We're living in a great day; great opportunity, great to be alive. Man, I'd love to be a young person in today's hour - what a great day we live in aye? Got iPads and iPods and everything, every kind of gadget and gidget and whatever you need to make life a little bit easier, fantastic. I love them all. Trouble is, in the midst of it we can actually lose our way, and there's a whole generation thats lost it's way, and I believe we're in a time when God is raising up a generation. We were reading this morning about Joseph, and I want to talk a little bit about Joseph tonight. I want to share with you a simple message called: Lessons to Learn in a Prison.
You've got to make decisions, whether you learn anything through what's happening; or whether you just go, and have stuff happen. A lot of people drift along, and just have stuff happen; but God has got His hand on our life, and if we align with Him, He is able to use every situation to advance us, to grow us, prepare us, develop us, in all kinds of ways. So Joseph is a young man. At the age of 17 started to get prophetic dreams, 17. So if it could happen to Joseph, it could happen to you at a young age; prophetic dreams.
One of our daughters was called up to heaven at the age of nine. God has not changed. It's possible for you to experience prophetic dreams, where God opens heaven, begins to give you a glimpse of what He has in store, or ahead for you. What an amazing thing for God to do that, but it doesn't just happen. Usually there's a hunger in a person's heart. That's what seems to open up heaven for us. Sometimes God just seems to pick someone out, and for no reason at all, bless them. I find that hard to handle.
I don't know about you, I really find it a bit hard to handle. Just seems so unfair, but God is not fair, He's just; and He just does things like it pleases Him, but He's operating according to principle. So at the age of 17, Joseph had a prophetic dream. That prophetic dream was a glimpse, or an insight, to what his future could be; and there are ways you can position yourself to get prophetic dreams. I wonder how many of you here have had prophetic dreams. I've had some. I don't have enough of them, I'd like more. Some people have a lot. I feel a bit envious of that, I'd like a lot more, and I don't seem to have enough of them.
However, I've been praying to God for increase that whole area. So there are times when I've had a prophetic dream, it's given me a deep insight to a situation around my life, or something was coming up; so God is into prophetic dreams. In fact it says: with the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I'll pour My spirit out in you, and you'll dream dreams and have visions; so it's your legacy and right to access the realm where God speaks to you, and gives you insights about the future. Whether you do or not is your choice.
I'd just love to have a body of people, a generation of people, who would rise up and say: God, I believe You can speak, You do speak, You will speak, and You will speak to me. You will give me glimpses of why I'm here on earth, and what I'm called to be and to do. See without that, you drift; and today we're living with a generation that is drifting. They've lost values, lost standards, lost their way, and drift from experience to experience, and not knowing how to succeed with their life. What a great hour to actually live, because I know in times like that, God pours out His grace, and pours out His spirit.
So I want to talk about what it is to be in prison - so young Joseph got a prophetic dream. Wasn't it wonderful to have a prophetic dream? The problem is, God doesn't always tell you what's going to come between the dream, and getting it fulfilled. I like the dream bit. I like the fulfilment bit. I don't like the bit in between. The bit in between is not very comfortable, and so we're going to talk about it. See, what Joseph did was, Joseph was like this: man, I got a dream! I've got a dream! I've got a dream; and he went to the older brothers, and said: I've got a dream! I'm going to be great, and you'll bow down to me! [Laughter] They didn't like his dream. Then he came back, and he said to his mum and his dad: I'VE GOT A DREAM! Not only did my brothers bow down to me, you did too! That was the dream - and they didn't like it either.