This week we looked at the story of Joseph in the Old Testament.
Most of the stories in God's Word follow a pattern - a blueprint, sort to speak.
God provides victory through trials and suffering.
This is a season of trials and suffering. The sickness, the violence, the way people talk to each other, lack of respect for authority… it goes on and on.
Each one of us is walking through trials and/or sufferings every day during this season of COVID 19.
All through the Bible victory comes through trials and suffering. Through Egypt, through our desert times, we get to the Promised Land. We will have victory.
All of the stories of sufferings were a perfect set up for Jesus. He would come as a suffering Servant. But no one understood. They wanted a king – a worldly king. They didn’t understand that God would send His Son - fully God/fully man to go through trials and sufferings…and ultimately die on a cross.
The Story of Joseph
Joseph has some super mean brothers. They sold their brother into slavery. They wanted evil for him but God meant it for good.
So WHY was Joseph in prison? Why in Egypt for so long? It wasn't because of the mean brothers...well not exactly.
God certainly used the brothers, but the real reason is in Genesis 12.
God had chosen Abram. He gave him THE prophecy of Jesus hundreds of years before Jospeh was born.
Genesis 12:2-3 I will bless you (Abram) and make your name great. In you all the families of the earth would be blessed.
This is about Jesus. Jesus would be born in the bloodline of Abraham.
When God made or cut the covenant with Abraham He said:
“Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here (Promised Land), for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
Joseph going to Egypt set off a series of events that brought ALL the Israelites to Egypt. And they stayed there 400 years.
The return of the Hebrew people to the Promised Land from Egypt would correspond with the “completion” of the iniquity of the Amorites.
God timed the arrival of his judgment with the fullness of the sin to be judged. Not before. God did not jump the gun.
He was, in fact, longsuffering and endured the idolatry and sins of the nations for centuries.
God does not want anyone to perish. He waits. He desires His creation to give Him thanks and worship. The Amorites (the pagan citizens of Canaan), an idolatrous people, would not worship God. So God waited to give the Promised Land to Israel, until the iniquity of the Amorites was “complete” (v. 16). There was a lot more sin coming. And when it was "complete" - so much sin, God destroyed them.
What is happening in America today? Is our sin complete? Is God holding out His wrath on this country? How should we live in this season?
Thanks for joining me on this journey in God's Word.
~Katherine