joseph shared the dream, that was his reaction but jacob, his father, had a little bit different reaction.
genesis 37.10-11 (niv), when he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “what is this dream you had? will your mother and i and your brothers actually come and bow down before you?” his brothers are jealous of him but his father kept this matter in mind, kept thinking about it.
just a thought from the front porch...
genesis 37.10-11 (niv), when he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “what is this dream you had? will your mother and i and your brothers actually come and bow down before you?” his brothers are jealous of him but his father kept this matter in mind, kept thinking about it.
jacob rebuked the dream. jacob, a man who had two dreams himself, hears about the two dreams his son joseph had had and asks, “what are you talking about?” he couldn’t see in his own child’s life the very things that GOD had done in his life.
it’s easy for us to miss that isn’t it, parents? GOD’s doing in our children’s lives the very thing HE’s done in our lives and we miss it. jacob certainly did. but he didn’t entirely miss it. the bible says he did keep the matter in mind. he thought about it.
then there was a third reaction, the brothers. joseph shared the dream, jacob rebuked the dream, and the brothers hated the dreamer. they didn’t care about the dream; they just went straight for joseph. they hated him. they were jealous of him.
it’s interesting how jacob had set up in his family the very thing that he’d experienced as a boy. as a boy, he and his brother esau had been separated from each other because the parents favored one over the other. here’s jacob repeating the pattern in his own family. here’s jacob who was the younger of the brothers and who does he love the most? the younger of the brothers. he loves this one more than the others and it separates him from all the rest of the sons in the household.
joseph and jacob and the brothers, all had different reactions to this dream and i want to give you something to watch for as we continue in this study, a question to think about. which of these three are going to be most used of GOD to accomplish, to begin the process of accomplishing this GOD given dream?
is it going to be joseph and some decision he makes? is jacob going to turn around and begin to see the light and do something that encourages joseph to begin to go in the right way? who’s it going to be?
it’s going to be, believe it or not, the brothers. the ones who hate him. the ones who are furthest from GOD’s will in this thing are going to be the ones most used of GOD to begin the process of accomplishing this dream.
GOD’s amazing that way. HE can take the worst things that satan tries to throw at us and turn them around for HIS good. notice as we go through this story how GOD uses the brothers to begin this process of making the dream come true.
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