God’s Faithfulness
Genesis 40:9–23
Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Genesis 40:23

The story of Joseph’s being forgotten by Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer leads to certain lessons, and the first is to stop trusting in men, all of whom are ultimately undependable. The Bible says, “Stop regarding man, in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?” (Isa. 2:22). That is, “Why trust a creature who can live only by taking one breath at a time? If he misses only one breath, he dies. Trust God, who is the eternal breath from whom all our little breaths come.”

At one point Joseph must have hoped in man. But his experience taught him not to trust man, and he was delivered from the bitterness that overtakes many when they do trust others and are disappointed by them.

Second, allow disillusionment with man to turn you to the love and faithfulness of God. Men and women may forget you, but Jesus never will. The Bible says, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself ” (2 Tim. 2:13).

The third lesson is to wait for God. It is true that God does not always work according to our timetable. When God told the cupbearer through Joseph that he would be released from prison within three days, Joseph must have been encouraged to think that perhaps his deliverance would also be only days away. But God had not told him how long his confinement would last. He knew only that he was to wait on God and that in God’s own time the bars of the prison cell would be parted.

In ancient Egypt, perhaps as early as the time of Joseph but certainly long before the Christian era, there was a fable that concerned the mythical bird the Phoenix. The Phoenix was believed to have a life span of five hundred years and to be reborn at the end of that time by returning to its birthplace at Heliopolis. When the Phoenix returned to Heliopolis, it was said to have built a funeral pyre for itself and then to have been consumed on it after it had died. It then arose from the ashes to live for another half millennium. That was only a myth, of course, though it was actually believed by most persons living in the ancient world and was even used by the early Christian apologists as evidence for the resurrection. But myth or not, it is a picture of that renewal of spirit and body that always comes to God’s people in his own proper time.

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.