 Psalm 105 verse 19, until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. This speaks actually about Joseph. If you read a little bit earlier, it says that he sent Joseph during the time of famine. They heard him. He was sold as a slave. They heard his feet. He was laid in irons. And then it says, until the time, meaning he went through suffering, he went through disappointment, he went through hardship, he went through a very challenging time in his life, until somebody say until, until the time that his word came to pass. There is going to be a time when God's word comes pass, when God's promise comes to pass, when God's purpose for your life comes to pass. But I want you to notice it says, before God's word came to pass, it says this, the word of the Lord tested Joseph. So there's three types of words. There is the written word of God, which is the Bible. There is the living word of God, which is Jesus. And then there is the rama or the prophetic word of God. It's the word that God quickens a promise. He makes it real for you, for your situation. And that's the third one that I'm referring to. It's that dream, that prophetic word. It's that, that call from God. It's that anointing. It's that assignment that you have. And it says, until the time that this word came to pass, this word tested Joseph. Everything in our life is either a reward or a test. Write that down. Everything in my life is either a reward or right now it's a test. God does not trust until he tries, until he tests. He tests men. We see this in the Bible. The Bible tells us to test prophecies. The scripture says, examine yourself, meaning even test yourself. The scripture even says to put God to a test through tithing. So testing is not anti-biblical thing. And thank God for tests. I wouldn't want to drive a car that hasn't been tested. In the average, a car goes through 1000 tests before it goes on the market. A vaccine goes through 10 to 15 years of research and then three clinical tests before it's available in the market. A lot of people, you have to go through a test if you're a doctor. You have to go through a test if you're a lawyer. I'm right now in the Bible, Bible college and every week I have to take a quiz and I have to take a test on Saturday. Because they can't let you go to the next level until you take a test. Same thing with God. God gives you a word. I want to share something with you right now. If you're right now waiting for the passing of God's promise in your life, that means you're currently in a test. If you're waiting for the passing, if what God promised has not come true, that means that promise right now is testing you. You're being tested. Five tests Joseph went through. Test number one is the test of time. This is the hardest one because it develops our patience. See, God's tests are not only to reveal that we are impatient, it's also at the same time to build something. They expose and they also expel. They reveal and they also refine us. And that's the first test. It's the test of timing. You know, I'm always in a hurry. Unfortunately, God is not. It's God develops patience by what? By letting us go through time where his word is not coming through on our time schedule. God cannot develop patience if he does not let you wait for things. Waiting is God's game. It's what he does. That's why we need to learn to wait on him and we will have to wait on his promise as well. You don't get everything in the microwave. It's not a drive through. God did not invent those things. He is slow. And then if you think he's slow, he's slower. But he develops something, develops patience. The second test is the test of... Come on, a test of faith. What is the test of faith? It purges our mood swings. The test of faith is this. I don't feel God. I don't feel like he's with me. I feel like God left me. What is happening is test of faith. Joseph went through this test because the Bible says two seasons in Joseph's life where it says the Lord was with Joseph. It was not in the season when he received the dream and he was favored by his father. And it was not in the season where he was promoted. Twice in his life it says the Lord was with Joseph. It was in the season where he was sold as a slave. And then when he was thrown into a prison as a prisoner. Surprisingly, those are the twice, two seasons the Bible says the Lord was with him. And it's interesting because usually in those seasons we need an extra reminder that God's presence is not contingent on the presence of your problems or absence of them. Another thing is God's presence does not hinge on your mood. God's presence with you does not depend on your feelings. In fact, I think sometimes God develops our faith by withdrawing the manifest presence where we feel him for a season so that our faith has a chance to grow. You cannot get a fulfillment of God's promise in your life until God develops your faith. And God cannot develop your faith until your feelings fail. Absolutely fail. I'm talking about splash, blood all over kind of a fail. And you're like, man, I don't feel God anymore. God has left me. I have such a dry place. I don't just that. I don't even know if he's real. What happens? You're being tested. Your faith is being tested. Your faith is like gold going through the fire and all the impurities are freaking out and the gold is switching its form, but it's not stopping being gold. Your real faith, it might be small, but it's real. Your faith might not be big, but it's genuine because if it's based in God, it can't be destroyed anymore than gold cannot be destroyed by fire. It takes 1,940 degrees Fahrenheit to turn gold from solid to liquid, but you can't burn it with fire. Real faith cannot be destroyed. It can only be purified. Never be afraid of a test of faith. So what do you do if you are in the season right now where your faith is being tested? Very simple. When you don't feel God's presence, feed on His promise. If you don't feel Him, feed on Him. Feeding is a choice. Feeling is not. You don't control what you feel, but you can control what you feed. Your mood, have it go up and down. Your feelings will go up and down. You can't control that. Sometimes you can make your feelings feel better, even though you can choose to have joy in the Lord, but you can't control your mood. Don't take drugs to change your mood. Just change what you feed yourself with. Feed yourself with God's word. I love Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus was a blind man, and the Bible says, well, he was blind. So when you're blind, you can't see. But the Scripture says this, and Bartimaeus heard Jesus. The Lord spoke to me one time, and he said this, when you can't see me, hear me. And how did he was able to see Jesus? Because when he heard, when you use what is open, it will unlock what is closed. As he heard Jesus, he was able to then cry out to Jesus, and then Jesus opened his eyes, and he was able to see Jesus who saw him before he was able to see him. Jesus sees you when you don't feel Him. Jesus knows you when you don't feel He is near you. And so what you gotta do right now is hear Jesus when you don't see Jesus. If your faith is being tested, faith comes by hearing of the Word of God. If you don't feel His presence, hear Him. Where was I during the first service? Why didn't it flow like this during the first service? My God. I'm just kidding. The third test. The third test, and this is a test of purity. Joseph had to be tested in the area of purity. He fled temptation. He didn't flirt with temptation. He went to prison after the temptation, and then he went to the palace. Purity is the way through prison to the palace. Purity is choosing prison over restriction before you embrace the relationship, the benefits of that relationship. Everybody who wants to walk in sexual purity has to understand one thing. There's a price to pay for purity, and this price is prison to your desires. What is available to you and not sinful, you have to put that into prison. Everybody wants to be in purity, but what we don't like is the prison. Meaning, I want to still be able to do what I want. I want to follow whoever I want to follow. I want to look at whoever I want to look at. I want to watch what I want. If you ever are giving your flesh no boundaries, no restrictions, no prison, you'll never walk in purity. To walk in purity, the test of purity is this, is that you have to put yourself in the prison. You don't look second time. Come on, older man. Ladies, you don't read 50 shades of stupid. You don't watch that thing, and people will look at you and say, oh, you are legalists. No, I have to put myself in the prison, because that's what purity demands. If you don't choose prison, you will be enforced, eventually a prison of failed relationships, dead into your eyeballs, and then just having all of these troubles. And Joseph chooses prison, not necessarily that he chose prison, but his purity forced him into prison. He fled from a temptation. You don't overcome lust. You don't pass the test of lust by flirting with lust. And a lot of us, this is why we fall into lust and we fornicate. It's because we say flirting is that sin, but falling is sin. So I will see how I can flirt as close to the line as I can possibly can without falling. You can't flirt and not fall. You can't make out and not commit fornication. I know the Bible doesn't say don't make out with your boyfriend, but listen, the moment you begin to play with the line and play in the gray, you will fall. And it's not because the devil is bad. It's because you are careless. And why are you careless? Because you're afraid of a prison. I don't want to put restrictions in my life. There is no other way to pass the test of purity than choosing prison. You gotta choose prison. Amen. Who you talk to? Who you DM? At first, it may seem like that's a lot of legalism. But if you're a woman here and you're married, you're like, my husband better be in prison. Emotionally, he better be in prison on his Instagram or no Instagram at all. Why? Because you know one thing, there is no way he can walk in purity. She can walk in purity without a prison. Everybody needs a prison. The better your prison, the better your purity. Ouch! To pass the test, you have to choose your prison. If you don't like prison and you're like, I'm going to do whatever I want, mark my word, you will never walk in purity. You will struggle with purity, never walk in it. Because you have to impose restrictions on your liberties. Everything is, I can do everything, but not everything's beneficial. And therefore, I have to restrict my liberties. Amen. The test number four, are you with me? Is the test of offense. And this is a test of forgiveness. Joseph had to go through that. In fact, this, I think, is the hardest one, especially if God has given you the grace and you've conquered the purity part. If you conquered the faith part, this one will jab you so bad, because you feel a little bit entitled to God's favor and God's grace. And what begins to happen is people come alongside and give you such a bad time. And the worst part is these are not strangers or spam bots on YouTube. These are people who actually you know. The reason why pain of rejection is the deepest is because it comes from the closest people. Jesus was rejected by his own. Joseph was rejected by his own. And this is extremely, extremely painful. You cannot be fruitful if you're not forgiving. Every person in this room who will see the fulfillment of God's promise will be hurt. You will, you will get hurt. Some of you, you were hurt. And some of you, you're getting, you're being hurt right now. I am not saying you should stay in abusive relationship. What I'm saying, it's not possible to see the fulfillment of God's word without taking this test. And this is the test of hurt, of offense. Forgiving somebody does not mean I minimize what they did. It doesn't mean I overlook what they did. It doesn't mean I blame myself for what they did. Forgiving somebody does not mean I am waiting for them to apologize. Jesus did not wait on the cross for Pharisees to apologize before he forgave them. Till this day, they still think what they did was right. Forgiveness is not, does not mean that what they did did not matter or did not hurt. It simply means my future is bigger than my hurt. That's all that it means. You made my life miserable, but I do not give you the authority to make my future miserable. My future, you caused a lot of pain, but you do not have access to my, to my, to my future. You had access to my past. You took away five years of my life. I cannot give you 50. And therefore I choose to forgive you. Not because you deserve it. It's because I don't deserve to let you repeat this for the rest of my life. This stops today. When you forgive somebody, you set the prisoner free, and then you realize that prisoner was you. You released yourself from the shackles of them controlling your life in the future. It's not being a victim. It's being a victor when you release your ex, when you release the person that hurt you, when you release the person that meant to do you well. And then God takes the unfortunate situation and uses it for your good. Because the Bible says Joseph looked at his brothers after the death of Jacob, and they said, we feel so bad about what we did. And Joseph says, do not be afraid because what you meant for evil, you didn't do it unintentionally. You meant intentionally. God turned it for my good. Why? Because I refuse to stay better. I refuse to stay offended. I refuse to switch churches. I refuse to hold a grudge. I refuse to walk around not talking to anybody. I refuse to let to develop this very thin, thick skin and a very thin skin in my heart. I chose to keep my heart soft. I forgive you. I love you. And I'm expecting God to reward me in Jesus' name. The last test, this is the test of diligence. And the test of diligence means you don't wait for a new season in life before you start to do your best in the season that you were in. Destination disease has caused too many people never to do anything in their present. Destination disease is once I get married, I will lose my weight. Once I get married, I'll pay off my debt. The destination disease is this. Once they give me a title at Hungry Jen, then you will see me fasting and prayer. Once they give me this, that's what I'm going to do that. Joseph did not wait until he reached the palace to live pure. He did not wait to reach the palace before he exercised his skills to manage places and to cause places to prosper. To such a good degree that in prison they put him in charge of a prison. He was a prison ward. Why was he that? Because he looked at every situation in his life and he says, I'm now waiting for that season to practice and maximize my effectiveness in this season. And that is one of the reasons his branches climbed over the wall. Actually, the gifts of the Holy Spirit did not show up in the palace as they showed up in prison. God spoke to him when he was a teen, that you will have people bow to you. But you don't see one mention of the gifts of the Holy Spirit operating in Joseph's life until he's in prison and watch this. One of the boys is sad, which is a prison. You're supposed to be sad. And Joseph comes to him and says, why are you sad? Tells me, the way Joseph ran the prison, there was nobody sad. I don't know what he was doing, telling them jokes or cheering them up with jealousy sermons in every morning. I don't know what he was doing, but everybody was happy. It seems like because the guy who was sad, Joseph highlighted him. And the guy says, I had a dream. Now watch this. Think about it. Joseph had a dream too. So if you hear somebody saying, I have a dream, this would be a good moment to say, bro, did you eat a lot of pizza? Did we spice your drink yesterday? This would be a good moment to say, please, please do not pay attention to them because I did look what it got me. And God was testing Joseph. Will Joseph open himself up to a divine flow of wisdom from God to help somebody in the very area? God is not moving in his area, in his life. And supernaturally, the gift begins to flow. He translates the dream and it works for somebody and he still spends two years in the same prison because God's anointing will always work better through you than for you. And if you're not allowing God's anointing to flow through you because it hasn't done anything for you, you fail the last test. Amen. Hey, thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed this content and this was a blessing to you, would you help us and hit thumbs up so that it could help more people to discover this video. It cost you nothing, but it can go a long way to help with the algorithm. As well as if you're not subscribed to our channel, hit subscribe, click on the bell so that you can be reminded each time that we upload videos. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you're interested in learning more about Hungry Gen, our internship, our conferences, deliverance and so many other things, go to HungryGen.com for more information. And as always, remember, better is not good enough, the best is yet to come.