By Joseph Shulam
We entered the year 2025 yesterday, and the world has not improved in 2024. Yes, we prayed hard for the whole year of 2024 for God to miraculously intervene in the war between Israel and seven different fronts. No miracles visibly happened, and the battle rages while we usher in 2025. The Word of God always has some hint, word, or promise that gives us hope and assurance that God is still involved in our daily events and conducting the life and activities that beset us daily. Our hope is not lost. Our confidence in God's promises is only becoming more relevant daily, and we are more needed and waiting for their fulfillment.
We are praying for 2025 to be a peaceful and prosperous year for Israel and our neighbors. We know that our enemies are still plotting and planning to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. However, God does not fall asleep but is awake from eternity to eternity. Everything in this world is in His hands, and He can use every means in heaven and on Earth to bless or "educate" his flesh and blood children. He will test us to see if we are children with faith or damnation.
The story of Jacob and his children, Joseph and his brothers, is the last in the book of Genesis, and the beginning and end of the story of Joseph and his brothers are dramatic. In order to understand the story of Joseph, you have to look sharply at the beginning and the end. Suppose you look carefully into this story and place God in the picture. The story is more like a kaleidoscope. In turning the kaleidoscope, the picture changes, but when you come to the end of the story of Joseph and his brothers, you bounce to the beginning. Near the end of the story of Joseph, there is a mega drama that sets all the story's complexities in order. No detail is masked or lost. From the beginning to the end, every element of the story is mentioned in calm poetry.
Jacob dies in his bed with his sons around him. Joseph, with magnanimous greatness and grace, forgives his brothers. The brothers are filled with fear because they look at all the events with their eyes of flesh, with the milk of human iniquity, a natural behavior of flesh and blood. Flesh fears vengeance. Even when forgiving, humans still seek vengeance for the wrong and pain inflicted on them. The brothers of Joseph are afraid that Joseph will now pay them back for all the evil they committed against him in his youth. Genesis 50:15-21
'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." 16 So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, "Before your father died he commanded, saying, 17 "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. 18 Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, "Behold, we are your servants." 19 Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20 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. 21 Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them."
The sad story of a family scandal is turned around with one short sentence in which Joseph speaks to his brother. The tragic tale of hate and jealousy and the desire to murder their younger brother, Joseph, turns around in a flash of light and understanding. God works to bring about redemption and salvation. Rabbinical language summarizes the last statement from chapter 50 of Genesis with a messianic binocular and calls the suffering, pain, and sin and the setting of the stage for the scheme of redemption with the phrase "The birth pangs of the Messiah." – the pain of a woman who is giving birth – producing salvation with pain and suffering. In the Bible, salvation always comes with hard work, pain, and even death. The price for salvation and victory is not cheap. It never comes painlessly. With these words, Joseph brings the confused and tragic story of his life to its most positive and beneficial end:
"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. 21 Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them."
In these verses at the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph speaks the truth without masking, hiding, or diplomatically covering how much he suffered from his brothers due to the revelation that God gave him as a child, a revelation that enraged his brothers and his father and mother. God used Joseph from birth, exposing him as a young child to ridicule, rejection, abuse, and persecution. His brothers, Jacob and Rebecca, didn't understand what was happening in the heavenly boardroom and the plans that were set in motion to bring salvation.
This chain of events sets the stage for humanity's ultimate salvation and redemption, which is from birth to resurrection from the dead. It is the paradigm, the narrative of the world's salvation by Yeshua, our Messiah, whom Isaiah, the prophet, describes with the following words:
"He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely! He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:3-4 NKJV).
These words of Isaiah, the prophet, describe the Messiah, and I believe Yeshua, our Messiah, also fits the paradigm of Joseph as persecuted by his brothers. Yeshua was also criticized and accused of being a dreamer and a megalomaniac, thinking that all his family would worship him, even his father and his mother.
A healthy birth of a child always comes with pain and suffering, and it is never easy.
Joseph expresses the full scope of his life with the following words:
"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. 21 Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them." Genesis 50:20-21
The apostle Paul used Joseph's example and these words to show us that pain and suffering bring salvation and blessing to those around us and the world.
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28 NKJV)
When you are going through persecution and rejection, physical pain and torture, it isn't easy to understand and accept that you are experiencing it for good or the benefit of others. But, dear brothers and sisters, every father who loves his children and wants to see them successful, healthy, and prosperous knows that they will have to go through difficulties, difficulties, struggles, and, at times, even pain to arrive at the happy shores of success and blessings.
The messages of prosperity, fake Hollywood fame, and greatness are the bread and butter of the trap that Greco-Roman pagan culture has set in motion. Mice who look to get the cheese and fall into the trap are not a reality. The reality is that all good things come with hard work, painful sacrifices, and, at times, pain and suffering.
With his father's dead body still before him and his brothers, Joseph realizes that all the difficulties and hardships that he experienced in his life were a preparation (a boot camp), preparing him to become the savior of his father's house. Finally, after the death of their father, Joseph says to his brothers, "I am Joseph, your brother!" I am that kid that you persecuted and even wanted to murder! Don't worry, my brothers, what you meant for harm and what God used for your good and salvation.
This Torah portion is a key to understanding how the God of this universe works. If you visit Israel in the summer, ask to eat some sabres – prickly pear. We Israelites are called "Sabres". We are harsh and prickly on the outside but very sweet on the inside. In this way, we can be like Joseph's brothers, and Joseph can be a forerunner of the Messiah.
Now, dear Jewish brothers, my last comment is this: The false accusations and evil perpetrated against Yeshua the Messiah, just like Joseph's brothers made, the day will come that this Yeshua whom you reject and whose disciples you persecute is actually the only key to Israel's survival and for your forgiveness of sins. Yeshua is the high priest of our salvation as humans and the key to all of Israel's redemption.
"All Israel shall be saved!"
There are no ifs or buts in Paul's statement in his letter to the Romans, chapter 11. The statement is unambiguous and guarantees that we, the Jews of the end times and those who have gone before us, will be saved from the fires of hell and enjoy fellowship with the saints. The redeemed of the Lord from all nations shall march gloriously to Zion.
When you read the words of the Lord in Isaiah 2:2-4 you might think that Isaiah is whistling, "Do Da, Do Da, Hey," – but no! The words of the Lord never come empty. The Lord God our Creator never lies, and His promises are always fulfilled in the letter and the dot! We live daily in fulfilling God's promises to the prophets of Israel, from the Law of Moses to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets.
Those of you who hate Jews, watch out because the day will come that the promises of God to Paul and Israel in the letter of Romans (and to the Revelation of the Apostle John) will all be fulfilled and become as real as Israel's Iron-Dome that shoots down the rockets and bombs that Hamas and Iran and the Hoothies from Yemen are expending.
You should be worried about your own countries, which do not have the promises of God for salvation like Israel has, and about the future of your countries if they don't respect and stand and bless Israel during our hard and difficult times with seven enemies surround us that want to wipe us off the face of Earth because they forgot the Creator of this universe identifies Himself as the God of Israel.
"Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD'S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills, And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."
(Isaiah 2:2-4 NKJV)
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