. And if you'd like to stand, stand. If you can or don't, then that's fine, but we've been seated for a little while. Some, of course, have been moving, We'll just read a few verses right here and get right on into the message. Genesis 50 and verse 15. And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will perventure hate us and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. Now that's what you call a guilty conscience. That's a guilty conscience. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph saying, thy father did command before he died saying, So shall you say unto Joseph, forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil, and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him, and his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said, behold, we be thy servants. Joseph said unto them, fear not, I want to say for I am, but that's not the way it reads. It says, for am I in the place of God? And the punctuation there says that is a question mark. That's a question. Verse 20, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God made it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. Now therefore, fear you not, Joseph said, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spake kindly unto them. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He and his father's house, and Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, the children of also Macar, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die, and God will surely visit you. and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. You can be seated. He was delivered, we know that later on from the book of Joshua that they did take his bones delivered them. I wanna preach tonight on this subject, see God in it. See God in it. Now that'll give you some hope if you'll do that. If you'll, you say, see God. Well, look what he said in verse 20. He said, but as for you, talking to his brothers, you thought evil against me, but God meant it. it unto good. So I want to say tonight, see God in it. What is your it? Everybody's got an it. Some people have a lot of its. A lot of its. A lot of things that are difficult. Some situations where they were treated real dirty. And things that were very discouraging. Some things that might even bring not just discouragement, but even real depression. Things that can bring real doubts in a person's life. Everybody's got situations like this. What is your it tonight? Maybe in the context of the message, you can see God in it. And I'm not gonna stand here and talk to you about my it's tonight, but I've had a few it's along the way. And had I not seen God in it, it would have made me very bitter. Brother Mark, it would have made me very bitter. I might have wanted to resign the ministry. I might have wanted to left the church. I might have wanted just to quit and say, if it's gonna be this way, then I don't want any more of it. I don't want anything else to do with it. You know, these it's, by the way, will accumulate. They'll build up. And so you have to, time after time after time, see God in it. And if you're a child of God, God is in it. In one way or the other, now he's in it. And you may not can even explain it, figure it all out, and decipher it, discern it completely, but you don't have to You don't have to understand so much as you just need to stand under. And when you can't understand, you can always stand under. Don't you like that last song they sang? I loved all of them, but I mean, when I'm not strong, grace is strong. Grace is strong. Brother Mark, grace is never intimidated by whatever the situation might be. See God in it. Notice, if you will, just also another remark I'd like to make in verse number 20. He said, but as for you, you thought evil against me, and then but God. You thought evil against me. But God. I love the but God situations in the Bible. If we didn't have any but God situations, we'd all be lost. Ephesians chapter two, you get down to about verse number four. And I believe there's a but God situation after he's described our spiritual depravity and our spiritual darkness and all of the spiritual disturbance and all that's in that text. And then he gets down to, I believe it's about verse four where he says, but God, who is rich in mercy, et cetera, et cetera. I like that, but God. There are numerous but God situations in the Bible. And so it's good to study them. And it's good to try to learn how to apply these. You've got some but God situations in your life, or you wouldn't be saved. And then since you've been saved, you've got some but God situations in your life. That's what Joseph is dealing with here, brother. Sam, he's dealing with a but God situation. As for you, you thought evil against me. But God, you know, this is a contradiction in the Bible. I knew I'd get some silence on that one. Now, I don't mean the scripture contradicts the scripture, but it's God contradicting the plans of man. Man, he said, I know y'all had plans. I know you did what you did and all that, but God, God just contradicted everything that his brothers intended to do. I like it when God contradicts the devil. The devil's got a plan. He's got a scheme. Even tonight, you're all in his scope. He's zeroing in on us. He's got a plan. He's got a scheme. He's got a device. Paul said, thank God that we are not ignorant of his devices. That's what Paul said. You know what that suggests? That suggests that he had already been on the experiencing side of some of the devil's devices. So he could say to the church there in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 2, we're not ignorant of the devil's devices. And so it's good to sit down with people who have been down the trail. They've been down the path. been down through some things, and just sit down with them and say, tell me about it. Talk to me about it. And a lot of times that's gray-headed folks. A lot of times that's our silver-haired saints. And you ought to cherish those that God gives you. I heard about a preacher who stood when some of this contemporary movement began to come along, and he preached on this idea that this is not your grandma's church anymore. I wonder what grandma sat in there and thought. How crazy, how stupid is that? I told our church, I said, you know, we got youth program, we do a lot. I'm all for our youth program, man. I'm all for our youth and we take them to conferences and youth meetings and stuff like, I'm all about them, man. But I'm not all about the youth to the degree that we're gonna forget our elderly folks. How dumb is that? How crazy is that? And so, These but God situations, and I like it when God just contradicts the devil and changes his schemes and his plans, everything. You know, somehow or another, I figure Satan was kind of working there around Calvary, Golgotha, on that resurrection season. I was gonna say Easter, but I've already been rebuked about that this week, so. But the word is in the Bible. The word Easter is in the Bible. So maybe I can say it okay. But anyway, and so I'm sure the devil had a plan for Jesus after he died. He's gonna keep him in that grave, but well, but God. And so the devil's plans can be foiled. They can be, and even more than that. I've got to hasten on here. Okay, see God in it. See God what? See God in the providence of our lives. The providence of our lives. God can pre-video. God has a pre-vision of our lives. God can see. He can see now. He can see yesterday. But thank God he can see tomorrow. Aren't you glad for that? And so within the context of that pre-vision, there is what we call providence and the action of God, the activity of God in our lives, where he's no longer just observing and watching, but in his providence, he's actually arranging circumstances and touching our lives and working things out in our lives. That's a comfort to me, to know that we are accident-free. I mean, really, we are. We still use that terminology. Sometime when I'm making a prayer request from the pulpit, I'll say, y'all pray for Brother So-and-so, and they had an accident, and their car was torn and all that. So we use the term, as we understand, but yet at the same time we understand we're God's people. Man, we're in the providence of God. We're in the hand of God. We're in the care of God. Not just His watch, but His working. He not only sees what's going on, but He is involved in the life of His children. Amen. Amen. He's not just a spectator standing off and watching and seeing. Wonder how this is gonna work out. He knows how it's gonna work out. Amen. Hallelujah. So think about that. See God in it. Where are you at tonight? What's going on in your world? What's going on in your life? And it may be really, really, really good for some here tonight. Well, see God in it. See God in it. And it may be really, really hard and difficult and dark tonight. Well, you still, you gotta see God in it. I mean, God's not gonna just show up in the good times of your life. God's gonna be there in the difficult times, and in fact, he may be more visible, and he may be more, we may be more conscious of his presence in the darkness. Now, that's right reverse to the world. People get involved in our lives, we can see it in the daylight. In the dark, we can't see anything. we see God maybe clearer than we ever, ever did. And when you don't see anybody else. All right, I gotta hasten on here. The providence. The providence of our lives. Look, if you will, in that verse number 20 again. I want you to see the word prosper, or the idea of prosper. The word's not there. Verse 20 said, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it, what? Unto good. God meant it unto good. God intend to prosper them. And I'll tell you, he wants to prosper us. Now, don't associate me with the health and wealth boys and all of that kind of stuff. I'm not talking about that. But God does want you to prosper. God does want you to enjoy and experience him and the blessings of God. And we ought to praise him for that. God meant it for good. You say, well, this goes along with that New Testament text, I believe, where it says, for we know, we know that all things work together for what? For what? They work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. And obviously, and all you preachers have said that, you people have heard us say it. God didn't say that all things were good, but he did say all things work together for good. Now Joseph did not have the text, but he had the truth. Joseph didn't have the text, Romans 8. was already in God at that time, but it just had not been pinned down through Paul at that time. So he had the truth, even though he didn't have the text. So he says, but as for you, you thought evil, but God meant it unto good. Now mark it down. If God meant it for something, that's the way it's gonna work out. That's the way it's gonna, now the devil may have meant for something and it not work out. I may have meant for something to happen and it not work out. But if God meant for it to be good, Then it's good. That's good. And so the idea of prosper, you see that? And then another idea, the idea of process. Process. Look in verse 20. But as for you, you thought evil against me, but God made it unto good. Here it is, to bring to pass. To bring to pass. Here's a process. Here's a process. As Joseph's situation in life, what his brothers did to him, and looking back over those years, and examining the thing, he sees this process. And he says, God was bringing it to pass. It didn't just all happen. It didn't just all happen. I mean, God is so sovereign, so supreme, so powerful. He could have just some other way if he wanted to, had all of those warehouses of Egypt full and all of that, but he didn't. He used a process. He used a process. He used the sins, even, in an overcoming way. selling their brother into slavery down into Egypt. Was God the author of their sin? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Why would God be the author of sin and at the same time send his son to die for sin? Now you're talking about contradictory, that is contradictory. God never has been the author of sin. I get perturbed at these preachers who take the sovereignty of God to a distance to where God becomes the author of sin. And they wanna blame God for everything. That sounds like a bunch of heathen that don't know God if you ask me. You gonna blame God for sin? No. You can't do that and not be biblical. You can do it and be stupid, but you can't do that and be biblical. Good night. But I'll tell you what. The sins of man cannot thwart ultimately the purposes of God. And because these brethren did what they did to Joseph, they didn't tie the hands of God. His hands have never been tied. And so this process, the process, everything God seems to do for good for his people have a process to it. I mean, even the crucifixion of Christ took a process. God had wanted to. He could have waited until they were having a crucifixion there in Jerusalem, and His Son could have come down that day and been crucified and been all over, but that's not the plan. It was not the will. There was a process. And He meant for His Son to come into this world just like He did, and to live in this world just like He did. and to go to that cross just like he did and it was a process and a lot of people had their hands involved in it but behind the scene it was God working all the time and just in Joseph arriving to Egypt and interpreting the dreams and filling the warehouses and people from all over the known world were able to come and be fed that was a process many hands involved but God guiding that situation. And so there might be a process going on in your life right now. Hey, that's the reason, folk, you can't just judge a man in a moment. Brother Mark, I had some moments I wouldn't want nobody to judge me on. I've had some private moments. I've had some public moments and done some dumb things. And so I'm, and though we do it, though we do it, King David, if you judge that man by a moment, then you're through with him. You know what moment I'm talking about? But you can't all together judge him by that moment. Did he messed up? Yeah, he messed up. Did he pay for it? He sure did. These people that'll throw it up to you about David. Well, now David... Well, you just talk to David about it. David paid. He paid a hard penalty for his disobedience to God. And so we need to give people a little room. Give people a little room. Grant folks a little mercy. For somewhere down the line, you're gonna need somebody to give you a little room. You're gonna need somebody to show you some mercy. Amen. And I believe the Bible makes it pretty clear in places that if you don't show any mercy, then don't be looking for none. But if you'll show it, you can expect some. And so it's a process. It's a process. Then not only the process, but the word preserve. Preserve, verse number 20. God meant it to good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive in the providence of God to save much people. God is always in redemption mode. Do you know that? He is always in redemption mode. I mean, whatever he's doing, even in judgment, If he's sending a flood to judge the world, if he's sending a judgment to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, wherever he's sending judgment even, God is in redemption mode. Habakkuk recognized that. Habakkuk 3, Habakkuk's praying for revival. And he said, Lord, I've heard thy speech and I was afraid. And so he said, Lord, Remember, remember, in wrath remember mercy. In wrath remember mercy. Revive thy work in the midst of years. Revive us, Lord, revive thy work. Remember mercy. I think Habakkuk, even from chapter one and two, had gained some great insight into the character and the nature of God. And even when God was announcing judgment, he realized that God was a God of mercy. And so God, please, even in wrath. And I believe God's inclined in that direction, if I could say it that way. God, because he's holy and who he is, he has to judge sin. He has to have wrath. But I'll tell you, I just can't help but believe God is inclined toward mercy. Because it's hard to find judgment anywhere in the Bible, but what first you don't find? Mercy. Mercy. God is inclined toward mercy. Thank God. Thank God for that. And then the providence of our life, the word, the idea of prosper, process, preserve, painful, even painful. For instance, if you were to back up to verse number 17, after they've come to him and they said, Daddy told us before he died to tell you to forgive us. It's what they're saying. So what he said, verse 16, thy father did command before he died, saying, so shall you say to Joseph. So he had a meeting with all those boys and Joseph wasn't in on that meeting. And he said, son, now y'all tell Joseph, tell Joseph to forgive the trespass of his brethren and their sins, for they did evil unto thee. And Joseph heard that and the Bible says, and Joseph wept. They got a guilty conscience. He's got a broken heart. By now, really? Joseph wouldn't, maybe wouldn't say, by now, you can't see that I have a heart of compassion for you? Can you not see that I love you? For am I in the place of God? Am I in the place of God? Do you not have enough sense and discernment to know at this point that I am In the place of God, am I in the place of God or not? Yes. So sometimes a question falls upon us to provoke some thought to answer God in the right way. The providence of our lives. Quickly, the pitfalls of our lives. See God in it. The providence, yes, verse 20. Now what about the pitfalls of our lives? What is that? Verse number 20, but it's for you that you thought evil against me. You thought evil. Now on this moment, he does not list or catalog or go back and say, you know, when this happened to me and when this happened to me and when this happened to me and when this all happened to me, he just says it, it. You thought evil against me, but God meant it for good. Have you ever had any pitfalls? As we said a while ago, some hard times, difficult times, bad times. Well, sure, sure. And he did. You know, we won't take time to really digest all of these into detail, but I would love for you to look with me as we just kind of scan. Look to chapter 39 and verse one and two. Would you do that, chapter 39? And verse number one, it says, and Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Joseph was brought down to Egypt. And Potiphar and officer Pharaoh, captain of the guard and Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither. And the Lord was with Joseph. Pitfall number one, slavery. Pitfall number one, slavery. You know what this says about him? Life is out of control at this point for Joseph. From the time that his brothers put him in that pit, they saw the caravan, they pulled him out, sell him to that caravan, and he's carried off down to Egypt. He's totally out of control. He's totally out of control. But you know what happens? He lands in the right place. Brother Arnold, have you ever thought, if I could just get control of this situation, it'll work out. The problem is most of the time when I took control of the situation, it didn't work out. It got worse. It could get worse. So if this teaches me anything, here he is a slave. He's been brought and bought. Brought and bought. He's totally out of control. They don't ask him anything. Now he's a slave. He's being told where to go, what to do, when to do it, how to do it. And so he's got no say-so in his life. No say-so. And he just has to do what he's told, because he's been brought and he's been bought. I don't know if you've ever been brought and bought or not. Sometimes you may feel like you have. But I'll tell you, cheer up. Cheer up. My life will never work out now. I'll never achieve my goals. I'll never accomplish my purpose. Let me say, If it's God's will, if it's God's purpose, your hands can be tied, your feet can be tied. You can be totally out of control and land in the right place. Isn't that amazing? Amen. I would have never. Brother, I had plans. I had plans. I turned down a football scholarship, Brother Mark, to farm. to drive a John Deere tractor. Yeah. And to get married. I mean, once they beg you for so long, you finally, well, okay. And so I got brought and I got bought. I had my plans. Man of life. And so, When I was in control, things wasn't happening right. But when it got out of my control and it's all in God's hands, well, I landed in the right place. I so landed in the right place that if I can make it to July, be 45 years at Unity Baptist Church. I landed in the right place. The whole thing of me being there was out of my control. When the guy called me, I started not to even go preach a revival for him because there were circumstances. And I scratched my head, I said, I don't know, I don't think I can do that. It was just some circumstance, but I went on and preached for him. It was out of my control, it was out of my hands. And then he resigns later, and not my fault, but he resigned after I preached for him. And then they called me, and so here comes the Pool Pity Committee. And they 100% called me. And the church voted on me, and they 100% called me. All that's out of my hands. I couldn't, you know, I didn't know. And so little did I know, little did I know, 45 years ago, July 1978, that I landed in the right place. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Oh, hallelujah. Oh, glory to God. I want to say in the Greek, whoo-hoo! Woo-hoo! I wanna say in English, hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen. And so, he's in slavery, but he lands in the right place. There's a whole lot more to that. If you take time to read that and study that, I know most of you know more about it than I do anyway, but let's look in chapter 39, verse seven. Chapter 39, verse seven, not only slavery as a pitfall, but his seduction as a pitfall. Well, you know right off, this can't be good. You know, I mean Potiphar's wife got eyes for him, and she's wanting to seduce him, she's wanting to have an affair, and all that. Well, you know it can't, nothing good come out of that. Just wait, just wait. It said in 39, verse seven, and it came to pass, there's that process, After these things, that his master's wife, Potiphar's wife, cast her eyes upon Joseph. And she said, lie with me. Sounded like the hiss of a serpent. Lie with me. Lie with me. No doubt she was a liberated woman. I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't a lazy woman. We know she was a loose woman. But verse eight says, but he refused. But he refused. And said unto his master, Wife, behold, my master wanteth not what is with me in the house. He hath committed all that he hath to my hand. There is no greater in this house than I. Neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? I mean, he just said, basically, I can't do this to my master. More important, I can't sin against God, do this. Now, he don't have the text, but he's got the truth. Thou shalt not commit adultery. The commandment's not been given yet, but some way, somehow, in his heart and soul, he knows. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Isn't that amazing? So what do you learn from this? Well, I'll tell you what I learned from it. I learned that you can say no to the wrong things. in life. Now, here's a man who is totally separated from family. He's got no family. They are miles away. He has, other than his dream, that keeps lingering. Other than that, he has no idea he will ever see them again. And so, in Egypt, Possibly to some degree been acceptable for him to do what he was going to do if he wanted to commit adultery Could have done that. I mean, I mean he's got before him now. He's got pleasure prestige Whatever else goes along with that. He's got all of that at his fingertips But more importantly He's got God in his heart And the God in his heart was bigger than than the pleasures at his fingertips. And so he said, no. Ronald Reagan's wife, when she was the first lady, brought a war against drugs. And her motto, her saying was, just say no. Just say no. And many said in rebuttal to that, you can't just say no. I beg your pardon. You can say no. You can say no. And if you're a saved, born again, blood washed, filled with the Holy Ghost, child of God, you better believe you can say no. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. There's a pitfall of slavery, of seduction, of slander. Chapter 39, verse 13, it came to pass when she saw that he left his garment at her hand, was fled forth that she called unto the men of her house and spake unto them, and see, he hath brought in this Hebrew to mock us. He came in to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice. And it came to pass when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried that he left his garment. See, I've got his garment right here. He's left his garment with me. And he fled and got him out. She laid up his garment by her until Potiphar comes home. Now we know what she's doing here. She's lying on him. He's slandered. You ever been slandered? You ever been lied about? It hurts, don't it? It hurts. It really does. But here's a man who's done right all the way through. But he's slandered. And so Potiphar believed his wife. And so they cast him into prison. You know what you learn from this? You'll learn that God's truth will prevail over Satan's lies. You'll learn. You keep serving God, living for God, you're gonna have some slander. You'll have some lies. You'll have things said about you that will, I'm talking about can be powerful enough that you're not careful to ruin your ministry, hurt your ministry. But no matter the degree and the depth of the horror of those lies, You gotta stay true to God. You gotta stay true to God. And eventually, eventually God's truth will prevail over Satan's lies. The pitfalls of slavery, seduction, slander, and suffering, suffering. Chapter 39 and verse number 20, Joseph's master took him, put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound and he was there in the prison. Suffering. And so he's going to suffer this horrendous situation of being cast in a prison. But I tell you, he's gonna learn something out of this suffering. If I could just say this to you. Let me show you one thing. I don't have time to show you all that. I got all these notes on my Bible here. But let me show you one thing about this suffering. And why all of us need it. Most of us recoil away from it. Most of us will walk way out of our way to go around it. We will sometimes hesitate if we're not careful in our preaching so as to not invoke suffering because we just don't want to suffer. We don't want to suffer, whether it's a spiritual type suffering or a physical type suffering, whatever it is. I've not attained to Pauline aspirations yet. I'm not quite that spiritual. I want to be. You know, Paul said, I want to know him. I want to know him. Now I know him, but I'm talking about like Paul said, I want to know him. I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. I like that. Get us on some resurrection ground. I like that. What about that next phrase? In the fellowship of his suffering. Being conformable unto his death. I just don't know. I wanna say that I want that. But think about it, you don't have to want it to get it. And once again, the providence of God will see where we are and when we need it. And looking back over my life and the process, there were times when I needed. because God knew that that suffering would put me in the altar. God knew that suffering would help my prayer life. God knew it would help my Bible study. God knew all the things, sister, that that suffering would do for me and let me see and let me experience that there's no other way I could experience it, humanly speaking, a measure of suffering. Now I'm glad that his hand is always on the thermostat. My eye is always on the thermometer. How hot is it going to get? I'm glad his hand is always on the thermostat. He knows just at what point to stop it. Just at what point to stop it. By the way, if it's God in control, and he is. In Daniel chapter three, his hand was on the thermostat there. Now the world got it as hot as they could get it. Seven times hotter than it ever had it before. Never been that hot before. But it still wasn't hot enough to burn them boys up. if God's hand was on the thermostat. That's enough. That's enough. And so them boys got something out of that fire. There's something about being in the fire with Jesus. And they could have probably run out of it, but they didn't want to run out of it. Somehow they concluded it's better to be in the fire with Jesus than to be out of the fire without Jesus. So I don't know everything that Joseph learned, but I know this. Look in chapter 40, and Joseph comes in. Of course, he's done pretty much took over the prison. He's the number one inmate. He's the man, because the hand of the Lord was with him, said so over there in the previous chapter. So he comes in and he's walking through, and that Butler and Baker fellow wound up down there. And the Bible said it in verse six of chapter 40, and Joseph came in unto them in the morning and looked upon them, and behold, they were sad. Now, did anybody else notice that? I mean, did the other people there notice it? Anybody else notice that? I don't know. But Joseph noticed it. So much so that in verse seven, he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the war, the Lord said, We're forlooking so sadly today. You know, suffering, and Joseph is suffering. The slander, the slavery, it's all accumulating. It's all building up to the point that he's now in this situation of confinement. But he's not letting it ruin him. He's not letting it mess him up. And because he is one who has experienced suffering, he can see suffering. He can understand it. How much he knew about the butler and the baker, I don't know at that point. But that morning, as he makes his way by, he looks and he sees them. Why are y'all so sad? A sufferer knows how to recognize suffering. Now brethren, if you're gonna get help in your ministry because you're suffering, you can turn to whoever, but your deepest help will come from somebody, more than likely, who has suffered. There's just an understanding. You ever had, you ever had anybody in a ICU room to the point that, you know, things are so much different before COVID anyway. I guess they'll let them stay there now. But for COVID, we stayed, when my daddy was down there, we stayed for like three or four weeks. We got to know everybody in that ICU waiting room. And there were numerous families. And we'd be drinking coffee with them. We might, in the little room where they had the nab machine and the Coca-Cola machine or whatever, we'd be sitting in there and they'd come in and sit down. And you're drinking your coffee and next thing you know, you're in a conversation with this complete stranger. And you're, you're weeping with them. If you got any God about you, Next thing you know, you over there with your arm around him praying. I said, pray about it. I mean, how many times have you walked into, and I see you waiting room preachers and people that you were there to see, they expected you. It didn't matter what's going on in there. They may be having a circus in this corner over here, but it don't matter. They intend for you to pray with them before you leave. And I've done this numerous times. When I'd be ready to walk out, there'd be this little other family sitting right over here. And they looked over there and they saw me and my people praying. And I'd turn to leave, and they'd say, preacher, you're a preacher. I'd say, yes, yes. Would you pray with us? Would you pray? I'll tell you, suffering has a way of binding people together. Don't preacher as a pastor, don't shun the suffering. Don't shun the suffering. You know, Jesus identified with people who were suffering. I mean, he just did. And when you've suffered, just like Joseph, he's hurting, but he noticed the sadness. He could have walked by those guys. He could have stopped and kicked them in the leg, say, you need to cheer up. It could be worse. No, no. Why are you so sad? Why ask the question? I mean, really. Because you don't know what you're fixing to hear. But you ask the question, perhaps because you're interested. And Joseph was interested. And the Lord Jesus is interested. and he will talk to you about your suffering. And there ain't never been nobody suffered more than him. Yep. I'll tell you what you can learn about suffering too. You can learn right here as Joseph did. And I'm not going into all that about where he interpreted their dream and then he was forgotten and all that. But the fact is, when others forget us, God won't. It may look like for a little while, And Joseph even said, just show you, he's still human. In chapter 40, he told them, said, now don't forget me, don't forget me. In verse 15 of chapter 40, for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews. And here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. He's still human. I've done nothing. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this. But Joseph, Joseph, hang in there. Hang in there. That butler's gonna forget you. The baker is gonna be cooked. But the butler is gonna forget you, Joseph. But God ain't. Hang in there. Hang in there. Hang in there. Suffering. And then even in these pitfalls, there comes some success. Look at chapter 41. Chapter 41 and verse 38, and Pharaoh said unto his servants, can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? And you know what happened. And then Joseph gets married, gets him a couple of boys, Well, he's had a moment of success. Verse 51, Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. For God said, he has made me forget all my toil in all my father's house. So the first little boy's name was Forget. Probably called him Forgey sometimes. That's his nickname. Verse 52, the name of the second he called Ephraim. For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. Fruitful, I wouldn't think they called him Fruity, surely not. So forget unfruitful. Success, even in the pitfalls. And all this accumulation of pitfalls, but look at the success. Is the success gonna be a pitfall? No, but it could have been. If he'd have left verse 51 and 52 out, but he's not gonna leave that. He's gonna call him Manasseh. He's gonna say, Because God has made me forget. And in Ephraim, for God's caused me to be fruitful. See God in it. See there? He keeps seeing God in it. He can't even name his children without thinking about God. His wife, maybe she says, what are we gonna name them? Some kind of Egyptian name? Oh, no, no, no. No, we're not gonna do that. We'll name them after God. Well, I close again back in chapter 50 as we close, not only the providence and the pitfalls, but the prophecies of our lives. If you'll see God in it, the prophecy, I mean the things that are planned, that are future. Look at this quickly and we'll close. So Joseph said in verse 21, now therefore fear you not, fear not, I will nourish you. Here's your prophecy. I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spake kindly unto them. Look, there is no detail whatsoever of bitterness in his life, of anger, of wrath, of revenge. If he wanted to get revenge, he had a reason. He had the resources. Humanly speaking, he's got the right, throws all away, all of that out, throws it all out. No, no bitterness, no anger, no animosity. No, no. Why? Because he saw God in it. He's not a Superman. He's made out of the stuff we are. I mean, right over there, I showed you a while ago where he said, I ain't done nothing. He's a man made out of the same stuff we are. He's not a superman, he's not a super saint, but he did get it right. He saw God in it. You can do that. You can do that. The prophecy, he said, I will, I will, I will. Right there in verse 21, I will. But bigger than that is God will. And look at what he said in verse 24. Joseph said unto his brethren, I die. and God will. There'll come a day when I can't do what I will, but God will. God will. God will. In verse 25, and Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will. God will. Only a person with a sweet spirit, good attitude, and all of that stuff can come out like that. Yeah. Amen. Looking back and I see a lot of things. And it got us to the 45 years. And wasn't all pretty and pleasant. But God's let me. Not in every situation as I should have. Hadn't been as spiritual as I ought to be. But I'm getting old, and I know some of our elderly people here say, oh, you're not old yet. I know that. I'm not as old as some of you, but I'm not.