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Why didn’t God free the hostages two years ago? · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 edition of Dinnison Forum's daily article podcast.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrating today's daily article authored by Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Dinnison.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are starting to hear horrific stories about what the hostages in Gaza endured over their two years of captivity, some were so deprived of food that they now have to be taught how to eat normally again.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just reading Eli Sharabi's book about his ordeal was painful for me.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot imagine what they're going through today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their suffering raises the question, do you believe God could have liberated the hostages two years ago?
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why then didn't he?
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: In her New York Times newsletter, believing, Lauren Jackson quotes the Reverend Muntler Isaac, a Palestinian Christian based in the West Bank.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Quote, the war has made so many people question God, his absence, his silence, in quote.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not alone.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hamas expected its October 7th invasion of Israel to spark a ring of fire assault from its ge hottest partner surrounding Israel that would destroy the Jewish state.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, Israel took out the leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Israel and the U.S.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: decimated Iran's nuclear infrastructure and uprising toppled Iran's puppet regime in Syria.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pressure from other Arab states and Muslim nations finally forced Hamas's hand, leading to the celebrations we've seen in Israel as their last living hostages finally came home.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you believe that God rules over the nations, according Psalm 22 verse 28, and does all that he pleases from Psalm 115 verse 3, you do not believe he needed any of this to happen to intervene miraculously.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: He sent plagues and used the red sea to destroy Egypt, the superpower of its day.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: His angel struck down the army of the Assyrians, the superpower of its day, according to
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: As surely as he acted to release Peter from Herod's prison in Jerusalem revealed in X12 vs. 1 through 11, he could have acted to release the hostages from Hamas' tunnels in Gaza two years ago.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't he?
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now apply our question to any yet unanswered prayer in your life.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps you've been praying for a lost person to come to Christ.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: or for a wayward child to come home, or for a physical, financial, emotional, or relational need to be met, perhaps you've been praying for spiritual awakening in our land and a turn to biblical morality.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're praying for much at all, you are most likely praying for something that has not yet come to pass.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you asked me for something, I could do, but don't.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually you'd stop asking, why keep praying to God?
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the hostages in Gaza, Joseph was kidnapped from his homeland and taken captive to a foreign land where he was imprisoned through no fault of his own.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: There, he interpreted the dream of the Egyptian-fayros Chief Cupbearer, but when his interpretation was fulfilled and the man was restored to his position, he, quote unquote, forgot Joseph, as we discover in Genesis 40 verse 22.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, like the hostages in Gaza, Genesis 41 verse 1,
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: reveals that two whole years passed with Joseph imprisoned.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're not told why God waited so long to free him, but we can connect his story to two theological approaches to evil and suffering that remain helpful and hopeful today.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: First, God uses suffering to grow spiritually.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to a Jerusalem post study, a third of his rarely say, they hold a stronger belief in God since October 7th.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not unusual.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second century apologist, St.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Erenès, proposed the, quote, soul-building model, whereby God uses suffering to cataly spiritual growth in our lives.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: We see this in Joseph, while he bragged about his dreams of personal glory years earlier in Genesis 37 versus 5 through 11,
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Now he honored God with his interpretive answers as we read in Genesis 41 verse 16.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: You can perhaps point to times in your life when suffering led you to depend upon God more fully than before.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: As Charles Spurgeon testified, quote,
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: A second approach to suffering, God works in the present for a better future.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of us are praying for the hostages released to lead to genuine peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps the timing of the former will help advance the latter.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Joseph's world, God had a plan to bring 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He used Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams to reveal this plan then he used Pharaoh to elevate Joseph to Prime Minister so he would prepare the nation.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: He did all of this to draw Joseph's own family to Egypt where they were reunited and eventually became the nation through whom the Messiah would come one day.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have personally seen God's mysterious timing at work over the years.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, a man I knew was praying for a new job, apparently without answers, but he didn't know that a person would soon retire from the home office, leading to a promotion from the local office, leading to an opening that my friend would fill.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that he could not see God at work made God's work no less real.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: To paraphrase Spurgeon again, when you cannot see your father's hand.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: trust it's heart.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are experiencing the silence of God today, you may feel like Joseph imprisoned in Egypt.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: But Joseph was eventually able to tell his brothers in Genesis 5020, who had sold him into captivity, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: One day, perhaps in eternity, but perhaps for sooner, you will be able to say the same.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, would you turn your obstacles into opportunities to trust more fully in your father?
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you ask him to work in ways you cannot see to accomplish his greater purpose in your life and world?
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you believe that he redeems all he allows and trust your pain to his providence?
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Samuel Isaac Joseph Kerskowski died on this day in 1906 at the age of 75.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Born in Lithuania in 1831, he went to Germany to study for the rabbinite where he became a Christian.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: He immigrated to America, trained for the priesthood, and was sent by the Episcopal Church to China.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: There, he translated the Bible into Mandarin, was elected Bishop of Shanghai, founded St.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: John's University, and began translating the Bible into Winley, another Chinese dialect.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, he developed Parkinson's disease and became largely paralyzed, resigning his bishopric.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He spent the rest of his life completing his winnily Bible, typing the last 2000 pages with one finger that he could still move.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Four years before his death, he said, I have set in this chair for over 20 years.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed very hard at first, but God knew best.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, what chair would you trust God to redeem in your life today?