Peril to Prosperity
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 Tim 3:1 (KJV)
There is great power in this news. For the wise and equipped there is motivation and inspiration for preparation. On the other hand, for the skeptic caught up in the pleasures and goings on of this life, there will only be despair, loss and servitude. In the peril is an opportunity like none other for either an abundant victorious harvest or an overwhelming defeat and loss of freedom.
37 And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. 38 And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? 39 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art:
Gen 41:37-39 (KJV)
Responding only to dreams that were said to be messages from God, Pharaoh took the news of a coming drought to heart and spent the next seven years in preparing as Joseph counseled him. Because of this response to a simple warning supported by nothing more than a nightmare, Egypt was equipped to not only survive, but to prosper beyond what any could have imagined. By simply acknowledging the communication of God and acting for an extended period of time (without further confirmation of that initial contact) as if it were true, preservation was enabled and the potential destructive power of the perilous time was turned into a time of increase and expansion. Long before the first dry summer, the wisdom and action of a God-impressed man turned peril into prosperity.
Even before Pharaoh’s dream, though, Joseph’s wisdom and understanding equipped him in a relationship with God to recognize and interpret His communication. It was all those years of preparation, from the moment of his brothers’ rejection as a boy until he stood before Pharaoh at 30 years of age that enabled Joseph to deliver a nation. It was his faithfulness in daily prayer before his God that equipped him to hear and respond to the voice of the One with the answer. Much action was subsequently necessary, but Joseph had long before understood the power of impending peril to either destroy or promote. Every time he had kept his face towards his God in the middle of apparent loss he had found preservation and provision there.
It seems that there is a natural tendency for the seriousness of the preparation to follow the first raindrop or the first summer with the lack of one. Though Noah preached for years about what was to come, it wasn’t until the doors were closed that those who had heard him decided to act on his warning. If Pharaoh had waited until the dryness of a summer to heed Joseph’s counsel it would have been too late. Though there is more than ample warning coming to America and the world of a coming peril, there is still a reticence to enter the arc before the doors close. For those, though, who have done something other than despair in the challenges of life, for the ones who have set their face towards God, there will not only be a refuge found there in Him, but an opportunity to make His goodness available to all who will but come to Him before it’s too late.
Worship and prayer are optional until what they have prepared is the only salvation.
7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
1 Peter 4:7 (KJV)