God Is Up to Something Great by Tony Evans

Author:Tony Evans [Evans, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56473-3
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

TALK ABOUT COLD-BLOODED

Now that’s cold—not as cold as killing him outright, but still cold-blooded. Joseph’s own brothers sold him into slavery, out of jealousy, because their father liked Joseph more than he liked them. Here we have a really bad family background, just the opposite of Paul’s, yet God used this whole affair in a mighty way.

Many of you have come from bad family backgrounds too. And many of you are in pain today because of what Mama was like, what Daddy was like, what your brothers and sisters were like. And many of you are still enduring that pain. Maybe abuse by a father. Maybe neglect. Maybe rejection.

In my years as a pastor, I’ve heard every story you could imagine about rejection and abuse. Maybe a few stories you couldn’t imagine. But of all the terrible things I’ve heard, all the awful things I’ve encountered, I believe that sexual abuse of children is the most grievous, not only because of the horrific effects that kind of abuse often has on the victims, but also because of the punishment God has promised: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

Yet I know one lady who was horribly abused as a child and was able, with God’s help, to turn those awful, ugly experiences over to Him. In return, He healed her spirit and gave her an incredible affinity for other kids. Out of the horrible desolation of that experience, God called this woman to work with children, which she has been doing for many years.

Now, that’s not the kind of abuse Joseph endured, but nevertheless, he got a terrible deal. How much worse can it get than being sold as a slave—as a nothing, a nobody? And by your own family! You talk about a self-image problem—that could create a real self-image problem. I must be a nobody, Joseph probably thought. What else would most people think? In one afternoon, Joseph went from favored son to slave.

To cover their tracks, the brothers put blood from an animal all over Joseph’s coat, the multicolored coat Jacob had given him, and took it back to Jacob, who immediately went into mourning, assuming that his favorite son had been eaten by a wild beast.

Meanwhile, when Joseph got to Egypt, the Midianites sold him as a slave in the home of a man named Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s highest ranking officials, the captain of his bodyguard. So Joseph has been betrayed by his own brothers and sold into slavery. Even so, Genesis tells us that the Lord was with Joseph:

It came about that from the time [Potiphar] made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the LORD’S blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.