| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Total Forgiveness
00:03:06
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|
| Listen to this. | |
| I just opened to page 91. | |
| If the present problem seems different and no one can help you through it, I can tell you this. | |
| It means that God is the one who has created the problem. | |
| Only God then has the answer, and it is likely that you will have to go to the most unexpected place to find it. | |
| And I can go on and on and on and on. | |
| The section that I think is so terrific is total forgiveness goes and gives what it is, is when we protect the one we forgive. | |
| Total forgiveness, second, total forgiveness wants to make a person feel comfortably at ease. | |
| And this is built on Joseph. | |
| Third, total forgiveness will not even allow the person to feel bad or angry with himself. | |
| When we really forgive another person, we want them to feel good. | |
| It makes it easy for a person to forgive himself then. | |
| But every page is beyond. | |
| I've been reading through it again. | |
| You talk about self-pity. | |
| And here I am in prison. | |
| And God told me and taught me an eternal truth that I must never have self-pity. | |
| What did you say about self-pity? | |
| Do you remember what you were doing? | |
| Well, we've all been there, but it's always counterproductive. | |
| It gets you nowhere. | |
| And the more you think about it, the worse it gets. | |
| It's like reading pornography. | |
| You're insatiable. | |
| You know, it gets worse and worse. | |
| That's self-pity. | |
| And the devil will just take full advantage of it. | |
| And you've got, once for all, renounce it, get over it, and never look back. | |
| Amen. | |
| And you said vindication is something that God will not allow. | |
| And he says vindicating oneself is something God will not tolerate. | |
| You see, that's what he does best. | |
| He doesn't want our help. | |
| And really, what do you think about it? | |
| This is what God does best. | |
| Let him do what he does best. | |
| Don't deprive him of the glory and the joy he gets from doing the vindication. | |
| Amen. | |
| And you know what else? | |
| Well, you know what? | |
| God does it because he is a sovereign, beautiful God. | |
|
Joseph's Dreams
00:04:20
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|
| You wrote on page 71, a very important part of Joseph's preparation was for him to be delivered from self-pity, self-righteousness, and from any need to manipulate his future. | |
| That's it. | |
| Well, the hardest thing in the world is to take our hands off. | |
| We all feel a need to pull strings. | |
| You see, Joseph had a visitor, the butler, the cupbearer to the king. | |
| And then he had the baker, not Jim Baker, another baker, who was the king's cook, and they were both in prison. | |
| And one day, each of them have a dream. | |
| And by this time, Joseph knows them a little bit. | |
| He says to the one, what's the matter? | |
| What's going on? | |
| Well, we've both had dreams. | |
| We don't understand them. | |
| And Joseph thought, oh, at last my time has come because this is what I do. | |
| Tell me the dreams. | |
| Well, he interpreted both of them and said to the cupbearer to the king, in three days, you're going to be back. | |
| You're going to get your job back. | |
| He had to say, sorry to the baker. | |
| It's not looking good for you. | |
| You're going to be hanged in three days. | |
| Well, it's exactly what happened. | |
| But just before Joseph finished talking to the cupbearer to the king, he said, Look, when you get out, remember me to the Pharaoh. | |
| Joseph, J-O-S-E-P-H, or however you spelled it in Hebrew or whatever language it was, remember me. | |
| And in that moment, I reckon God said, Joseph, you're going to need a couple more years. | |
| He thought that this would be his free ticket to get out of prison, and he was going to manipulate the cupbearer to the king, the butler, to get him out. | |
| And it turns out that wasn't God's idea at all. | |
| So God made him wait. | |
| And you know, the last thing anybody would have thought of, if you were going to pray, how to get Joseph out of prison, you know, people don't think to think big. | |
| They just will pray for the prisoner, pray for the jailer, pray for those around him. | |
| No one would have thought, pray for the Pharaoh. | |
| It didn't enter anybody's mind. | |
| But one day, the Pharaoh has a dream. | |
| And nobody could interpret it. | |
| And he's desperate. | |
| And he's looking for somebody. | |
| And that somebody could have a past. | |
| Joseph was seen as a Hebrew and a rapist. | |
| That's what they thought. | |
| He wasn't, but they thought that. | |
| And so you would have thought, well, you don't want to talk to that man. | |
| He's a prisoner. | |
| And he's a Hebrew and he's accused of rape. | |
| Pharaoh didn't care. | |
| If he can interpret my dream, I want to see him. | |
| And it's just good news to anybody who has a past and you think, God can't use me. | |
| My pedigree doesn't look good. | |
| The things that are on my record, I've been such a failure. | |
| But I can tell you, if you're true to God and wait on him, you have a gift no one else has. | |
| And you may say, well, there's no demand for my gift. | |
| How can he use my gift? | |
| Imagine Joseph today coming into your town and he needs a job and he goes to the employment agency in your town and they say, well, sit down. | |
| You want a job? | |
| Yes. | |
| What do you do? | |
| Joseph says, dream. | |
| Dream. | |
| Dream? | |
| Oh, I interpret dreams. | |
| Right. | |
| Your name again? | |
| Joseph. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| We'll be in touch with you. | |
| You may feel that your gift is about as insignificant as that. | |
| Who would have thought a gift of having dreams and interpreting dreams would lead to the way one day Joseph would be prime minister of Egypt? | |
| Amazing. | |
| You have a gift no one else has. | |
| God knows where you are. | |
| He will find you. | |