God expects humans to work for the best

I'm interrupting my late evening dinner (pasta with fresh tomatoes and cheese) because I just remembered something I wanted to point out to those who often worry and ponder about the End of Times.

Remember what happened when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and found himself in Egypt under the Pharaoh. Joseph became elevated due to the Pharaoh recognizing that Joseph received authentic dream interpretation charism directly from God. Most notably Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh to know that seven years of famine will afflict the entire region and that it cannot be survived unless it is prepared for years in advance. Joseph was put in charge and saved the people of the region by putting aside the surplus of the food that was grown each year so that they had enough stored to take them through the seven years of famine. They saved not only themselves in Egypt but also the Israelites who were starved out of their land and sought food in Egypt.

Here is the interesting point that I'm not sure people have properly pondered. The Egyptians were notorious unbelievers. They not only were pagans, believing in multiple gods and idols, but they had an elaborate death cult. Yet two curious things happened. One is that the Pharaoh believed in the message of the one God without converting or being a believer himself. Thus the Pharaoh trusted Joseph and acknowledged God, turning the welfare of the kingdom into his hands, yet God did not choose to force Pharaoh to be a believer or, to put it another way, Pharaoh served God's purpose as he was, where faith in the God of Joseph was enough. A very targeted and narrow commonality of faith was sufficient to please God and bind them in purpose.

The second point is related to the first. Notice that God did not take that opportunity to have Joseph say, "Well, I will tell you what the dream means and what to do only if all Egyptians renounce pagan gods and their cult of death and accept worship of only Yahweh." Why do you think that is? Why would God not "demonstrate his power" and force very superstitious and culture of death prone (even Apocalyptic) mindset people into knowing him and acknowledging him as the one and only God? Remember, this is before Moses and so the Exodus, the theophany, and the Law giving by God had not yet happened, yet God had a clear identity that he could have used the famine to force upon the Egyptians.

There is one answer that can be viewed from a multiple of facets. The one answer is that God gave humans free will, a free choice to believe, love, know and obey him, and God has never reneged on that gift, even when it seems that imposing his will would have been for the betterment of those who lost for that time their freedom of choice. That is the whole point of free will as God's gift to humans, despite how often they use that gift to throw it back into God's face, so to speak.

And so God expected those to whom he revealed the truth of the impending famine to work together without being forced into common faith first, even though the pagan beliefs of the Pharaoh were repugnant. God permitted Pharaoh to have a dream, and gave Pharaoh enough kingly concern for the welfare of his people that the dream troubled him enough to seek the correct interpretation and what warning it contained. Joseph in his demeanor and humility set the example of how pious men and women draw other men and women to God without force, threats, terror or disaster. Imagine the leap of faith that all the people had in order to follow Joseph's instructions to conserve food for years and how things must have seemed very odd and even frightening, yet they all followed Joseph, at Pharaoh's orders. Pious and earnest believers set a continual example without drama, without force, and that is ultimately in emulation of God's true way.

Even much later when God had to send afflictions in order to force the Pharaoh in the time of Moses to release the Israelites from slavery God did not use the force of Armageddon type of terror that he well could have. As bad as each plague was, God never terrorized the people so that they believed that they were in the End of Times where their very country and all the people would be destroyed. Each plague was dreadful, but God, again, did not force people to believe in him, to fall and abase before him, to be terrorized that all will end. God continues to give people their gift of freedom of choice and discernment, even when they continually make the wrong choice.

Too many fundamentalists of various extremes, notably Christians that are not Catholic or Orthodox, openly expect God to terrorize countries or the entire planet as expression of wrath, impatience with sin, and to herald the "Second Coming." As a result these humans with that erroneous mindset are willing to "throw in the towel" at each and every hardship that humans face, thinking these are opening salvos in the times of tribulation and wrath of God before the final judgment. But sheesh, calm down and read the Bible, will you? Is it God's style to just rain terror upon a people, when he did not even do that with the Egyptians who had purchased Joseph in slavery? Instead, God gifted Pharaoh with a dream and the wisdom to seek out Joseph and listen to him. Even later God applied only the pressure in the plagues that people needed in order to finally make the right decision on their own. So why would the troubling times that humans are in now make people only focus on darkly hoping that God is "smiting" (or getting ready to smite in overture for the final judgment?) And of course I am not speaking of those of you who have engaged in occult practices, who have guilty consciences that you now see God brings right back at you the consequences of your occult beliefs and activities. (I'll bet that smiting has finally dawned on you as a possibility, but on a personal scale, not on the worldly context.) No, I wonder why so many Christians for the past twenty years have sat on their hands instead of helping to work in companionship for the best outcome of all human problems. I've mentioned before how dismayed I am at the suffering that has been secretly egged on by those who actually "want" the Apocalypse, particularly in the Middle East. This is exactly why Jesus warned that there will be many false prophets.

Some who anticipate the Mahdi predict that first there will be sixty false prophets claiming to be him. Gosh, can we count Christian false prophets too? We must surely have had six hundred false prophets at least in the past several decades, ugh.

My point is that if you read and comprehend the Bible (I'm addressing these cultists and extreme fundamentalist, dispensationalist Christians) you will observe that God expects humans to work together for the common good right up until the end, and not withholding good will because you somehow have decided that "it's time." Even Jesus did not claim to know the time and trust me, you'll know with absolutely no uncertainty when it is actually arriving. So I hope that this is helpful and once again, read the Bible and stop imposing depressive wishes and delusions onto the clean and truthful prophecy of God. If you understand God and truly follow Jesus, you know that it is mutual good will and charity that is expected until people "drop in their places in mid stride" (just a colorful image, ex-Biblical *wink*) at the Second Coming.