Genesis 40:6

Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and his chief baker had both offended their master. Nothing is said about what they did wrong. But Pharaoh came of a foreign race, so he was likely to fear an attempt on his life by poison. No wonder the two men in charge of his drink and his food fell under suspicion. Until the case was decided, they were held in the same prison as Joseph, and put in his charge. The first link in the chain of events God had ordered was that Joseph should be put where the king's prisoners were held. The second was that in due time these two men should be put there too.

The third was that both men should have dreams on the same night. The dreams were strange, yet alike in certain ways. They affected the men's minds so much that they looked sad, and Joseph noticed it.

The common idea of Joseph seems to be this: everyone would say he was a good young man, but they would mean a "goody" young man, and a bit soft. Read his history with ordinary attention, though, and you trace a character that is nothing of the kind. It is strong, wise, noble, generous, manly and big-hearted… When he is punished for his honourable conduct by being thrown into the dungeon, his words to his fellow-prisoners are, "Do not interpretations belong to God?" He did not complain under that great trouble. He looked around to see what he could do to help others, even his jailers. He could not see his companions in misery losing heart without asking, "Why are your faces downcast today?"

They are sad because they do not understand their dreams. They seem to have felt that their dreams were somehow connected with their destiny. And because they are not sure what that destiny is to be, they are "sad." And well they might be. And some of you are sad tonight for the same reason — you do not know your destiny. Many more ought to be sad, and are not. You do not know that you are saved, and so you do not know where you will spend eternity. While that question stays unsettled, it is folly to be anything but sad.

Joseph's own dreams had revealed much while he was a young free man in his father's house, and they drew out the envious spite of his brothers. Now grace gave him the opportunity of light from above on the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. Each man had a dream fitted to him on the same night, yet they learned so little from it that their faces showed the same sadness to their gracious and sympathetic attendant the next morning. He himself had felt the iron; but love rose above the evil, and flowed out readily.

The one who really leans on God improves the circumstances of trial he is in, whether they are temporary or permanent. No hostile circumstances can crush true living energy; they may limit and shape it. The scene may change, but not the spirit of it… Joseph too was soon as useful in prison as he had been in the house of the captain of the guard… In every trial, however gloomy, there are gleams of light and relief. But full deliverance is often delayed by our anxiety to get it. God is to be the satisfaction of His servant, and not the deliverance.