This message is a parenthesis covering the secret of Joseph's release and exaltation.
When some read chapter forty, they may have the desire to speak to the Lord on Joseph's behalf and ask the Lord why He kept Joseph in prison for such a long time. Joseph was seventeen or eighteen years of age when he was first put into prison, and he was about twenty-eight years of age when he interpreted the dreams of his two companions in prison. Although he had been in the dungeon for at least ten years prior to the release of his companions, his own dreams still had not yet been fulfilled. Perhaps you would say, "Lord, this is too much. You have tested Joseph for ten years already. Why didn't You release him when You released his two companions? After Joseph had interpreted the dream of the cupbearer, he asked the cupbearer to remember him. But the cupbearer forgot Joseph, and nothing happened. Lord, it is easy for men to forget. But You are God, and You cannot forget things. Why did You keep Joseph in prison for another two years?" One day I was enlightened to see that Joseph remained in prison for another two full years (Gen. 41:1) because it was necessary for him to reach the age of thirty (Gen. 41:46).
Today many young people expect to be released from their cage as soon as they turn eighteen. But according to the Bible, we need to reach the age, not of eighteen or even twenty-eight, but of thirty. Those who served God as priests began to do so in a full way at the age of thirty (Num. 4:3). The ones under thirty were apprentices, not fully functioning priests (Num. 8:24). When the Lord Jesus began to minister, He also was thirty years of age (Luke 3:23). Thus, if Joseph had come to the throne at the age of twenty-eight, he would not have typified Christ in this matter. He had to be thirty years of age. After I saw this, I was convinced that these further two years were necessary for Joseph to be qualified. If he had not stayed there for two additional years, he would have been under age.
Young people, no matter how long your trial may be, do not be disappointed. You need to recognize that your trial is of God. No one can be enthroned without being tried and tested. Although we like to be enthroned immediately, God would say, "The time is not yet. Do not talk to Me about enthronement. You need to be put into the dungeon." If you seek the Lord, the Lord will put you into a dungeon. Perhaps all who are around you — your wife, your children, the elders, and the brothers and sisters — intend to respect you; however, whatever they do only serves to put you into a dungeon. We have nothing to say about this. Without the dungeon, we cannot ascend to the throne. Do not be a dungeon dropout; stay in the dungeon until you graduate and receive the crown. You need the last two years.
Although I may have no intention of putting you in a dungeon and although you may have no intention of putting me in a dungeon, what actually happens is that we put one another into a dungeon. When you were married, did you intend to put your wife into a dungeon? Surely you had no such intention. But this is just what you have done. Unintentionally and unconsciously, we put others into a dungeon. My children have done this to me. Sometimes they tell me how much they love me, but within myself I say, "Your love puts me into a dungeon." Nevertheless, we need to say, "Hallelujah for the dungeon! Although I have been here for ten years, I need to stay another two years." Again I say, do not drop out of the dungeon. Stay there and stay there gloriously, with praises to the Lord, not with the gnashing of teeth.
Madame Guyon was one who could praise the Lord in her dungeon. She even wrote a poem in which she likened herself to a bird in a cage. Here is the first stanza:
A little bird I am,Shut from the fields of air,And in my cage I sit and singTo Him who placed me there;Well pleased a prisoner to be,Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.
Madame Guyon grew to love her cage, which was her dungeon.
If Joseph had not stayed in the dungeon for twelve years, he would not have been qualified to rule over the land of Egypt. For this, he had to be thirty years of age. Those twelve years in the dungeon accomplished a great deal for him, not through objective education, but through subjective suffering and discipline. Be patient; eventually you will be qualified to rule. But in order to be qualified, you need to stay in the dungeon for another period of time.
Now we come to my burden in this message. My burden is to point out that Joseph was released from prison through his speaking by faith. Joseph dreamed that he was a sheaf rising up and that his brothers were bowing down to him. Ten years went by, and still this dream had not been fulfilled. If this had happened to us, we would have been disappointed to the uttermost and said, "Forget about this dream. I'm through with being a dreamer and with hearing about dreams." If Joseph had done this, he probably would never have been released from prison. He was released from the dungeon by speaking. However, Joseph was not released at the time he interpreted the dreams of his two companions. He interpreted their dreams by speaking in faith. If I had been the one interpreting dreams for others, I would have been afraid they would ask about my own dreams, because I would have had the vision, but not the experience or the fulfillment of the vision. Thus, I would not have dared to say anything for fear that someone might say, "What are you talking about? Don't talk about dreams until your own dreams have been fulfilled. I don't believe in you." But no matter whether his dreams had been fulfilled or not, Joseph spoke boldly by faith. If he had been questioned, he might have said, "Yes, I have had two dreams. Although they have not been fulfilled, I still believe in them. Perhaps tomorrow they will be fulfilled." Eventually, by his speaking Joseph was released from prison. If he had not spoken to the cupbearer, there would have been no one to tell Pharaoh about Joseph. It was the cupbearer who brought the news to Pharaoh that there was someone in prison who could interpret dreams (Gen. 41:9-13). Therefore, Joseph was released from prison indirectly through his interpretation of the cupbearer's dream.
I have experienced this myself. In 1957 I was somewhat troubled by a problem that had arisen in the churches in Taiwan. But one day the Lord showed me that I should forget about the problem and begin to speak concerning the kingdom and the New Jerusalem, telling people that the church life today is a miniature of the New Jerusalem. Thus, I began to speak boldly, first in Taipei and then in Manila. An elderly British missionary attended the meetings in Manila and heard my messages. After one of the meetings, he came to me and said, "Brother Lee, do you mean these things to be for today or for the future?" When I said that I meant both, he replied, "The New Jerusalem will certainly be in the future, but I cannot see it here today. How can you say that it is both present and future?" Nevertheless, I continued to say that it was both. He would not believe it, but I did. Eventually, he left the church life. This indicates that the more you say no to the vision, the more you will be out. You may say, "There is no such thing as the church life; this is simply Brother Lee's dream. Let's forget about it." But the more you say this, the more you will be out of today's church life. We need to say, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! I believe that the church life is here today." The more you say this, the more you will be in it. This is a dreamer's vision.
We all need to speak like dreamers. Do not wait until you have the experience before you speak. Speak first. Speak immediately after you have seen the vision and then you will have the experience. Andrew Murray once said that a good minister always speaks more than he has experienced. In a sense, a good minister must be a boaster. During the years I have been in this country, I have spoken so boldly about the church life that some might have thought that I was boasting. Regarding the church life, some asked me, "Brother Lee, does this work?" I answered, "Why not?" For those who have said that it was impossible to have the church life, it has been impossible. In 1962 we had our first conference in the United States. Immediately after that conference, I was invited to a brother's home in Whittier. One day my host asked me, "Brother Lee, do you intend to say that what you minister actually works?" I replied, "I can assure you that it does. I would even sign a guarantee to this effect." Whether or not the vision works depends upon your mouth. If you say, "No," it will not work for you. But if you say, "Yes," it will work for you, even though it does not work for others. It all depends on whether you say yes or no. If you say no, it will be no; and if you say yes, it will be yes. Concerning the dream, the vision, it matters a great deal whether we say yes or no; for either our yes or our no will come true.
Joseph's speaking not only released him from prison, but also ushered him to the throne. Joseph spoke himself to the throne. He was given authority directly through his interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams (Gen. 41:25-44). If I had been the one interpreting dreams for Pharaoh, I would have been very cautious, fearing that Pharaoh would ask me about my own dreams. I would have been afraid that Pharaoh might say, "You don't have any experience. How can I listen to your interpretation? Your dreams have not been fulfilled. How then can my dreams be fulfilled? Go away from me." Joseph, however, was bold to speak, to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, and through his speaking he was given authority. Do you want to be released? Do you want to receive authority? If you do, then you need to speak. The more you speak, the more you will be released. Do not say that you are not qualified to speak, for the more you say that you are not qualified and that you are in the dungeon, the longer you will remain in the dungeon. But the more you speak, the more released you will be. Release will come through your speaking. In our experience we have found that the more we speak, the more released we are. I cannot tell you how released I am through my speaking. When I return home after speaking in the meeting, I am happy and refreshed. My speaking releases me from every kind of imprisonment. I do not care about so many things, for I speak my way out of the dungeon. Learn to speak yourself out of your dungeon. The best way to be released is to speak.
If you want authority, you need to speak. Speaking is what gave Joseph his authority. His speaking not only put him on the throne, but it secured for him authority over all the land. The more you speak, the more authority you will have. Release and authority both come through speaking. Whether you are at home, at school, or at work, you need to speak. Every time you come to the meeting, you should speak. We should be speaking all the time. The more we speak, the more release we shall enjoy, and the more authority we shall receive.
Through his speaking Joseph also became a supplier of food. He ministered food to others through his interpretation of dreams. You may say that you are poor. You are poor because you are silent. Why are you so silent at school, in your neighborhood, or in the meetings? Why do you not speak? You may say, "Oh, I don't have enough experience to speak anything. I've been in the church life for many years. At the beginning, I heard that the church life would be glorious. But now I don't feel that it is very glorious. Thus, I don't have the assurance to speak anything about the glorious church life." However, the less you speak of the glorious church life, the less you will be in such a church life. You need to speak contrary to your feeling. Say something that is not according to your feeling, but that is according to your vision. When you declare that the church life is glorious, you will be in the glorious church life you are speaking into being. If you say, "I don't have it," then you will not have it. But if you speak, you will supply others with food. By your speaking you will have the release, the authority, and the food. Hallelujah, this all comes through speaking!
From time to time over the years, certain ones have said, "Brother Lee, how do you get so much life? Every time I see you, you are refreshed and full of life." I answer that I am refreshed and receive life by speaking. If I were to go to a certain place and were not to speak, I would be ready for burial. However, when I speak, I am released, I receive authority, and I have the food to supply others. I can testify to all that because I do the most speaking, I am more released, I have more authority, and I have more food. Oh, we all must learn to speak! Do not speak according to your experience — speak according to your vision.
Joseph was truly a dreamer, and his life was a life of dreams. A victorious and overcoming Christian will always be a dreamer. You need to have dreams, and you need to interpret the dreams of others. Day by day, let us all speak according to our vision, according to our dreams. Furthermore, we must interpret the visions of others, and we must live according to our vision. We should not speak according to our feelings, but according to the vision. We are visionaries. Because we are visionaries, we do everything according to the vision. Although a certain thing has not yet come to pass, we speak according to what we have seen of it, and we find that our vision is being fulfilled.
When we compare Joseph with the other outstanding men in Genesis, we see that he is unique in dreams and in suffering. None of the seven other great men had as many dreams as Joseph had; Joseph was always involved with dreams. His life was also unique with respect to suffering.
Dreams require interpretation, and interpretation is a matter of speaking. Therefore, Joseph was constantly speaking. Through his speaking, all the dreams were fulfilled. Firstly, Joseph spoke himself into trouble. If he had not spoken about his dreams, he would not have gotten into trouble. His brothers hated him and sold him into slavery simply because he spoke about his dreams. If after having these dreams Joseph had been silent, there would have been no problem. His sufferings came from his speaking.
After the Boxer Rebellion, many saints in England prayed desperately for the vast country of China. The Lord answered their prayers by coming in and doing a marvelous work in the colleges throughout the country. Thousands of students, including a good number of brilliant ones, were captured by the Lord, and many of them saw a vision. I was one of these students, and I was very familiar with the situation. Brother Nee was not the only one to see something concerning the church. Many others did also. However, they were afraid to speak of their dream concerning the church. These students were afraid of the missionaries, whose goal was to advance their mission work, their mission church. They were fearful that if they spoke something different from what the missionaries were doing, they would get into trouble. Because of his bold speaking, Brother Nee was betrayed. In the middle 1920s he published twenty issues of a paper called The Christian. In the articles in this paper Brother Nee spoke according to his dream. As a result, people laughed at him, and he got into trouble. The missionaries, teachers, and theologians, all of whom were older than he, disregarded him and opposed him. Brother Nee had seen a vision of local churches in every city throughout China. A quarter century later, his dream was fulfilled. By 1948 there were about five hundred local churches in the provinces of China.
Before Brother Nee's dream was fulfilled, however, he suffered a great deal, not only from outsiders, but even from turmoil stirred up by insiders. Due to this turmoil, his ministry was set aside for a number of years. Brother Nee once told a certain brother that there was no possibility to ever resume his ministry. This is an indication of the severity of Brother Nee's sufferings. He suffered so intensely that he felt that it was impossible for him ever to resume his ministry. But, much to his surprise, the Lord did something in 1948 to restore his ministry. In the forthcoming biography of Brother Nee now in preparation all this will be made clear. As a result of the restoration of Brother Nee's ministry, hundreds of churches were raised up in the cities of China. This was due to Brother Nee's speaking, to his sounding of the trumpet, and to that of a few co-workers who were faithful to him.
Let me give a testimony of our experience in Taiwan. When we first arrived in Taiwan, we found it to be a backward, primitive island. Nevertheless, we began to speak according to our vision. There were many missionaries there, especially those from the Southern Baptist denomination. With the mainland of China lost, they invested a great deal of money in their work on the island of Taiwan. Although we were small in number, we spoke according to our vision. This speaking of the vision caused trouble, for it stirred up opposition. Some said, "Are only you the church? What do you mean that you have the church life and that we don't?" Our speaking was strong. We published books and a little magazine entitled The Ministry of the Word, which has had more than three hundred issues. Today, through this magazine, we are still sounding the trumpet. During the past twenty-eight years, we have done a great deal of speaking. Our speaking has caused trouble, and we have suffered much opposition as a result.
However, whether the missionaries agreed with us or not, they eventually were subdued and had to admit that ours was the best work in Taiwan. In the church in Taipei alone there are more than twenty-three thousand members. Before our dream began to be fulfilled in Taiwan, we suffered a great deal. Although we suffered criticism and defamation, we never stopped speaking. The more others tried to keep us from speaking, the more we spoke. We kept on speaking ourselves into trouble.
As we have seen, Joseph firstly spoke himself into trouble. But later he spoke himself out of trouble and into the fulfillment of his dreams. All this happened through his speaking. Both the trouble and the fulfillment came by speaking. It is the same with us today. When we speak about the glorious church life, some may shake their heads in unbelief and wonder whether this can be worked out in the United States. Some have even said that it is impossible. But it did work. During the past fifteen years in the United States, this dream has been fulfilled.
I first saw this vision fifty years ago, and wherever I have been — in China, in Taiwan, or in the United States — I have spoken according to it. Whoever has said no to this vision, to him it has been impossible for it to be fulfilled. But to those who have said, "Yes, it is possible," to them it has been possible. The more we say that the church is glorious, the more glorious it is. I believe strongly that the church in Anaheim will be glorious, for we shall speak ourselves into this glory. Be prepared first to speak yourself into trouble and then to speak yourself out of trouble and into the fulfillment of your dreams. These three things will happen to us all.
Some of you may be familiar with a slanderous book called The God-Men. The preface to this book was written by a man by the name of David Adeney, whom I met more than twenty years ago when he was engaged in a student work in the Far East. He appreciated our meetings, and he sometimes attended the Lord's table meeting in Hong Kong. Once he came to Taiwan to carry out a work on the campuses. He came to realize that our work at National Taiwan University was better than the work of others. Because our gospel preaching was so prevailing, he admired it. One day he came to see me and told me that our work on the campuses was very good and that he wondered whether or not we could work together. I told him that I respected his work for the gospel and that, as far as the gospel was concerned, we could work together. However, I pointed out that his goal was different from ours. The goal of our preaching was to build up the local church, but his preaching eventually would help the denominations. In our conversation I was very frank with him. I said, "Brother, you need to see clearly where we are and where you are. We have two different goals. Our goal is to build up the local church as the Lord's recovery; and your work would eventually help the denominations." In our conversation, according to what he told me, I said to him that he was out of Babylon, but only halfway to Jerusalem. He was not yet in Jerusalem. Recently I received a note from a young brother telling me that this Brother Adeney had told him that in Taipei I once had said to him that he was out of Babylon, but not yet in Jerusalem. I was pleased to hear that he still remembered this word.
It is difficult for me to believe that such a brother, who expressed himself to me in a very nice way, could write the preface to the slanderous book entitled The God-Men. If I were speaking with him face to face, I would say, "Brother Adeney, don't you believe that we are God-men? How could you write a preface to a book defaming us in this matter?" In his preface he gave people a vague, ambiguous, negative impression about me. I feel very sorry for him that he became involved in such a defaming work.
All this trouble has come from my speaking. The opposition from Melodyland and the Bible Answer Man is the result of my speaking. Today I am still speaking myself into trouble. The more opposition there is, the more I speak. I am still speaking, and I intend to speak even more. I may speak myself into trouble, but the ones who oppose this speaking will suffer loss because of their opposition.
Suppose when the cupbearer and the baker told Joseph about their dreams, he did not have the faith or the boldness to interpret them. Joseph could have said, "You know, friends, more than twelve years ago I had two dreams. I interpreted these dreams, but even now I still have not seen them fulfilled. Now I don't know whether those dreams were real or not. I dare not say." Many who saw the vision of the church during the past fifty years held an attitude similar to this. Some said, "Brother Lee, we dare not say that what you are doing is wrong. We also have seen something like this, but we're not sure about it. Time will tell." If Joseph had expressed such an attitude to his companions in prison, nothing would have happened.
What do you suppose would have happened if Joseph had been uncertain in talking to Pharaoh? Suppose Joseph had said, "Pharaoh, I have had some dreams, but they have not been fulfilled. My interpretation of the chief cupbearer's dream has been fulfilled, but I don't know whether my dreams will ever be fulfilled. However, if you like, I will interpret your dreams for you." If Joseph's attitude had been like this, Pharaoh would have sent him back to prison. He would not have wasted his time with Joseph. But, although Joseph's dreams had not been fulfilled, he was bold to tell Pharaoh that God would give him an answer of peace (Gen. 41:16). We all must learn to do this. Because of the vision, I cannot remain silent. When I speak, I am restful, joyful, and happy. The more I speak, the more released I am.
