7/22/2020
Desk of Dennis Piller
Genesis 50:20 “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today”.

Let’s look at the history of Israel. Abram had a son called Isaac. Isaac had a son, Jacob, whose other name is Israel, and Jacob has 12 sons who became the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. One of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph, has two dreams. And in Genesis 37:8-11 it says, “ the brothers were jealous”
Genesis 37:14 The brothers see him coming and say in verse 19-20 “here comes the dreamer, come now let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits”. Reuben tries to save him, and it did partially, as they didn’t kill him but sold him as a slave. Genesis 37:27-28 – the brothers think it’s over!

The invisible hand at work… is God.They don’t know that in the very effort of destroying the dreamer they are fulfilling Joseph’s dream and God’s plan.  

Oh, how often God works this way! He takes the very sins of the destroyers and makes them the means of the destroyers’ deliverance.

In Genesis 37:36 Joseph is purchased by Potiphar and submits to God strange providence and serves him faithfully.  Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him but Joseph flees and in spite of his righteousness, he is put in prison again!

Here in prison,  unaware of what God is doing in all this misery,  he still serves the jailer faithfully, and through the interpretation of two other dreams of pharaohs Butler and Baker, Joseph is eventually brought out of prison to interpret one of the Pharaoh’s dreams.  His interpretations are true and Pharaoh makes him commander in Egypt… Fulfilling Genesis 41:40 “ you shall be over my house, Pharaoh says, and all my people shall order themselves at your command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you”.  Finally after so many years. We see his dream fulfilled.

We all face our own disasters and seem subject to the betrayal of many around us and we are often tormented and distressed over repeated sufferings in our life. But God knows… Joseph is a perfect example of serving faithfully, unto the Lord in terrible situations! He says, “through many tribulations, you must enter the kingdom of God. Acts 14:22

Again it does not say that God used their evil for good or evil situations for good… It says that in the very act of evil they were two different designs. In the sinful act, they were designing evil, but in that same sinful act, God was designing good. Think about that.

Without a way of seeing the world that can deal with massive evil and unremitting pain while still being under the supremacy of Christ, we will collapse in self-pity or rage. This is the opposite of love. If we are to endure and bear and believe and hope, we need to see the spectacular sins of history the way God sees them.  We see through a glass dimly but the way we are looking at and through the events of Joseph is through the glass of the Bible.

How did Israel get saved by the grain of Egypt?  Through the sins of attempted murder, greedily slave dealing their brother joseph, the heartless deceiving of their tired old father about his death.  In Gen 45:5 Joseph says to his trembling brothers… “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here… for God sent me before you to preserve life”!  In other words, it was God’s way of sending Joseph to Egypt in order to save the ones who were trying to kill him.  “God sent me before you!”
Tomorrow we shall see God’s saving victory for his people and see how it often comes through sin and suffering. But through it all, God is at work to save his children

Tomorrow part three of three.  Don’t miss it!  Start dissecting the story of Joseph.

Nicole C Mullen  Redeemer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN8BmdFFfKI
Condensed from the John Piper Book  Spectacular Sins.