For or Against You?

"And Jacob their father said to them, "You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me."

Genesis 42:36

After prayer this morning God spoke to me through His Word.  Whilst praying over problems and trials people are facing, there was a temptation to despair.  But immediately I thought better of it, for what is a problem in light of God's goodness and power?  Even if the whole world was against me and the forces of demonic evil unleashed with only me in those satanic sights, God remains good and in control!  Like Paul boldly said from experience after facing death every day, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) The very things Satan would employ to bring us to despair are the very things God can use to bring joy and salvation.

Don't believe me?  Jacob's response to his sons is a perfect demonstration of the reality God uses all things for the ultimate good of those who love Him and are the called according to His purposes.  Jacob had been told and was convinced his beloved son Joseph had died at 17 years old whilst on an errand for his dad.  After a famine overspread the land, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy food.  His sons returned without Simeon who had been arrested because the harsh ruler of Egypt suspected them to be spies.  To prove their innocence the ruler demanded their youngest brother be brought back to Egypt, and only then would Simeon be released.  Jacob was overwhelmed with the situation and felt like everything was against him.  It was a lose-lose situation for a father still grieving the death of Joseph to hear Simeon was in prison and to free him he must part with Benjamin!

What Jacob didn't know was Joseph was not actually dead but was the harsh Egyptian ruler!  Instead of killing Jacob years earlier, his jealous brothers sold Joseph to slave traders who were heading to Egypt.  God miraculously brought Joseph out of prison at the age of 30 and promoted him to second in command in Egypt.  The Spirit of God gave Joseph wisdom to interpret dreams which foretold of a great famine and provided guidance on how to survive the famine.  Jacob wasn't seeing the situation clearly at all.  He accused his sons of bereaving him, but the reality was God sovereignly sent Joseph in Egypt to save countless lives - even the life of Jacob himself and his family.  Joseph acknowledged this before his brothers in Genesis 45:7:  "And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance."  The children Jacob loved dearly would only survive because of the very thing Jacob would have carried grieving to his grave.  Think about this.  The things Jacob believed were against him actually all were God's providence working for him and the salvation of nations.  A day came when they would all be joyfully reunited.

Could it be the very things you lament as being "against you" are working for your own salvation?  Instead of blaming God, accusing others of wrong, or stacking up all which appears to be against us in a pile that reaches to heaven, how much better is it for us to turn our gaze heavenward to our great God who loves us and will indeed work all miraculously for good? (Romans 8:28) The world may indeed be against you, but isn't God greater than the world?  Though Christ we can conquer even that which kills us.  Romans 8:35-39 says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶  As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." ³⁷  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."