Saturday, March 23, 2019


BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday March 24, 2019

PHARAOH’S DREAM
Genesis 41

   Two years after Joseph was imprisoned by Potipher, the Pharaoh of Egypt (who, according to Egyptian records, at that time was Sesostris III – 1878-1843 B.C.) had two puzzling dreams that concerned him greatly. In the first dream, he saw himself standing on the banks of the Nile River, where he saw seven fat, healthy-looking cows suddenly come up out of the river, and began grazing on the bank. Then, just as suddenly, he saw seven jaunty, ugly looking cows come up out of the river, and they ate all seven of the fat, healthy-looking cows. At that point the Pharaoh awoke from his dream.
    A short while later the Pharaoh fell asleep again, only to dream a similarly puzzling dream. This time, however, he dreamed of seven healthy heads of grain on one stalk, having every kernel well-formed and plump. Then suddenly he saw seven other heads of grain, also on one stalk, only these were withered and shriveled by the force of the east wind. Then, just as suddenly, the thin withered heads of grain, swallowed up the plump, healthy heads of grain, and the Pharaoh again was awaken to realize it was only a dream.
    The next morning the Pharaoh called in all of his magicians and wise men, but none of them were able to interpret his dreams to him. Just then the Pharaoh’s cupbearer, who was present, and, who had served time with Joseph in prison, remembered that Joseph had interpreted one of his dreams while in prison, and, that he had promised to put in a good word for Joseph to the Pharaoh upon his release. He suddenly felt convicted that he had forgotten all about Joseph when he got out jail, and instead, blended back into his old job at the palace, and never gave Joseph another thought until that moment. 
    The cupbearer then told the Pharaoh about Joseph’s uncanny ability to interpret dreams, and he sent for Joseph at once, and he was hastily brought before him. When Joseph heard the details of the Pharaoh’s dreams, he said to him, “Both dreams mean the same thing”. The seven healthy cows, and the seven healthy stalks of grain, represent seven years of prosperity in Egypt, while the seven skinny cows, and the seven withered heads of grain represent seven years of famine in Egypt. The seven years of famine would erase the memory of the previous seven years of prosperity. Having the dream twice meant that GOD had decreed it, and that both these events would soon occur. 
    Now here’s where Joseph’s faithfulness is rewarded, because GOD gave him the solution to the problem, before it physically became a problem. Joseph advises the king to set up a nationwide program by which they would store up one fifth of all the grain collected during the seven years prosperity, so that there would be more than enough food for the people to survive on during the seven years of famine. Impressed by Joseph’s GODly wisdom, and now convinced of his being filled with the SPIRIT of GOD, the Pharaoh put Joseph in charge over all of Egypt, second only to himself.
    Then Pharoah re-named Joseph “Zaphenath-paneah” which is interpreted “Savior of the world” and also “revealer of secrets” (Gen. 41:37-46). He then gave Joseph an Egyptian wife named Asenath, who was the daughter of Potiphera (which means “he who Ra the sun god has given), a priest of Heliopolis. Pharaoh hoped that Asenath would teach Joseph the ways of Egyptian life. She bore Joseph two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
    Joseph’s marriage to Asenath may account for why no tribe of Israel is named for him directly, but instead, two half tribes bear the names of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were only half-blood Jews. And in fact, it is only by Jacob’s adopting of Ephraim and Manasseh as his sons (Genesis 48:5-6), were they able to share in the promised allotments of land in Canaan. Joseph, who was a direct descendant of the covenant line of Abraham, should not have intermarried with the Egyptians or anyone else who was not a genealogical part of the Israelite community, and so there had to be consequences paid for his indiscretion. By doing so, he disqualified himself from his allotment in the “Promised Land”, but not from salvation.
    Just like for all of us, GOD’s plan for Joseph was to teach him humility through the things that he suffered in prison, and even earlier on in life, through his mistreatment by his brothers. And even though Joseph’s choice to accept Asenath in marriage may have been out of GOD’s perfect will for him, GOD still wanted, an otherwise faithful Joseph, to be able to serve HIM in “HIS wise plan and purpose for the Covenant Promise”. In HIS keeping with Joseph, GOD also gave him the privilege to serve in the eventual “Salvation plan offer” for all mankind that is contained in “the first advent of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST”. 
    Being in the Will of GOD is always “the right place to be”, and when we abide in that Will, especially when we are under duress from the pressures of the world, the time is even more right for the LORD’s blessings to be rained down upon us, in order to ease our oppressed situations.
    This passage of scripture serves to remind us that, even when we don’t understand the “why” for the unwanted things in our lives, we must still remain confident that GOD is at work in every life situation and experience, especially in those experiences that are most painful to us. And, although we may not be able to see it at that time, it is during those times, that we are in the best position to serve GOD as completely, as we always should. 

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander



                      Larry DAlexander's Books and Publications Spotlight

                                 
                                           LARRY DALEXANDER- Official Website





Friday, March 15, 2019


BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday March 17, 2019

JOSEPH INTERPRETS TWO DREAMS
Genesis 40

   In Genesis 40, after Joseph had been thrown into prison by Potipher on false charges (his wife falsely accusing him of attempted rape), once again, what seems to be a bad place initially, now quickly turns into another opportunity for advancement. Here we see that, because the LORD is with Joseph, he was granted favor by the chief jailer, and before long, he was put in charge of all the other prisoners, and over all things that happened in the prison. In fact, because of the LORD’s favor upon Joseph, the chief jailer no longer had any worries concerning his responsibilities of the affairs of the king’s prison.
    Some time after Joseph’s imprisonment, the Pharaoh became displeased with two of his most trusted servants, the chief baker, and the chief cup bearer. In any kingdom, the men whom the king trust the most, are given the job of handling and serving his food and drinks, because it minimized the risk of being poisoned by someone in their own inner circle. These two men remained in prison for quite some time, and Joseph, because he was in charge of the king’s prisoners, was assigned by the chief jailer to take care of them also.
    Once again we see here that Joseph has been put into “the right place” at “the right time” by the LORD, so that he can receive even greater blessings as a reward for his faithfulness to HIM. He had now been put into contact with two of the Pharaoh’s top officials, who had now found themselves in a pickle, and didn’t know how they were going to extricate themselves from their predicament.
    And so the stage was now set for Joseph, the man of GOD, to move even closer to the throne of Pharaoh, and namely, to the position of “second in command” of the Egyptian government (Genesis 41:40). Because of his continued faith and trust in the “goodness” of GOD, and despite his condition of unjust imprisonment, the LORD had now already taken him from “chattel slavery” to prominence among the very people who enslaved him.
    One night both the baker, and the cup bearer, each had a dream, and they were deeply concerned as to what their dreams meant. In fact, they were so concerned that they both carried a look of dejection all over their faces. When Joseph saw them he inquired of them what their problem might be, and both men shared their concerns with him. After hearing that they had both had distressing dreams, Joseph told them that interpreting dreams was GOD’s business, and he convinced both men to tell their dreams to him (Vs.5-8).
    The cup-bearer told Joseph his dream first, which was about a vine with three branches that began to bloom and blossom, and ultimately produced several cluster of ripened grapes. He took the grapes and squeezed them into the Pharaoh’s cup and then handed the cup over to him. Joseph then told the cup-bearer what his dream meant. The three branches represent three days, he told him, and in three days the Pharaoh will release you from prison and return you to your former position. Joseph then asked the man to remember him when gets out, and to put a good word in for him, so he might win his own release from prison, for he had done nothing to deserve his incarceration (Vs.9-15).
    Next the baker told Joseph his dream of “the three baskets of pastries that he carried on his head”. However, before he could deliver them to Pharaoh, the bird came and ate them all up. Unfortunately, Joseph’s interpretation of his dream did not have a happy ending, and in fact, his dream forecasted his demise on the orders of the Pharaoh (Vs.16-19).
    Joseph’s interpretations were dead on, and within three days both men were released from prison. The Pharaoh restored the cup-bearer back to his former position, and he sentenced the baker to death by ordering him to be impaled on a pole, where the birds came pecked away his flesh, just as Joseph had predicted to him. Unfortunately, once the cup-bearer had received his freedom, he forgot all about Joseph’s request of him to mention his good deed to him, to the Pharaoh.

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander



                      Larry DAlexander's Books and Publications Spotlight

                                 
                                           LARRY DALEXANDER- Official Website





Friday, March 8, 2019


BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday March 10, 2019

JOSEPH IN POTIPHER”S HOUSE
Genesis 39

  
Throughout Scripture, we learn that the LORD provides us with two “temptation barriers” to help us to avoid sin. One is “HIS goodness”, and the other, is “HIS judgment”. In Genesis 39 we see an example of how the knowledge and experience of “GOD’s goodness” prevented Joseph, “Israel’s favorite son”, from committing adultery with his master Potiphar’s wife (Vs. 8-9). 
    After being indirectly sold into slavery by his brothers to a group of traveling Ishmaelites, Joseph had been subsequently re-sold to a man named Potiphar, who was the captain of the guards for the Pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph, through his faithful service to Potiphar, quickly rose to the position of “supervisor” over his master’s entire estate. Here we see that, even while in “chattel slavery”, the LORD was with Joseph, and blessed him greatly in everything that he did, and, HE also blessed Potiphar for Joseph’s sake (Vs. 1-6). 
    In the process of time, Potiphar’s wife became very attracted to Joseph, who scripture tells us, was a very handsome, well-built man. She began to pursue Joseph sexually, but he, time and time again, resisted her advances. He told her that her husband trusted him, and “had been too good to him for him to do such wicked a thing”. He also told her that “He has entrusted me with everything that he has, and has withheld nothing from me, except you. No one on his staff has more authority than me. It would be a great sin against GOD” (Vs. 7-9). 
    On one occasion however, when Joseph was working alone inside the house, she saw him, and grabbed him and demanded that he sleep with her. Joseph, however, tore himself away from her and fled from the house as quickly as he could, leaving a piece of his garment clutched in her hands.
    Infuriated by Joseph’s continued rejections, she screamed for the guards, and when they arrived, she told them that Joseph had tried to rape her. She used Joseph’s garment as proof that he had been there. When she told her husband Potiphar, he was furious at Joseph, and as a result, he had him thrown into prison (Vs. 11-19).
    Now GOD continued to be with Joseph while he was in prison, just as HE was with him in Potiphar’s house. In both settings Joseph was a faithful servant to those who were in authority. The conviction and trust that he had, that GOD was with him in all circumstances, freed him up to do the very best he could do, no matter how great his setbacks were, or appeared to be. 
    Our faithfulness to a life of integrity can prepare us for whatever advancement we will receive from GOD, whenever things seem to be going downhill for us. Joseph’s faithfulness prepared him for those sudden advancements that GOD bestowed upon him every time it looked like things were getting worse. 
    When he was sold into the depths of chattel slavery, GOD raised him to the heights of manager over his master’s estate. When he was thrown down into prison, GOD raised him up to be in charge of everything that went on inside the prison. Joseph was faithful with small things, and so GOD entrusted him with greater things, and HE will do the same with anyone who chooses to live a life of integrity before HIM.
    This story in the life of Joseph serves to remind us of the frequent advice of King Solomon where he warns us, time and time again, of the folly of yielding to the temptations of a flattering woman or man, and thereby, destroying all chances of having a life of true service to GOD.
    Joseph did not yield to temptation because he was totally convinced that he would receive GOD’s goodness if he remained true to HIM. And he was not willing to throw away GOD’s eternal blessings for a moment’s pleasure in sin, and it did not bother him if he had to suffer for righteousness sake. And incidentally, that brings to mind, another great MAN of integrity, WHO was obedient to GOD simply because of GOD’s goodness to HIM, ONE whom all true Christians know, as CHRIST JESUS, our LORD.

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander




 


Friday, March 1, 2019


BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday March 3, 2019

JUDAH AND TAMAR
Genesis 38

   After Joseph’s older brothers indirectly sold him into “chattel slavery” in Egypt, Judah, the son of Jacob and Leah, left home and moved to Adullam, about 15 miles northwest of Hebron. There he met and married a Canaanite woman, who was the daughter of a man named Shua. She became pregnant and bore him a son, whom Judah named Er. She then became pregnant again and had another son, and this time, she named him, she called him Onan. And when she became pregnant a third time, she again named her son, calling him Shelah (Judah didn’t even bother to name his sons, born after Er).
    By the time Shelah was born, Judah had already moved his family to Chezib (also called “Achzib”, which means “false”). At that time, Achzib was a Canaanite city in the lowlands of the territory that would later be allotted, by Joshua, to his brother, Asher’s tribe (Joshua 19:29). However, the tribe of Asher would fail in their attempt to drive out the Canaanites from that immediate area, and from several other cities that were allotted to them by Joshua (Judges 1:31).     
    When Judah’s oldest son, Er, grew up, Judah arranged his marriage to a young woman named Tamar. However, because of Er’s wickedness before the LORD, his life was taken away at an early age, before he fathered any children (Vs.6-7). And so Judah tried to invoke “Levirate Law” upon Er’s younger brother, Onan, his second son, but Onan refused to accept the responsibility of giving his brother an heir, even though he did marry Tamar to take advantage of the situation for sexual gratification only. In fact, whenever he had sexual intercourse with Tamar he would withdraw himself from her just before he climaxed, and let his semen spew on the ground to keep from impregnating her. His actions angered the LORD, and because of his steadfast refusal to give his brother an heir, the LORD took his life also (Vs.8-10).
    To explain this judgment from GOD, upon Onan, one needs to understand Levirate Law. “Levirate”, from the Latin “levir”, which means “husband’s brother”, had always been a “Hebrew custom”. It required a brother to marry the wife of a deceased brother, if they, as a couple, had not yet had any sons born to them. The first son born from the union of the deceased brother’s surviving wife, and his surviving brother, would be considered the “heir” of the brother who had passed away. However, GOD also sanctioned this custom, as HE later had Moses to codify it into “the Law of GOD” in Deuteronomy 25:5-10.
    After Onan’s death, Judah told Tamar not to remarry, but instead, to return to her parent’s home and remain a widow until his youngest son, Shelah, was old enough to marry her. However, Judah was deceiving Tamar at the time, and really had no intentions of following through on this promise because he feared he would endanger the life of his only remaining son, if he too, refused to comply with the Levirate Law, as his older brother had done  (v.11).
    Now several years later, and after Shelah had grown into manhood, Judah’s wife passed away. One day, after his time of mourning for her was over, Judah and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite, went over to nearby Timnah to oversee the shearing of his sheep. Tamar was aware that Shelah was now a grown man, and she was incensed that Judah had not yet kept his promise to her, that Shelah would be held to the Levirate Law, to marry her (Vs.12-14).
   Consequently, Tamar decided to take matters into her own hands, and she devised a scheme against Judah that would by-pass his son Shelah, and actually trick him into fulfilling the Levirate Law himself, with his own body. And so, after hearing that Judah was going over to Timnah, she hurriedly changed out of her “widow” clothes, and put on the attire of a prostitute, which included a veil for her face that would keep Judah from recognizing her.
    Tamar then ran ahead of them down toward Timnah, and sat along the road outside of the village of Enaim (about halfway between Chezib and Timnah), and she waited there for them to pass by. From the nature of her scheme, she obviously had some insight into Judah’s immoral sexual history, or maybe Judah just simply had a known reputation for using the services of prostitutes from time to time, seeing how she knew exactly how to entrap him. 
    Sure enough, Judah noticed her as he went by on the way to Timnah, and he stopped to proposition her to sleep with him. Since her face was veiled, he did not realize that she was his daughter-in-law. And so Tamar asked Judah how much was he willing to pay her, and in response, he offered to send her a young goat once he returned back home to Chezib.
    However, already knowing from experience that she couldn’t trust Judah at his word, she asked him what pledge he could leave with her that would ensure that he would send her the goat later on.  When Judah asked her “what did she require” as a pledge, Tamar requested that he give her his “identification seal”, which hung from a cord around his neck, and, his walking stick that he held in his hand.
    Judah gave Tamar these articles, and he slept with her, and she became pregnant with his child. After returning home Judah asked his friend Hirah to take the goat back to the prostitute and retrieve his items from her. However, when he got there, she was nowhere to be found. In fact, the locals told Hirah that, “there has never been a prostitute working, anywhere near the village of Enaim”.
    Three months later, word reached Judah that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, was pregnant as a result of prostitution. Then, an angry, hypocritical Judah, quickly announced “a death sentence” upon Tamar, and they dragged her out of her house into the streets, to kill her. However, as they were dragging her to her death, she convinced them to allow her to send a message to Judah, proclaiming that the man who impregnated her is the owner of this “identification seal” and “walking stick”.
    Upon seeing the items, Judah was forced to admit that they were his, and he then confessed his “hypocrisy” and “lack of integrity”, and proclaimed that he was more guilty than Tamar was, because, not only did he proposition and sleep with her, thinking that she was a prostitute, he also had earlier broke his promise to her that she could marry his son when he became of age. And a now, repentant Judah, never slept with Tamar again.
    In the final segment of this dramatic chapter, we see that, in the time of Tamar’s delivery, she gave birth to, not one, but two sons. In a birth that is very reminiscent of Jacob and Esau’s birth, we see that one of the twin’s hands, Zerah’s, came out first. However, the other twin, Perez, was the first to make “the complete breach”, and he became the one, who was actually born first.
    And so we see that, despite Judah’s attempts to hinder Tamar’s marriage to his son, the line of “the promise” would continue on through Perez. And the prophecy concerning Jacob ruling over his older brother Esau, was now being lived out through Judah’s family. And even though he and his brothers had dealt unjustly with their younger brother, Joseph, by indirectly selling him into “chattel slavery” in Egypt, GOD shows that, at the end of the day, no matter what plans we are able to conjure up using our “human ingenuity”, HIS Will, is “a prevailing Will”, and will always win out over our “human efforts”, no matter how great our desire is, “to do what we want to do”.

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander