Genesis 50:20 (NASB) 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
Genesis 50:20 refers to Joseph’s story and his gracious way of seeing the harm his brothers intended towards him yet seeing God work the evil out for the good of Joseph and many others. Joseph, the favoured son of Jacob by Rachel, demonstrated persevering faithfulness to God and to his treacherous half-brothers who had tried to dispose of him secretly, miles from their home and in isolated surroundings. They were motivated by jealousy.
After initially deciding to leave Joseph in a pit to die, his brothers then settled on selling him into slavery instead. He was sold to some Ishmaelite merchants who took him to Egypt to sell into slavery. Despite the brothers’ efforts to harm or kill him, Joseph rose to heights of political power under the Pharaoh of his day, delivering not only Egypt but the nations round about it from a seven year famine.
Genesis 41:41-49 (NASB) 41 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” 42 Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck. 43 He had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, “Bow the knee!” And he set him over all the land of Egypt. 44 Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” 45 Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. 46 Now Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. 47 During the seven years of plenty the land brought forth abundantly. 48 So he gathered all the food of these seven years which occurred in the land of Egypt and placed the food in the cities; he placed in every city the food from its own surrounding fields. 49 Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure.
Similar to this story in our own day and age, the powers that determine political policy, often hidden powers harnessing the permission of elected leaders, are foisting dangerous policies on nations that are sometimes malevolently intended to do harm and sometimes unintentionally designed but that result in harm. The real and deepest intention appears to be spiritual in nature. No one could get things so wrong in a sane world. But these are dark forces that are attempting, at the deepest level, to dismantle Christianity. Immigration laws whereby Muslims are brought into Western nations are a part of such schemes. The object appears to be twofold. Firstly, there is the intention to dilute the Christian heritage of the West. Secondly, they want to promote a belief in the innate goodness of all human beings, seeing all gods as they understand all religion to be, a monolithic superstitious practice that holds mankind back. It is radical rebellion against God, the one true God of Christianity. Anyone can see differences in religions, especially the religion of Islam. OK, we all know one or two lovely Muslims. That is not the point. We know the long-term intention of Islam. It is to forcefully convert all infidels (all the non-Muslim population) to Islam as soon as they have the numbers in their favour. Observe the widespread carnage in the UK. Look at the grooming gangs there and the unheeded protests by the locals against Muslim immigration and virtual takeover.
In the midst of such scenarios, God works miracles. Coming to the West and in some cases, even within their Islamic nations, former Muslims are being converted to Christ, sometimes via atheism. All manner of stories of Christian conversion from Islam are now readily available in the digital era. Justin Brierley, Sean McDowell and others have shared interviews with such Christians. And we know of others through their speaking in churches, through books and through other channels. These former Muslims, now Christians, have converted through the efforts of those who have witnessed of Christ to them. These converts have also witnessed a different way of living in the West, especially among Christians. What is evident through all of these conversions is the working of God amidst what could be viewed as Western civilisational suicide. Although the policy of unfettered immigration is foolish, God can work even in the midst of such human folly, just as He did through the evil and folly of the traitorous half-brothers of Joseph. But God turned their efforts for the ruin/death of Joseph into what turned out to be for the benefit of many people. And God has turned these former Muslims’ lives around for both their good and for that of Christians who witness their newfound faith.
Whether things will turn out similarly for us in the West today as it did in the time of Joseph, time will tell. The one confounding factor in our own day and age is that the other prong of attack, Marxism in all manner of guises, has caused such downfall in the West that Muslim takeover may turn out to be God’s judgement on our traitorous defection from Him. After all, as Western societies we have until relatively recently enjoyed the benefits of living in a far more Christianised civilisation than anywhere else on earth.
The “freedom” movement of the 1960s that called for the abolition of censorship laws among other laws only wanted freedom from restraint to pursue what the Bible calls evil. The call to freedom today by liberals and conservatives is a false mission. Freedom was the given excuse back then but liberalism and freedom from restraint in order to sin was the project. The damage has been done. The West’s past laws were usually for the good of the whole of society because they were based upon Christian principles. A faithfully Christian aspect of the West has been snuffed out by apostasy in the church and a faithless approach to faith. Ironic! But perhaps God is raising up the church now in other parts of the world. Just as there is now the rise of Islam with its expanding presence in the world, so the West is concurrently falling into greater and greater decadence. Are these connected? I think so.
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NASB) 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
Note the connection, wrote Paul, between spiritual delusion and taking “pleasure in wickedness”, another way of saying how we act. Belief and action are always connected. Jesus explained it this way too:
John 3:18-21 (NASB) 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
People remain unbelievers not because God has blocked them from Himself but because they themselves do not wish to “come to the Light”. Why? Because they do not wish to repent of their deeds. How on earth can Jesus’ words be read in any other way? Please continue to my next article for a fuller explanation of how I understand this verse in the context of all of the New Testament.
Our World Our Faith 