Introduction: When You Cry and the Storm Gets Darker
In life, every human being lives situations in which they would like to have a divine intervention, an instant miracle. This morning, returning from a long journey after an adventure - one that can happen, where everything gets complicated, where everything gets difficult - human fragility made me wonder: What happened? Who was the one with the bad luck? Why aren't they coming out bwhy if we prayed to God did he not intervene to stop all the setbacks on the way and his servant would be all right?
Then, when it gets even more complicated, I begin to see in the distance some lightning, lightning, thunder. I said, “Oh, storm.” I prayed to God and said, “Lord, work, save us from that storm, stop it. We're going with kids. ” And in the moment… **everything got darker. ** We entered the storm.
I was praying in mynte, asking myself: What do I preach today? And then it comes to mind: Why doesn't God intervene when one waits? Why doesn't a miracle happen? Why do we have to go through what we have to go through? Doesn't God hear me? I only understood that God does hear us, but there is a course in the history of man that is called: Faith, Responsibility, and Obedience.
You can pray: "Lord, keep me from accidents", but if you fall asleep at the wheel... I don't even want to imagine.
I. Moments When God Works, But He Doesn't Do Everything
1) Joseph, the Adoptive Father of Jesus (Matthew 2:13)
a. When JESUS is born, the danger of death against Him becomes complicated (v. 13).
b. Only one angel appears in a dream and warns Joseph:
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"Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt." Why did he not make a supernatural transfer, for example, like that of Elisha or Philip?
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King Herod is going tokill. Was Herod more powerful than God? Why didn't he just take her life? Why didn't I give him a heart attack and go? Later we see that God gives it to him, but **at His appointed time **.
c. Then a lot of children die. Why didn't God intervene?
d. There is no answer as to why God works this way, and trying to answer is a presumption, but God allows the course of human responsibility to run its course.- The responsibility for disobedience and sin in humanity is a choice of man.
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**God shows respect for man's personality ** and for the meaningful maturity of our acts. Although God did not intervene with the children, His plan at that time was Joseph, Jesus, and Mary.
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If God intervened to nullify the consequences of our negative acts, we would cease to be men created in the image of God, with reresponsibility and willingness.
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I could say, * If I had done this? If I don't stay one more day and come?* I only understand one thing: that God ** will never leave us alone**, will walk beside us, and even if there is a storm and it gets dark, faith tells me: "I am with you".
2) The Responsibility of Man
a. Faith is an act of obedience. You may not see a miracle (although they do happen), but Faith is walking around without denigrating or complaining about Dios saying, "Why didn't you step in?"
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God sent an order to Joseph: “Escape” (v. 15 says this had to be fulfilled).
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Joseph had to deal with the darkness, the flight, the danger in the desert, until he reached Egypt.
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From Bethlehem to the border, the baby was already two years old. It was ** approximately 180 km to the border**, but it is said that where Jews resided, there in the Nile Delta, it was about ** approximately 300 km **. That is to sayr, they must have walked about a month, at night, in the desert. Remember: they left urgently.
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The question: did God intervene, yes or no? Sure, but there had to be the human element: obedience, trust, action. "I go because God is with me."
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You want a miracle? But you don't want to do anything? Remember: “The process is your growth.” It's your spiritual maturity. It's waiting on God.
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** God's intervention did not eliminatethe hard road; he only guaranteed that the road had a purpose.** The wilderness for Israel was a purpose. God manifested Himself, He worked, something good had to come out. But God said:
“And you shall remember all the way by which the Lord your God has brought you these forty years in the wilderness, to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. And he afflicted you, and made you hungry, and kept youentered with manna, food that you did not know, nor your fathers had known it, to let you know that not by bread alone shall man live, but by all that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord shall man live. Your dress has never aged on you, nor has your foot swollen in these forty years.” — Deuteronomy 8:2-4
3) God's Silence: A Form of His Intervention
(Habakkuk 1:12-17)
"Aren't you from the beginning, O Lord, sayyou mine, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast set it for judgment; and thou, O Rock, hast founded it to punish. You are very clean-eyed to see evil, nor can you see wrong; why do you see the despisers, and be silent when the wicked destroy the more righteous than he..."
a. Habakkuk accused God of doing nothing, of turning his face away, and God had to rebuke him. Even though God is silent, it does not mean that He is not doingdo something.
b. Habakkuk's responsibility was to worship God, know Him, and hope:
"But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." — Habakkuk 2:20
c. Do you know how long Jacob lasted in mourning for his son Joseph? 22 years in which God did nothing, did not tell him, did not reveal to him, only kept quiet.
- **God often does not reveal anything to us **, because Jacob would have damaged God's purpose in Joseph, and his end wassave that whole generation from starvation.
"You thought evil against me, but God directed it for good, to do what we see today, to keep many people alive. Now therefore fear not; I will nourish you and your children. Thus he comforted them, and spoke to their hearts.” — Genesis 50:20-21
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God was working in the heart of Joseph, **an immature young man **, to turn him into a responsible, capable man, smart.
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Joseph's brothers were allowed guilt to tame them for long years (Genesis 42:21).
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Jacob already knew how God had to deal with him all along:
"And they gave him tidings, saying, Joseph is yet alive; and he is lord over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart was grieved, because he did not believe them. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had spoken unto them; and when Jacob saw the chariots which Joseph sentto carry him, his spirit revived. Then Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive; I will go and see him before I die.” — Genesis 45:26-28
- His spirit revived. And after this, he even prophesied things that no one knew... *