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Episode 437: In this episode with Wesley, we do a deep dive into Genesis 39, exploring Joseph's journey from being sold into slavery to becoming the head of Potiphar's household, and the trials he faced with Potiphar's wife. We learn how Joseph's faithfulness and hard work, even in adverse conditions, can inspire us to trust in God's presence and plan in our own lives. We also discuss the importance of setting boundaries and fleeing from situations that could lead to sin.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Welcome back to another episode of the Bible Guys. I'm Jeff Forster and I have the unparalleled Wesley Woods today as my guest. Co host. Chris is out of town this week, and so the unparalleled. Yeah, it gets better every day, every day, every day, it gets better and better and better. So we're really excited about having you this week, and we're talking about mostly in this whole time, the life of Joseph. So we're going to be reading today in Genesis thirty nine and talking about Joseph and Potiphar's house. Yeah, but first we got a good one. Yeah, what was that? I don't have a stump the pastor question? Oh, these are great, Lisa Ta, Lisa T. Hello Lisa, So I'm gonna read this for you. This is a tough one, pastor Jeff. It says, what is the Biblical stands on the existence of extra terrestrial life and how does it align with our understanding of God's creation and plan for salvation. So Lisa just had a simple, like question, just great, the Biblical stance yes, the Biblical states stands on extra trustrial life, and then how does it relate to how does it align with our understanding of God's creation and plan for salvation. So she's trying to link those two big Yeah, well, okay, we only have what twenty minutes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, that's a tough one. So, in my opinion, the Bible doesn't have a stance on extraterrestrial life. There's no statement about extraterrestrials. There are a couple of places in the Bible where people looking for something would say, for instance, we referenced I think was it in Genesis chapter six a couple weeks ago, where it talks about how the sons of God slept with women and then there were nephto land. Some people would say that sons of God means people from outer space or something. There's just no evidence, and it's certainly not in the original language. The Hebrew doesn't seem to reference that at all. Yeah, so the Bible doesn't really seem to reference aliens at all or extraterrestrial life. Now in the context she's asking the question is really great because the Bible really is human centric. It's very much God's desire for humans to be able to have a relationship with him, then how humans broke that relationship, and then the whole rest of the Bible is God solving this broken human relationship, ultimately culminating in the person of Jesus Christ paying the price for our sins and redeeming us. And then all of the elements with regard to judgment, with regard to the afterlife or only reference in the context of humans. So there's a couple things on Earth. Death came because of the humans Romans chapter wherefore is by one man sin end of the world, and death came by sin, So death passed upon all men because all have sinned. That word all men is talking about mankind humanity, right, And then there's another verse that says wherefore it's appointed unto man wants to die, and after this the judgment. So it sure seems like there was no death in all of God's creation until humans sinned, and then after that now we all humans have one appointment, and then after that there's the judgment. So God's not referencing any other people groups. There isn't any other reference of a salvation process for other you know, terrestrial extraterrestrial types, those kinds of things. So it seems to me that the Bible is very human centric and exclusive of extraterrestrial life, but it just doesn't reference it at all. What's your take on it? So basically the same thing. So the Bible doesn't and I heard a preacher say this a long time ago, the Bible doesn't explicitly talk about extraterrestrial life. And the preacher said, where the Bible stops, I stop. So that's kind of how I look at it. Everyone could have an opinion on anything, but ultimately, what does the Bible say is what it all comes down to. So if the Bible stops there, that's where I stop, and I don't feel the need for more. Now, I would say this, the obsession, the modern obsession with aliens, I think is going to be very useful in the end times. So I don't think that it's a sinful obsession, but I think it's going to be very useful. You know, the Bible talks about how the last trumpet will sound and all the Christians, those that are dead in Christ will rise first, and then those that remain will rise. So this rapture kind of a moment and how would the governments of the world explain the disappearance of two billion people? Right, the easiest way would be governments go, oh, it was the aliens. I'm not saying it was the aliens. The aliens, right. And then at the very end, as the Bible describes the Battle of Armageddon, all the nations of the world come together to fight each other, and then Jesus returns in the sky and they can visibly see him and his armies, and the armies of the world turn to fight Jesus. Who do they think they're fighting? If they thought they were fighting their creator, they wouldn't fighting, right, And I think that there's this convincing Now, you know, seven years before a two billion people disappeared because aliens alien, and now, hey, look there's the aliens coming back, and that would be I think maybe the So it'll be a useful tool for the anti Christ perhaps in the end. Not that it's sinful to play around and watch an alien movie, right, but it'll be a useful tool at the end. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I like Alien Versus Predator, all the cheesy ones, you know, super cheesy, low budget. Well, thank you, Lisa team, and that was a great question. We're not afraid to dive into the questions. We appreciate that. Well, what a good one. Yeah, yeah, you know, it was interesting. I just had the privilege of sitting down with our teenagers. I don't know, we had maybe one hundred high school just last week. Yeah, last week. Yeah, and it was just an open forum Q and A. Yeah, so the high schoolers could ask any question and the same question came up. So it seems to be on the mind of a lot of people right now. I would say this is probably the tenth or fifteenth time I've been asked this question in the last year of Christians just asking so where do aliens fit in? Yeah, you know, so, yeah, great question, that's great. It's a fun one to talk about and think about. Now, on the other hand, do you think it's mathematically impossible that there's life out there? Mathematically? So? Mathematically so now when you move into mathematically, now you move into like Einstein and you go into probability. Probability, So according to probability, you would assume that it would be likely looking at it mathematically. So it's interesting for evolutionists. Yeah, it's mathematic there is not enough molecules in the in the universe, so have randomly created life, right, the probabilities of it, So I think it's highly unlikely if you're an evolutionist. But if you believe in creation and that God specially creates, then yeah, the universe is big enough I think for it. So it's kind of a weird thing. Anyways, that's a whole other conversation. I think you should do a whole show now, I'm joking. Yeah, yeah, okay, Well, hey, we're going to continue on with Joseph. And there's a pause in between the story of Joseph being sold into slavery and then now Joseph's experience in Egypt. And during that time, Judah has an affair with one of his father's wives or with his sister in law, isn't it wasn't it his sister in law? Yeah, something like that, And it was a pretty horrible story then, but ultimately she winds up in the the lineage of Jesus, the family tree of Jesus. So God redeems the story, even though which is a terrible story, which is an awesome aspect when you think about it. The fact that it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, all roads can lead back to Jesus. Yeah, which is awesome. So now we have Joseph in Genesis chapter thirty nine, and I'll read just like twenty three verses. Here says when Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar and Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing except what kind of food to eat. Joseph was a very handsome and well built young man, and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. Come and sleep with me, she demanded, but Joseph refused. Look, he told him, my master trust me with everything his entire household. No one here has more for authority than I do. He's held nothing back from me except you, because you are his wife. How can I do such a wicked thing. It would be a great sin against God. She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. One day, however, no one else was around. When he went in to do his work, she came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, come and come on sleep with me. Joseph tore himself away, but left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, she called out to her servants, and soon all the men came running. Look, she said, my husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us. He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me. She kept the cloak and with her until her husband came home. Then she told him her story that Hebrew slave you brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me, she said, but when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me. Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife's story about how Joseph had treated her, and so he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king's prisoners were held, and there he remained. But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his face for love, and the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed. Yeah, wow, it's kind of like the major theme we see here is that the Lord was with Joseph. Like we see that over and over, like, no matter where he was, that the Lord was with him. And it reminds me of that verse where the Bible says that he will never leave us or forsake us. You know, God was with him every step of the way, and that we can take comfort in that that no matter what we're going through, it can be tough, right, he went through some very difficult, tough situations, but God was with him in every single one of those instances. So that's right. Yeah, it's kind of like an overarching theme. It's my favorite part about the life of Joseph is that God was with him. God was with him. God was with him. So, just to put this in perspective, this is about nineteen hundred years before Christ. Just for people thinking, you know, here we are were two thousand years after Christ. This is almost the same amount of time before Christ that this is happening. And Egypt was the most powerful nation in the world right at this point. So Potiphar, being the head of the guard of Pharaoh, was one of the most powerful people. Pharaoh being you know, the king of Egypt, the emperor whatever, the ruler, and they viewed the Pharaohs as gods. So for Potiphar to be the protector of the gods, big deal. So here's the guy that's pretty wealthy, very substantial. He has farms and wealth and all these things, and the Bible says Joseph is sold into slavery to Potiphar. I think it's interesting how the Bible talks about slavery often in this context, in the context of people buying people. Sometimes there's good owners and bad owners. But the reality is, here's Joseph as property of another human, and the Bible says the Lord was with Joseph. And those feel like almost contradictory ideas, don't They go? Yeah, yeah, But God was with them no matter what. And I just think that's awesome when we think about it and even apply it to our own personal lives. Maybe there's someone listening right now going through a really tough situation and they are wondering, is God still with me? Did God leave me? You know, I've been praying about this thing for a month and it doesn't appear like anything has happened. Yet. Rest assured, God is still with you now here's the catch to that, though, God doesn't always answer our prayers the way that we ask for them. Yeah. So I can remember, just as a young kid, I prayed about certain things and God answered the prayer, but not in the form and fashion that I thought he was going to answer my kind of like I shared this before with how I prayed to God that I wanted to go into ministry full time. At the time, I was working at another job and doing ministry like part time. And I can now that I think back on it, it's kind of like God was saying, are you sure you want this? Yeah, gotta, I want to go into ministry full time. So the first thing that happened the company that I work for downsized and my position was eliminated. I'm like, well, Lord, I didn't have it like this. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times our prayers really are prescriptions for God. Yeah. It's like we're writing out here, this is what I need you to do for you. That's a great way as opposed to saying God, whatever you want to do? Yeah, right, And which is the more scary aspect to us, even though He knows all, but we still it seems scary to us. So so you know when I read this, humanity hasn't changed much. Yeah, this is two thousand years almost before dealing with the scene here, two thousand years after Christ injustices still exist. Right. The Bible's not endorsing the slavery. Here's just acknowledging this is the condition of humanity and that you know, Egypt was a pretty wicked nation, and that that's what they did. But God was with Joseph even in the bad conditions, even in the bad circumstances. And you know, I think sometimes we are tempted when something doesn't turn out the way that we wanted to, to play the victim, to say, well, I could be a great person except this happen. I could have been, you know, a man of character. I could have been successful, I could have done a thing, but these circumstances happened, or these people held me back, or this thing happened in my life. But the thing was this, Joseph wasn't leaning into what he felt like was fair for him. Joseph just did the best he could where he was, and the Bible said the Lord was with him over and over. You're going to see this as a theme. So we read it two times in this one chapter. But this is a theme of Joseph's life. But the Lord was with him, and so he just worked hard. He was faithful for Potiphar. And you know, sometimes the best answer is to in a bad situation, is to be the very best you can be, and other people are gonna see it, and you make a good thing out of a bad thing. One of the worst bosses I ever had. I mean, I found myself sometimes just waking up in the morning depressed that I woke up and I had to go to work today, you know what I mean. Horrible, But I decided, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna work really hard. I'm going to try to and and you know, the more I worked hard, the more reward I got, the better opportunity as opportunities I had, and I began to create a little bit of peace for myself in the midst of this horrible storm that I hated because I was overachieving, I was, I was going beyond. I think that's what you're seeing with Joseph is Joseph comes in as just a lowly slave, and he could have been blaming his circumstances. But instead of hey I'm gonna I'm gonna do the best I can with where I'm at, and God bless him. And I think there's a point with that. In verse two, the Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Sometimes in life you have to do what you don't necessarily want to do for a season to get to the destination. And I think about that in my own personal life. How one of the first jobs I had was working at ANW. And one of the challenges of ANW well, but here's the challenge with ANNW. They're very different from Burger King and McDonald's. At Burger King and McDonald's you can make like five big max and leave them on the shelf. At ANW, at least when I worked there, everything was made fresh to order. Oh that's good, So there was no like I couldn't make ten I can't remember what their hamburgers were called, make ten of them and just put them on a show. They didn't have a warming shelf. You literally made it and gave it to the customer. So that made it a very challenging during busy times because everything is literally being made to order, and I remember working there thinking I don't really want to do this. I mean, I'm getting burned by grease. One time that the huge grease traps on the side of the stove. I spilt grease over myself and the entire kitchen ones and it took us like two three hours to get that grease up. It was a disaster. But I was willing to do that because my goal was to get a car. So I was willing to endure this horrible working situation with people that were crazy. And maybe you're listening, you work with a few crazy people. Let's be honest, we've got to tell the truth. You're going through this all this stuff. But I knew this was only temporary. This wasn't my permanent assignment, and this was going to get me to the next level. So that's kind of how I look at it. With Joseph, he endured and he did well in his job. He endured it in this short term season so he could get to another place. Yeah, so he did what he didn't want to do so that he could do what he wanted to do eventually get there. It's same thing Dave Ramsey talks about that with finances, right, sometimes you have to decide to live like nobody else is willing to live, so that later on you can live like nobody else can live. Right, So with regard to saving and not going into debt and all those kinds of things. So I've heard sports players talk about that. I heard like Michael Jordan and other players talk about while everyone else went home, when everyone else went to the parties, they're in the gym shooting free throws. They're in the gym practicing jump shots. You got to be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do. Yeah. So the key here, I think is, you know, the Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded and everything he did as he served in the home of his master, Egyptian master. So it wasn't that God was just with him and so he succeeded everything he did. It was as he was doing what he was supposed to be doing at the time, right, And God was like, Hey, I'm going to bless you there. That's a sermon, Jeff. There's a blessing in the doing. Yeah, there is. There is. Most of God's blessings are if then propositions, if you do this, then I'll do this. And so he was faithful in the situation. But then you see this faithfulness goes beyond just being a hard worker to where Potiphar's wife it wasn't uncommon in that culture for owners to sleep with their slaves, and so she's coming on to Joseph, and Joseph keeps resisting and resisting, resisting. The one mistake I think I see, other than him bragging to his brothers earlier about hey, you're going to serve me someday, that was a mistake I think in immaturity. In this one, there was a mistake in that he allowed himself to be alone. He kept avoiding her, kept avoiding her, but then he's alone with her, and you know, hey, when people are coming on to you, you need to create buffer zones and you need to have or when you're tempted by a person, you know, you find somebody attractive, you need to make sure there's always people around you. One of the things that we've set up at Heritage with our staff is we have one of our values is live wisely, and we'll talk about it sometimes. The idea of live wisely is, hey, we don't go in cars alone. We don't go to coffee shops alone with somebody the opposite sex. And it's not that I think that you're going to fall in us in but the optics of it are such, or the opportunity to be such. And so we just say, Hey, we're going to build into our strategy. We're going to build into the way that we live some buffer zones so that things like this couldn't happen, so that nobody could ever accuse us. The reason why, because you're gonna find he goes to prison. Potiphar throws Joseph because not because Joseph did something wrong, but because Joseph had no witnesses. Right, Joseph's life could have been ruined if and in some ways was ruined because of an accusation that wasn't true, but because he had nobody else to back him up, he couldn't he couldn't get out of it. And so sometimes the best wisdom is to anticipate a potential and then headed off before that problem ever happens. And so, hey, I'm always going to have more than one person around whenever I travel internationally, we always travel in groups. Hey, you went you went to Togo with me one time, right, And we travel in groups, we don't travel alone all those kinds of things. And there's a reason for that, and it's that on my worst day, I don't want to be tempted. On my best day, I don't want to be accused of something I didn't do. And so having people that are together, I think that there's something about that that we need to be thinking about our reputations, not just what will happen, but what could happen and prevent that. Yeah, and don't be lulled into sin. I think people have a misconception I think of the devil. I think they think the devil is like some huge creature, something that you saw in like a horror movie. He's coming to get you with huge fans. If you saw that creature coming towards you, you would run the other direction. The enemy doesn't want you to run the other direction. So he's going to come, like I think the Bible refers to like an angel of light. He's going to come in a form that's very pleasing and appealing to you. So don't get lolled into this situation, which the Bible doesn't say, but it kind of seems like Joseph kind of got lolled into this. Well I could still work around her. Well, I can still do that. No, stay far away, because it says he avoided her as much as possible. Yeah, earlier. Yeah, and then now here he is gonna oh yeah, this is just how it is. It's like, no, keep your guard up. But then he does do the right thing. He runs. That is the right thing, man, when when you find yourself in a bad situation, run when run from it. As a matter of fact, don't just run from a sinful thing. Here, Paul says in his writings, flee even the appearance of evil, right right from the avoid every appearance of evil, he says, flee youthful lusts. And so that idea, that's the right answer. When you find yourself in a tempting, tempting opportunity or tempting situation, run, run is fast. Don't get in that situation. But if you do, run, run from it as fast as you can so that intention comes your way. Run the other way. Well, so he goes to prison, and then while he's in prison, God's with him there too. So we're going to continue throughout the week with the story of Joseph, so we look forward to having you join us the next time