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To: Hebrews 11:6

Throughout the Scriptures we see how the things men intend for evil, God turns things around, upon them.

Joseph was sold into slavery because his brothers were jealous of him, and they finally found a way to get rid of the teachers pet.

20 years laster, they are the one’s staring into the possibility of imprisonment at best, and death at the worse. Joseph elevated, they are humbled, just as his dream so many years earlier predicted. What they meant for evil, God turned it into a blessing for His people.

Pharaoh calls for the death of the first born, but God turned the table again. Instead, it was all the first born of Egypt, even the Pharaoh’s own sone died. Yet, none of the Israelites lost their first born.

Moses who was supposed to be killed as a child by the Pharaoh’s father, instead survives to witness the death of the grandson of the man who decreed he should die. Both the Father and son decreed an evil thing, yet God turned both of their evil desires into a blessing for the Israelites.

Moses is elevated to Prophet status, by those who revere him. To this day the Jews consider him second only to God, because they rejected their Messiah. Pharaoh is never to be heard from again. That is until we found the remnants of his chariots at the bottom of the Red Sea.

In all these instances, pride plays a part. Before the fall, always comes pride. Haman had a massive ego. He delighted in the respect of men. He delighted in controlling people. He delighted in his riches, in his power, in his position, and in his clever schemes. He fancied that he would be the downfall of all the Jews.

Had he only practiced love for others and humility, he wouldn’t have found himself hanging from the gallows he had built for his enemy, Mordecai. Instead, his hated enemy, assumed his position.

We always reap that which we sow. The good things that Haman planned for himself, such as his idea of how to honor the one whom the king appreciated, he ended up having to do for Mordecai. The bad things he planned for his enemies, the towering gallows for Mordecai, God used to execute him. God turned his evil plans onto a blessing for His people.

When O’ Lord, when. When will men ever learn that their schemes always turn upon themselves. Even if it seem for a Season that a scheme brightens one’s life, You O’Lord will not be mocked, for You will exact the price for their evil schemes. You O’Lord will always lift up the righteous by setting them above those who’s end is the final death. A death where the worm never turns, and the fire is never quenched. Holy be thy name O’Lord, and happy are they whom You bless with Your anointing love.


14 posted on 12/31/2020 4:36:26 PM PST by OneVike (Just another Christian waiting to go home)
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To: OneVike
Very well argued, Chuck. God is firmly in control, managing everything--usually in spite of us. It's hilarious to watch, at this great distance, all the ironies and surprises recorded in Scripture, a few of which you mentioned, play out. Jesus enjoys it: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your presence." Somehow, He made sure that comment got recorded, making me wonder on how many other occasions He pointed that out--He certainly had many opportunities! But we must take the hint and look for those elements in our own lives where our Lord has stage-managed, and once we recognize them to acknowledge His role and thank Him!

The writer of Esther describes in considerable detail the depraved sexual contest in which Esther participated eagerly and eventually triumphed. I have the sense that many Christians today, perhaps increasingly inured by the pervasive and ever-growing sexual perversion in today's culture, seem indifferent, in the absence of any explicit condemnation by the author, to Esther's self-abasement. We mustn't judge!

Rising from her abjectly adulterous beginning to such unaccustomed moral courage reminds me most of Rahab, who trod a similar path half a millennium earlier. Both now are rightly celebrated.

15 posted on 12/31/2020 6:17:58 PM PST by Hebrews 11:6 (Do you REALLY believe that (1) God IS, and (2) God IS GOOD? Then SEEK HIM!)
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