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HopeLives365

Chris Holland

The Secret Advantage of Quarantine

Did you know that the quarantine has an advantage for the people of God?

Today I want to share with you, my dear friends, how and why you should take advantage of this opportunity right now.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the opportunity to study your word.

And now as we open the Bible, help us to understand, touch our lives in a very special way.

Friend, have you ever been so angry with someone?

Have you ever been so upset that you've said even aloud or maybe in your mind, I could just kill them.

I want you to go back with me some 4, 000 years ago, a group of brothers who had that same feeling, the difference of having that feeling or saying it out loud, these brothers, these brothers actually acted upon the feelings which they had.

These brothers were out tending their flocks.

10 of the brothers, they were of a family of 12 brothers and 1 sister.

10 of the brothers were out tending to the flocks.

They were in the ancient city of Shechem and had moved their flocks to the ancient city of Dothan.

There as they were tending their flocks the father sent 1 of his young sons, the second youngest son, to go and visit the brothers.

Now if we're being honest about the story, the father sent this second youngest brother to go and check up on the mischief that the 10 other brothers may have been creating.

As those 10 brothers saw their second youngest brother coming.

It was at that moment that they began conversing with 1 another and they decided that they were going to kill this brother because they hated him so much.

The oldest brother convinced the rest of them that they should not kill the brother.

But I want you to imagine for a moment how angry you would have to be to actually want to kill someone.

The second youngest brother arrived in the camp and they tore his clothes from him, his coat from him, and they threw him in a pit, trying to decide what they were going to do with him.

There Joseph sat in the pit, having had exercised upon him the pent-up feelings of jealousy and hatred.

I want you to imagine for a moment, Joseph.

Imagine what it felt like to be sitting at the bottom of an empty well, dark, damp.

Undoubtedly, he was hurting because I'm sure his brothers didn't gently lower him down into this pit.

Imagine being in a dark, damp pit, hurting and bruised.

I want you to imagine for a moment the emotions that Joseph must have felt as he sat there at the bottom of this pit.

Have you ever wondered, how am I gonna be provided for?

Imagine with me for a moment how Joseph must have felt as he sat there at the bottom of this pit wondering how in the world did this all happen?

Now some of you might be asking, what does this have to do with quarantine?

How did we get to this place with this young boy, Joseph, sitting at the bottom of a pit, an empty well?

Joseph was the 11th of 12 sons and 1 daughter.

All of them were the sons of Jacob, who had his name changed to Israel.

These were to be the chosen people, the chosen people of God, God's Children.

But the brothers of Joseph seemed to have a real problem.

How did they come to this problem that they had with Joseph?

If you have your Bibles with you, and I would encourage you, get to your Bible.

If you have a physical Bible, open that physical Bible.

If you have your phone, get out your phone.

It's very important when we study the Word of God to read and look at the Word of God yourself.

And for those of you watching online, If you don't have a Bible, you need a Bible, you leave a comment in the comments section or you email us at info at Hopelives365.com.

We want to make sure that you have the Word of God because it is the Word of God that is powerful and mighty in someone's life.

In Genesis chapter 37, it tells us how we arrived at the story of Joseph being at the bottom of the pit.

In Genesis chapter 37, beginning in verse 1, it says these words.

Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger.

In the land of Canaan, This is the history of Jacob.

Joseph, being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah.

These were 2 of the women that were his wives, his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report to the father.

So Joseph Essentially, if we're just putting it very plain, told on his brothers.

His brothers were doing something wrong and Joseph told the father about it.

Well how did that make the brothers feel?

Verse 3 says, Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age.

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, They hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

And so it's here where we see the beginnings of the problems.

Joseph received special treatments and gifts.

And the Bible says that the brothers hated him.

They detested him literally in the original language.

There in verse 5 it says, "'Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, "'and they hated him even more.

"'So he said to them, please hear this dream which I have dreamed.

There we were binding sheaves in the field.

Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf." Joseph had been given a dream by God of what was to happen in the future, and we'll talk about that in just a moment, so don't go away.

You want to stay and listen to what happened in the life of Joseph, but Joseph has this dream and it instills greater hatred in his brothers.

Verse 8 continues, and his brothers said to him, shall you indeed reign over us?

Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?

So they hated him, so they hated him even more for his dreams and his words.

Once again their hate is building and building and building against Joseph.

Verse 9 continues with how we get to this place where Joseph is sitting in the bottom of a pit.

Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers and said, look, I have dreamed another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and the 11 stars bowed down to me.

So he told it to his father and his brothers, And his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream you have dreamed?

Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?

And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind." Right here in the story, their hatred is channeled into envy, into jealousy.

And then that jealousy would lead them on the path of actually desiring to kill their brother.

Dark, damp, with a young Joseph, 17 years old, sitting in the pit, fearful, anxious, wondering.

But I want you to think about the brothers.

This brother who has told on you before for mischief that you've done, Now you've thrown him in a pit.

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The Secret Advantage of Quarantine

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