So the dream is what begins to cause us to think about the future and gives us hope and inspiration and desire and longing and it keeps us with a forward focus, keeps us looking to God so it gets focus. So kings must speak their vision. Kings declare their vision. Notice he told his brothers - now you've got to be careful who you speak it to. You speak your dream to the wrong person, they'll leap on you and smash and crush the dream into the ground and powder it because your dream threatens them. Who do you think you are? Why should you dream like that? Why should you be like that? What they really mean is well I'm not going to be like that and neither will you be.
It's like crabs in a bucket. No crab will ever get out if you've got crabs in a bucket. They all will pull the one - as soon as one climbs up and gets on top the others all pull him down and unfortunately many people are like crabs in a bucket. I think New Zealand culture's a bit like crabs in a bucket - someone climbs up and starts to look like they're getting out, we've got to find a way to pull them down. It's a ridiculous thing isn't it?
But if that's the culture you've got to find a way then how to guard the dream of your heart, but you still need to speak it and there is a place to speak it. Every morning when you get up there's a need to speak your dream, to speak it over your life, to speak the future, to speak what God says is true about you! That's how men of faith rise. That's how men grow to be strong in the spirit. They don't just wait and say oh God, what's today going to hold? Today is the day the Lord has made! Today is a good day! I command my day to line up with God's plan for my life! I take dominion over everything that the devil has cooked up against me - it shall not succeed! I call God's dream into being in my life.
You've got to get assertive and get up there in the morning you know and shape your world before you go out to meet it. Demonic people have been up probably at midnight calling curses on you and you wake up heavy and grrrmph. Come on! You've got to learn to rise! Begin to speak the word of God! That's how we begin to create and construct something about our future, see?
Bible says in Romans 4:17, it says God causes things to be not as though they are, so everyone whoever said to Abraham said Abraham, father of nations - yeah, that's me, father of nations. Abraham looked up every night and he saw the stars; yes, children, children, many children. Then he looked down and he saw the sand - many children. Just like Brian,he looked at the past and there's seven kids - look, many children! He looked at the seat, there's an empty seat. Empty seat in the van - one more child, one more child, one more child, there it is now, he called it into being, just magically appeared I'm sure! ... [Laughter]
Now you know it didn't magically appear. He had a vital part in it, isn't that right? ... [Laughter] ... Dreams don't just happen you know. You've got to do your part, see, then the dream has got to be cooked up and prepared before it's delivered. This is true of all dreams, this is how it is. There we go.
Okay, here's the last one to finish on. Kings prepare. Kings prepare. Ecclesiastes 5:3 it says a dream comes about through much activity, not through lots of talk. [Laughs] So well there's some people like to talk and if you're prophetic you probably like to talk a lot. [Laughs] You've got to get past the talk and doing something you know - you know, all talk, just a talker. They say oh, he's just a dreamer. Great to have a dream but your dreams got to find action, it's got to find a reality in it and so we find - I'll just look at one part of - just look over into Genesis 39 because I've run out of time and I want to just give you three areas that actually Joseph was prepared in.