Genesis 40:23

A Man Who Forgot

Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him. Genesis 40:23.

Some boys and girls very likeable ones too have a habit of forgetting things.

I believe that as a boy Pharaoh's chief butler was a great favorite. He would constantly be forgetting his promises. His schoolfellows could not help liking him all the same. He drew their secrets out of them they could not tell how; they called him “a really good sort.”

When he grew to be a man, we know that he went to be a servant at the royal palace. He became a favorite with his master Pharaoh too. But we may be sure that he still had his old habit of forgetting. I really think the story of how he got thrown into prison was a story of forgetting things. He forgot once too often, and Pharaoh was angry.

As it happened, the prison he was sent to was in charge of a Hebrew boy who, though in charge, was himself a prisoner. He was very different in temperament from the Egyptians. Joseph was like a musical instrument. Have you ever been in a room where there was a violin lying in its case near a piano? If you had put your ear close to the violin case when the piano was being played, and had listened very, very carefully, you would have heard a gentle echo. The violin was echoing the piano. Joseph was glad when the prisoners were glad, and sorry when they were sorry.

He was constantly trying to do them good turns, and he made some friends among them. One of these was Pharaoh's chief butler. He noticed one morning that the butler and another prisoner the chief baker were looking very sad. When he asked the chief butler why he was so sad, the man replied that he had dreamed a dream, and no one could tell him what it meant. Then Joseph said, “God interprets dreams for me; tell me yours.” “You will soon be back in Pharaoh's Palace again,” he prophesied when the dream had been related to him.

The butler was made a very happy man indeed, and the two had a talk together. “Have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee,” Joseph said; “and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.” The butler promised, and when he said “good-bye” to Joseph on the morning of his release, it just seemed to mean It's not “good-bye,” for I'll soon see you again.

For a while after that, Joseph went about among the prisoners counting the days till he should have his freedom. But the days became weeks, the weeks became months, the months years. The butler forgot all about his Hebrew friend.

“It was a low down trick,” you say. I cannot help agreeing with you; yet, boys and girls, it is wonderfully easy to get into the butler's ways. “Oh, I forgot! I must do something for that Hebrew prisoner” we can imagine him saying every evening for about a week “I'll speak to Pharaoh tomorrow.” He did not speak to Pharaoh; he forgot, and went on forgetting.

It was two years afterwards, when the king wanted someone to interpret a dream for him, that the butler suddenly said, “Oh, I remember!” There and then he told the king about Joseph, and Joseph was sent for at last.

It was Pharaoh that made the butler think of Joseph at all. Joseph was clean out of his mind, and I believe would have remained so, but for the fact that he wanted to please his master and he had never known of anyone who could interpret dreams as the young Hebrew prisoner did. You see he had not felt any real gratitude for Joseph's help.

When a man forgets favors received, and the promises he made when in trouble, we call it ingratitude. Boys and girls, ingratitude is a thing that hurts. The greatest of English poets wrote about it

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

Thou dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

“As friend remembered not.” That gives the cruelest sting.

A young student when he was leaving for the University, which was at some distance from his home, promised to bring his little sister a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales. “I'll be back at Christmas; I'll bring it then,” he said. His people were quite poor, so his little sister had very few story-books. She kept thinking every day about the Fairy Tales, and when it came near to Christmas, a very common question that she asked her mother was, “Mother, will it have pictures?” The night before her brother was expected she hardly slept any, and she was up by six o'clock in the morning.

“My book's in Tom's box,” she whispered to her mother when she saw him come off the railway train. He hasn't got it in his hand. Mother, I'm just awfully happy!” Tom must have his tea. “My book, Tom,” the little girl said after tea was finished. “Your book? What book?” Tom had forgotten. That night the little sister sobbed herself to sleep.

Don't we all sometimes forget friends who have done a great deal for us? What about our fathers and mothers? I'm afraid we forget them more often than “sometimes.” But there is no friend who is more often forgotten than Jesus Christ. Boys and girls forget Him in the morning; they run to school without having said their prayers. They are in such a hurry dressing before breakfast, and afterwards they are busy looking for their lesson books. Half-way they remember and promise themselves “I'll say them at the dinner hour.” Who among you has not said something like that, and then just forgotten again?

Many sad stories can be told about forgetting, and those stories all begin so simply and naturally that they are just like a bit out of a boy's or a girl's life. But Joseph remembered, and your fathers and mothers can tell you that God never forgets.