Sometimes our comfort has to be upset or overturned in order for us to grow…. that is the case with the next part of our Advent journey, both literally and figuratively.
Joseph had been sold into slavery by his brothers, the sons of Jacob. He was dead to the family. Judah had left the family to live with the Canaanites. He had married into the Canaanite culture. His morals had become loose enough for him to defraud his daughter-in-law. They were also loose enough for him to have no problem going in to a prostitute, or any shame sending his best buddy back to pay for services rendered. He was not just in the culture…he was OF the culture. How would his ten brothers be any different? Or if not them, then their sons after them?
Abraham chose Isaac’s wife. Jacob’s wives were his mother’s relatives. Now we have twelve sons who are supposed to become the nation of Israel, but they seem set on their own paths. How do you build a nation of people, when the eleven guys, who are supposed to make up that nation, are living in a land where there are opportunities all around to go and intermarry with any of the surrounding nations? They could spread out and blend in with the other cultures, never becoming or having the national identity of Israel God had declared they would have.
How would the Messiah come from a nation that did not exist? How does God handle this threat to His plan for a nation and the Savior of the world?
First, God allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery. Think of it as sending His recon guy on ahead to prepare the way. After a time, he set Joseph up as second in command in Egypt. Joseph prepared Egypt for the coming famine. As the famine ravaged the face of the earth, God implemented the next phase of His plan. He used the famine to bring the sons of Jacob into Egypt.
After discovering Joseph was still alive and was in a position of authority, the family moves to Egypt for a time because there was plenty of food and they were taken care of. This removed them from the temptation of drifting apart as a family and disappearing into other nations. They were given the land of Goshen to live in and tend their flocks.
But what about intermarrying with the Egyptians? This was not a concern. The Egyptians wanted nothing to do with these shepherds of the wilderness. They considered them unclean. Joseph tells his brothers the following…
“you shall say, 'Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,' that you may live in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians." Genesis 46:34
Good grief, the Egyptians wouldn’t even eat at the same table as Joseph because they knew he was a Hebrew….even though he was the prime minister of Egypt!!
Finally, they became slaves and had no choice but to stay in Egypt. This is because after Joseph died, a different Pharaoh came to power, and he was a bit intimidated by the size of this family. So he figured the best way to deal with the Hebrews was to oppress and persecute them.
Why would God allow this? Remember at the beginning I said sometimes our comfort needs to be upset or overturned in order for us to grow? That was literally the case here. Am I saying God oppressed Israel? No, but I am saying that once again God used the choices and actions of man to bring about His plan and purpose. God used the cruelty of the Egyptians to grow His people. This is how God turned a family, who on arrival in Egypt numbered seventy, left Egypt a nation of millions. This is the nation in whom the Messiah would come from. This is not to say there would not be Gentiles in the Messiah’s bloodline. Quite the contrary…so far we have only Gentile brides. The time in Egypt was God bringing about the birth of the nation Israel.
‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’ Jeremiah 29:11
“I know that you can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2
God had a purpose and a plan for the children of Israel to become a great nation. God had a plan for His Son Jesus to be born into one of the tribes of Israel...the tribe of Judah. But that is not all....God has a purpose and a plan for our lives, and just like with the Children of Israel, there are going to be times when He may allow us to go through something or experience something that may not be that comfortable. It may be something we can't see the why of at the time it is going on.... or we may never see it in this lifetime. It may be for the benefit of someone we know or someone we have never met. It could very well not be about us at all. Or it could be something we have made a mess of and He is allowing us to go through it to bring us to a place of obedience and refinement. Whatever the reason....It is such a comfort knowing our hope is placed in the hands of a merciful, compassionate, loving God, Who because He loved us so very much, sent His own Son to take the complete burden of our sins upon Himself so that we could be free from death and sin...so that we could be with Him for eternity. He loves us that much. Merry Christmas!!
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