A Great Deliverance

“But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” | Genesis 45:7

The Bible loves to tell parallel stories and highlight God’s faithfulness in the big and the small. The words above are spoken by Joseph to his eleven brothers, who have entered Egypt desperately seeking food, fearful for their lives, and haunted by a secret sin committed years ago. Joseph brings an incredible message: God had a plan. 

Perhaps you find yourself in some surprising circumstances today. Are you in desperate need of something? Haunted by a sin you are afraid anyone will find out about? Maybe you feel like Joseph’s brothers – afraid. Quite apart from their sinful actions, they certainly have reason to fear during a famine that has whittled down their storehouses. For Joseph’s brothers, the world around them was bleak. Joseph’s words carry confidence – God sent him ahead for the purpose of a great deliverance. Do you hear the redemptive story, that much later God would send another Rescuer ahead for his covenant people to accomplish a great deliverance? 

Israel entered Egypt as a family of seventy and would be fruitful and multiply, just as God promised. Later on, Moses would lead Israel back out of Egypt, carrying Joseph’s bones, because Joseph trusted what God said would come to pass. 

Through seven years of feast and bountiful harvest, God had a plan. Through seven years of famine, God made provisions. Ever since Genesis 15, God paved the way for his covenant people, a family he called to himself. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, in every chapter and story, God’s faithfulness, sovereignty, and promise-keeping power is on full display.

It is awfully easy to read these stories and think ‘Oh, yes. Of course they can trust what God said – but how can I’? Trusting that things in our lives will work proves much more challenging. How do we know that God will take the hard things we must walk through and redeem them? Is it really true that the God of the universe knows me and has a plan for my life?  (“Did God really say…?”)  We sometimes see more of the cloud cover than the explanation. God may mask his good plans with suffering, but he is still good and does good – all the time (Ps. 119:68). 

Had Israel’s sons known what would have happened to their descendants over the next four hundred years, they may never have entered Egypt. But God knew. In the same way, we may not know what awaits us in the coming days or years, but God does. And he has a plan; he will make provisions; he will pave the way. Do we doubt that God cannot do that? If we do, let’s muster up a simple sentence: Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief! (Mk. 9:24) 

Just as God planned a great deliverance through Joseph’s faithfulness and integrity, God delivered his people through Jesus’s perfect obedience and sacrifice on the cross. Just like God sent Joseph ahead of his brothers into Egypt, He sent Jesus ahead of us to prepare a place in his Father’s house. God sovereignly used all of the suffering in Joseph’s personal life and in Egypt’s larger cultural problem; he does the same throughout the whole world today. All things work together for God’s covenant people, for his family. 

And in whatever circumstances we find ourselves today, let’s be like Joseph. He has the wisdom to look back and see God’s hand at work. Instead of focusing on the suffering, he says God sent me ahead. He recognizes how God was a lamp to his feet and a light to his path in the past, and this fuels his confidence and trust in this covenant-making, promise-keeping God. 

Perhaps God calls you today to be a mouthpiece, like Joseph, to testify to God’s great deliverance. He also calls you to remember his faithfulness in the past and trust in his plan for the future. 

“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace; behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take: the clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.” – William Cowper, God Moves in a Mysterious Way