Dreams and Dungeons

I never gave a graduation address, never spoke before a group of young people without encouraging them to dream. I always told of how I dreamed as a young person, following the plow on the farm. You are not stuck where you start, but you will go no further than your dreams.

Most of today's anxiety about the future comes from facing the unexpecteds of life. The “Magna Carta” of the Christian life is as follows: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.(Ephesians 2:8-9)

I have been totally blind for 50 years, but when I could see, I remember there were signs on the highway, usually with a large hand, which said “Reader”. These were people to whom you could go and talk about the future, people who “supposedly” could tell you about your future by tarot cards or some other method. I knew one lady who went to one of these readers. The reader said, “in order for us to keep track of our time together, we light a candle. Each candle costs 25 dollars.” This lady would go every week, sometimes several times a week. When she had spent nearly $200,000 on candles, she still was feeling her way through a maze of doubt.

The world will caste doubts on your dreams, try to convince you of the unworthiness of your dreams. Legalism in many churches, will try to convince you that you must work to get God's acceptance by your own actions, or the actions of others. You cannot pray to anyone, living or dead, to get you out of your dungeon of doubt or fear. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:5)

Certainly, the great family of the Old Testament, was the family of Jacob; his twelve sons, the twelve tribes of Judaism. One of the most thrilling stories of scripture, the story of Joseph. Joseph was a dreamer, but this young boy talked too much, told about his dreams. He was his father's favorite because he was from his father's favorite wife, Rachael...wore a coat of many colors (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).

Joseph was an obedient son, whether he talked too much or not. His father told him to go and check on his brothers herding flocks of sheep, following the grass. He did not find them where his father had sent him, they had moved many miles to Dothan. It took him days, but when he finally got there, they decided to kill him. What a reception for a brother!

One brother, Reuben, asked that they not to kill him. Just at that time, a camel train appeared, going west. Joseph was sold into slavery, stripped, whipped, put in bonds of iron, cutting in his flesh, forever immunizing him into the glory and mercy of God, giving him the morality to face life.

This young boy must have seen the lights of Hebron (an older city than Jerusalem) as the camel train headed to Egypt. Think of the improbability: that Potiphar would have bought him as a slave, out of the dungeon; that Potiphar's wife would take a sexual interest in him; that he would be thrown in the dungeon again; that there, again, dreams of a butler and baker, dreams of pharaoh, ruler of Egypt, dreams of fat and lean cows, all these improbable circumstances leading to Joseph becoming ruler of Egypt. How many of us would have shaven before appearing before Pharaoh (Joseph was 17 when sold into slavery, 30 when appearing before Pharaoh)? How many of us would have run from the sexual advances of Potiphar's wife? How many of us would have forsaken our faith in the dungeon? How many of us would have doubted our dreams in the two year lapse between Joseph's reading of the butler's dream and Joseph's dream? Joseph, dreams and dungeons...and then, his brothers appearing on the scene because his own family was starving in Canaan. It was because Joseph brought his family into Egypt, over 400 years, multiplying into millions, becoming slaves, becoming the foundation of Judaism. The basis for all the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament.

In University of Texas' professor, J. Budziszewski's book, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, we are tethered with the knowledge that before Moses had his face-to-face meeting with God, gaining the Commandments; man, from the heart, knew the difference between right and wrong. C.S. Lewis tells us that natural law may have one man marrying one wife, and another marrying several, but the important thing is that all believe in marriage. Even before Noah's flood, and in spite of what the atheists will tell you, the essential laws of God (marriage, homosexuality, murder, theft) were written on the hearts of men (Romans 2). In your dreams, do not forget your moral compass, and the ability of God, despite the statistical probability, to work out your dreams for you.

In today's world, perhaps because of doubts and fears, we have lost our moral compass, we have lost our way, even to attempting to work out our own redemption through the legalism of some churches or other methods. For instance, we know through the last polls that 60% of Christian people are interested in the economy, but only 20% are interested in abortion, and 25% in same-sex marriage. So little faith in God or country, so few dreams. 6 million Americans gamble on a regular basis, including 1 million teenagers. The average Christian spends $1400 in the casino and only gives $20 to foreign missions.

The most important words in the story of Joseph: the Lord was with Joseph (Genesis 39). In your dreams, like Joseph, keep your faith; today, too many must have comfort in order to worship: padded pews, air conditioning, drums and drama. When Paul and Silas were ridiculed, beaten and thrown into the prison in Phillipi, in stocks among fellow prisoners, at midnight they sang hymns, and the scripture tells us that the prisoners listened. Joseph was an example in the dungeon, Paul was an example in the prison; prisoners always recognize the real thing. Potiphar had a persistent wife, but Joseph said, “how can I sin against God?” In your dreams, learn to fear God more than the opinions of people.

The Rest of The Story

This year, on February 28th, America lost its most popular radio personality, Paul Harvey who died at the age of 90, having endeared himself to generations of Americans because of his voice of security and sincerity. As long as Paul Harvey was on the radio, we knew we had at least one radio commentator who was honest, and would tell us the truth in spite of “hell or high water.” One of his more fascinating extensions of his commentary was entitled “The Rest Of The Story,” wherein, we learn many fascinating facts we would have never known otherwise. He spoke of personalities and premieres, prophets and pagans, we heard the truth about those in prison and many who should be in prison.

The first prison, now a tourist attraction, was built in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1821. Prisoners there at that time lived in individual solitary cells, They were not allowed to speak to each other or write letters home. Included in the penitentiary was a confined exercise area.

Like this writer, familiarity with prisons for most people is limited to books and film. I have told many people about being blind, don’t try to imagine what it is like. I talked with at least two employees who had been prison inmates. Each told me that no sane person could imagine what prison life is like. My answer has always been, “it must not be too bad because the re-incarceration rate is so high.

Can one even imagine the horrors of prison life for one of the most discussed characters of Bible history. Put bones and flesh on most Bible characters and they become much more interesting. Jacob, worked seven years for Laban, thinking he would get his daughter Rachel’s hand in marriage, but Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Rachel’s older sister Leah and then Jacob had to work seven more years for Rachel. Rachel, whom Jacob really loved, had a son Joseph, whom Jacob loved more than any of Joseph’s half-brothers, the sons of Leah. To put it simple, Joseph was a spoiled brat, the favorite son of his father Jacob. The favoritism shown by his coat of many colors.

Jacob sent Joseph many miles to check on his brothers who were shepherding near present day Hebron. Joseph was foolish enough to tell his brothers about a dream he had where they were bowing down to honor him. Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit, and would have killed him but a caravan of Ishmaelite’s (Genesis 37) were approaching and they decided, better still, sell him into slavery. The very iron chains with which the Ishmaelite’s transferred him to Egypt in, must have been a transfusion of immunity of character which would see him through prison cells as well as the very throne room of Egypt’s pharaoh. Can one even imagine the statistical probability and possibilities of Joseph’s history?

The entire history of the Jewish people, their future nation, indeed, the entire history of the world would have been drastically changed if these sons of Leah, later the tribes of Israel, had not sold this one spoiled seventeen year old to some nomadic traders. Think of the statistical improbability of one man, Potiphar, buying this young man in a slave market. Think of the hand of God involved in revealing interpretation of dreams to him in, of all places, the impoverishment of an Egyptian dungeon. (Much like the hand of God inspiring Paul to write the most marvelous epistles known in the history of man in prison cells) Think of Joseph putting his own cup in the bags of grain on his brothers return to Canaan and the marvelous fulfillment of God’s promise to the first Jew Abraham, of his descendants spending 400 years in slavery.

As was the case, when the earthly father of Jesus, Joseph, had a dream to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape a madman’s killing of innocent children. So this Joseph was used by an omnipotent God to save the lives of millions from another madman.

Pay attention to your dreams, listen to your children’s dreams, from the dreams of dungeons history has been made. From the dreams of young people with scientific genes, science has been advanced. From the dreams of the watchers of the heavens, people have gone into outer space. From the cosmos of the mind, the letters and ideas of learning, great literature has been written. All started with dreams. You are scriptural and spiritually illiterate if you do not believe in the natural law of listening to instructions from an omnipotent, omniscience creator who has designed history. Remember, however, yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. When we stand, watching a parade, we know what has gone on in front of us and what is in front of us at the present, but we do not know what is yet to come. How easily frail human beings, have forgotten that creator-God knows the beginning as well as the end of the parade.

Dr. Karl Menninger, world's outstanding psychiatrist, Menninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas, wrote the book What Ever Became of Sin. Anyone that does not believe that there are repercussions for sin is just fooling himself. God was not joking when He instructed us to live holy lives. Do we really think that we can, with impunity, slaughter millions of His most precious creations in the abortion holocaust of this country, Mexico, China, or anywhere else, and get by with it. As the great preacher said, “there is a payday, someday.”

The Christian way of life is the only way of living. Otherwise, more than we find in our daily papers, those who commit suicide, would end it all. The reality for the child of God, the consequences of eternal damnation. G. K. Chesterton, perhaps Christianity's most famous secular writer said, “The Christian living has not been found wanting, it has just been found difficult.” It is not easy to live separated from the world. The wheat and tares are growing here in the same field together. But we know that the time is at hand when the wheat will be separated from the tares, the sheep from the goats.

My great grandfather, for whom I give two large financial awards to two ministers as a memorial each year, and have done so for many years, traveled Eastern North Carolina by horse and buggy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries preaching the gospel and helping establish churches. I met one preacher, who told me that when he came to his community it was his job to take care of my great-grandfather's very fine horse. This man, a large land owner, could have sat at home in comfort, surrounded by his twelve children. He reportedly, had a dream in which he heard the millions of unsaved, condemned sinners screaming in hell. The words over the exit to hell in Dante’s Inferno reads, ”Last chance.” We know little about the thief on the cross dying next to our blessed Lord, but he had a last chance. And so it was with my great grandfather, as he wrote, he was attempting to give those he came in contact with, a last chance. This was his dream. What will the rest of the story be with our own lives?