Evil Happens...but God - Part A

We say that God is provident. When we talk about God's providence, we're not talking about His miraculous works. A miracle is where God intervenes natural law, but providence is where He cooperates with natural law to affect a supernatural result. In providence, God is manipulating ordinary events to affect an extraordinary outcome. English preacher J.C. Ryle once said, There is no such thing as chance, luck, or accident in the Christian's journey through this world.

All is arranged and appointed by God, and all things are working together for the believer's good. Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Skip shows you through the story of Joseph how God's providence is at work in your life today. But before we begin, we want to let you know about a resource that will transform your spiritual life as you see God for who He really is. The best biographies make you feel like you personally, intimately know the person you've read about. From Mozart to Mother Teresa, Sojourner Truth to Steve Jobs, it's exciting to learn the details of influential people. But one biography stands out above the rest, the biography of God.

Here's the author, Skip Heitzig. There's nothing more elevating to mankind than the study of God Himself. Discover the omnipotence, paradoxes, and mystery central to God's being, and remove the limits you may have placed on who God is.

I've noticed that almost every problem that a person has in their life stems from an inadequate view of God. Skip's new book is Our Thanks, when you give $35 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air. Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

Now, we're in Genesis chapter 50 as Skip Heitzig gets into today's message. Most all of you know, in fact, some of you have even used this online auction called eBay. I have purchased things over the years. Millions of transactions have taken place where people buy and sell just about anything and everything on eBay. Every now and then, odd things show up for sale, and people have made note of that and lists of all the weird things eBay has sold.

But here's a few standout things. A few years back, a grilled sandwich sold on eBay. A grilled sandwich, some of you saw that, with the face of the Virgin Mary. It sold for $28,000 on eBay because supposedly the little sandwich had magical powers and was unaffected by mold for over a decade.

That was what they claimed. So somebody dished out $28,000. Then there was the haunted rubber duck that sold on eBay and it purportedly had the power to possess children. Now, who on earth would ever want to buy that? Or for that matter, who would ever want to sell it?

Who would want to let that go and get out into the public and do damage? But it sold on eBay for $107,000. Then there was the case of a 10-year-old girl from England who tried to sell her grandmother on eBay. And the little ad she took out on eBay said about her grandmother, she is annoying but cuddly. Of course eBay had to take it down because it breaches regulations for human trafficking.

You can't sell people on eBay, even your grandmother. But perhaps the most bizarre was a decade ago, when a man got on eBay and offered his life for sale. The ad ran like this, my name is Ian Usher and I've had enough of my life. I don't want it anymore.

You can have it if you like. Whatever it is, it's all going up for sale. In one big auction, everything I have and everything I am, on the day that it's sold and settled, I intend to walk out the front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else.

And then get on the train with no idea where I am going or what the future holds for me. What ended up happening is Ian Usher was selling his life. He sold his home along with it, beat up furniture along with it, an old car along with it, a small motorcycle. He sold all of that for $305,000 and he moved to Australia. What he said is that his wife had left him six years into their marriage.

She divorced him and he said that he wanted to remove all reminders of his life with his ex-wife. Now there's a lot of ways you can deal with rejection. This has got to take the cake. I just want to sell my life.

You can have it, all of it. I suppose if there could have been one person in the Bible who would have said that, it would be Joseph. Because he had so many bad things happen to him over the course of his life, one bad thing after another.

His brothers hated him, the Midianites sold him, Potiphar jailed him, his cellmates forgot him, but God promoted him. It's an incredible story. And it's an incredible story on a number of levels.

Here's just one of them. All 50 chapters in the book of Genesis, all of them together, one-fourth of the entire book of Genesis is devoted to Joseph. That in and of itself is amazing, given the fact that God uses 10 words to describe the creation of the universe.

Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That's 10 words. Then he gives two chapters to fill in some of the details of those 10 words, but 13 chapters in the book are devoted to Joseph. His tragedies and his triumph. It's an incredible story. It's a rags to riches story. It's about how the son of an obscure, poor, Israelite herdsman goes from total obscurity, to become the second most powerful man in Egypt, thus in the world.

An incredible story. And the story introduces us to one of the notable traits of God, and that is his providence. God's providence. We say that God is provident. When we talk about God's providence, we're not talking about his miraculous works.

A miracle is where God intervenes natural law, but providence is where he cooperates with natural law to affect a supernatural result. In providence, God is manipulating ordinary events to affect an extraordinary outcome. And besides all that, Joseph proves to us that no matter how bad you had it growing up, no matter how you were mistreated or mishandled or misjudged growing up, you can live well now. Joseph shows that.

It's an amazing story. Now, a little quick thumbnail sketch about Joseph's background. His family was messed up. Big time. The family of Joseph with his father, Jacob, and his eleven brothers, it was, to say the very least, a dysfunctional family. On a high level. First of all, his dad had four wives, not four in a row.

Four at the same time. So that's bad. Then his brothers get involved in all sorts of sinful activity, including incest, rape, murder, and, with Joseph, human trafficking. When we get to chapter 50, last chapter in the book, it is the crescendo, it is the high moment. It is after Jacob's death, their dad has died, they buried him, they're back from the funeral in Canaan, they're back in Egypt, and now these brothers are really paranoid. Verse 15 of chapter 50 introduces us. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, Before your father died, he commanded us, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we are your servants. Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. In order to bring it about, as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid.

I will provide for you and your little ones. And he comforted them, and he spoke kindly to them. This is the finale of the entire Joseph story. All of the tension that begins in chapter 37 and grows and mounts, comes to its high point here until finally it is resolved. And through Joseph's forgiveness, it is relieved. So the scene begins in fear, but it ends in forgiveness.

And there's one little phase in between. So we're going to begin and look at the three stages that Joseph's brothers go to, to bring resolution. First of all, fear. They're afraid of something.

They have a baseless, I would add, a baseless fear. Verse 15 says, when Joseph's brothers saw that their father, that is Jacob, was dead, they said, now they're talking among themselves, they have a conversation, perhaps Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. This is their guilt speaking. The whole turn of events with Joseph has been odd to these brothers.

They're uneasy with how it has come down. Joseph was sold by them. They captured him, put him in a pit because they were jealous, sold him to Midianites who dumped him in Egypt. But everybody thinks Joseph is dead. Jacob thinks he's dead or thought he was dead. The brothers thought he was dead.

Come to find out. He's not only dead, he's very much alive. And he's large and in charge.

He is, in fact, the second most powerful human being on the planet in charge of the economy that is controlled at that time by Egypt. So on one hand, it's sort of like a fairy tale ending for these boys. They are rescued by Joseph.

They're saved from hunger. They're provided for and they are now protected by him. On the other hand, there is now one person in the world that controls their future and that is their brother whom they sold years ago.

So he's the guy in charge. He can kill them if he wants to. They are in his debt completely and at any moment he could rescind his favor and protection.

So they're scrambling. They're thinking, well, perhaps Dad's life was a buffer. While Dad was alive, Joseph isn't going to retaliate because poor old Dad has had enough heartache.

He's not going to add to that. He's going to wait until he's dead. Now he's dead. Funeral's over. We buried him in Canaan.

We're back now. Now the chief impediment to that revenge by our brother is taken away. We are completely vulnerable before our brother Joseph. Dig a little deeper in verse 15 and you'll notice that these brothers feared two things. First, they feared Joseph's personal emotion.

Look at how they put it. Perhaps Joseph will hate us. The word hate in Hebrew is the word satam which means to bear a grudge. It speaks of a growing resentment and bitterness. They're afraid of that. Something has been growing inside the heart of our brother Joseph all this time. So they're afraid of his personal emotion. Also, notice they're afraid of Joseph's possible action or they say, and he may actually repay us for all the evil we did to him.

The word actually could be better translated fully. And he may fully repay us for all the evil which we did to him. In other words, our brother Joseph has been nursing a grudge all these years and now he's going to give full vent to that hatred and those feelings in his heart. All I can say at this point is a guilty conscience is an unbearable load. When you carry around with you all the junk and stuff from years past, your failures, what you did, and you carry that, it becomes that guilty conscience.

It is a heavy load and sometimes too heavy to bear. Psalm 38 verse 4, the psalmist said, My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. And the reason that it's so heavy to bear is that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. Wherever you go, you carry that conscience with you, it is its own accuser. You start filtering everyone and every action through the viewpoint, the lens, the filter of all that guilt.

It can crush you. Charles Spurgeon said, I'd rather bear any affliction than be burdened with a guilty conscience. So they're viewing Joseph now through that guilt. They're looking at him and they're listening to him and they're seeing all of that through their own personality and their own action. They're projecting.

You've heard that term before, that people project things on other people. You see, they're worried that Joseph is going to get rid of them because they once tried to get rid of him. So they are seeing Joseph through the lens of their own personality. And their conversation in verse 15 reveals more about them than it does about Joseph.

And whatever you project onto other people tells more about you than it tells about other people. Shakespeare said, Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. You know how many years it's been since they did this to Joseph? Forty.

Between chapter 37 and chapter 50, four decades have gone by. For forty years they have been carrying that load of guilt, unattended to, unresolved, until this moment. And that's because guilt distorts your reality. You don't see clearly.

When you're around people you assume the worst and you impose the worst possible motives. I wonder why he said that. I know why they said that. That's because you're just, that's you. And they're wrong.

It's not reality. They think Joseph hates them. That's not true. Joseph loves them. They think Joseph wants to kill them. Joseph doesn't want to kill them. Joseph is going to say, I think you guys need to be alive to preserve your life. They think Joseph is unforgiving and unrelenting. And that's not true. He's forgiven them five chapters ago.

They're still carrying the load. Guilt upon the conscience is like rust upon metal. At first the rust just discolors the metal, but after a while it starts creeping into it. And eventually it eats out the very heart and the substance of that metal. It rots it from within. Guilt will do that to the human heart. So they come with this fear, a baseless fear.

The second stage is a fabrication, a blatant fabrication. They're going to say something that their dad supposedly said that is not true. Verse 16, So they sent messengers to Joseph. Mark that. They're so paranoid they don't even show up themselves.

They send a team ahead of them. Messengers to Joseph saying, Before your father died, he commanded us, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they have done evil to you. Now, please forgive the trespass, listen to how they put it, of the servants of the God of your father.

You don't want to hurt God's servants, do you? And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we are your servants. Now, Jacob, their dad, may indeed have actually said these words to them.

But there's no record of it. There's no record in all of the Scriptures up to this point that Joseph ever actually gave the eleven brothers this message to tell Joseph. And don't you think that a message this important would be told eye to eye, would have been given by Jacob himself? In fact, if you were to go back one chapter, not now, but chapter 49 of Genesis, one of the great chapters of the Bible, all of the boys, all twelve men, are gathered around the deathbed of Jacob. And in that chapter, Jacob gets very direct with all twelve boys. He is unafraid to call out their past sins, he is unafraid to predict their future. And Jacob, the old man, before he died, he knew his boys. He knew the disposition of these eleven, and that you can't trust them with a message this important. They had proven to be liars throughout his life.

So, Jacob, if he really did say this, would have said this privately to Joseph, or in the very least publicly, when they were all gathered around his deathbed in chapter 49. So, I believe this is a lie, it's a fabrication. Which means, if it is indeed a fabrication, what it means is, they're using their dead father as the fall guy. They're using their dead dad as the scapegoat. They're throwing him under the bus, effectively.

They're saying, you know, our dad's last dying wish was that you let bygones be bygones. So, this is their collective personality. This is their group speak.

This is who they are. They have had mercy shown to them. They have been lavishly treated by Joseph, up to this point, and by Pharaoh of Egypt.

They have been relocated from the land of Israel, who was suffering famine, to the land of Goshen, a very lush place in Egypt. They have been given meals, they have been given provisions, they have been given protection, and they have already seen the error of their ways and confessed already to lying all of these years. But, old habits die slow. Or as a friend of mine says, people change, but not that much. These boys have changed, but not that much.

They still are who they are. They're paranoid, they're opportunistic, they want to save their own hides, that's what all this fabrication is about, because they said so. He's going to kill us, he's going to repay us.

So they come up with this lie. In Proverbs 29, verse 25, the author says, the fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved. That one proverb contrasts Joseph and his brothers. The fear of man brings the snare, that's his brothers, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved. That's Joseph. It's like these guys lived on two completely different levels. Joseph lives and always lived on the but God level. He's always looking for God in the picture, no matter what happens to him, not these guys.

I want to show you something. Go back five chapters, go back to chapter 45. Just for a few moments, I want you to look at the very first time the Prime Minister of Egypt, Joseph, their brother, discloses to them that he is their brother, who's not dead but is alive. It's a fun scene, chapter 45, verse 1. Then Joseph, his brothers are standing before him, then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, make everyone go out from me. So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. Now you've got to think his brothers are going, what is going on? Who is this guy weeping? Watch this. Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph.

Does my father still live? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. In other words, this was their great uh-oh moment. I'm Joseph. Uh-oh. Not good. And then Joseph said to his brothers, verse 4, please come near me.

Now they're really going uh-oh. So they came near and he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Uh-oh. But watch this.

Watch this. Look at the different level Joseph lives at. Verse 5, but now. Do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. Wow.

For these two years the famine has been in the land and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. That's Skip Heitzig with a message from his series, But God. Now we want to tell you about a unique opportunity to take your knowledge of scripture to a new level. Calvary College is now open for registration. Calvary College is offering select online classes as an opportunity for individuals to take their life's calling to a whole new level with an educational emphasis in Biblical studies. With our unique partnerships with Veritas International University and Calvary Chapel University, you will have the opportunity to obtain your bachelor's or master's degree with complete online programs. Whether you're looking to obtain an accredited online degree or take individual courses to become better equipped in your knowledge of God's unchangeable truth, Calvary College has you covered with a range of opportunities. For updates on classes and registration information for Calvary College, please visit calvaryabq.college. That's calvaryabq.college.

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800-922-1888. Thank you for connecting more people to Jesus. And just a reminder, tune in to watch Connect with Skip Heitzig on the Hillsong Channel on Saturdays at 4.30 p.m. Mountain or catch it on TVN on Sundays at 5.30 a.m. Eastern.

Check your local listings. Next week, Skip Heitzig shares about the perspective Joseph had on God's sovereignty, reminding you how to trust God and His power no matter your circumstances. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.