One of your posts said that in preparing for tough times ahead, that we shouldn’t “horde” things, and that storing up food or supplies to last a year or two isn’t putting our trust in God. Since we see what we think is coming, shouldn’t we take these things as a warning to start “squirreling” away somethings for when times get worse? After all, Joseph was smart and helped Pharaoh store food for when the famine hit. If we make no preparations at all, isn’t that just asking to be enslaved even more when we see many signs in front of us that our economy is about to collapse?
First, let’s remember that Joseph required the people to bring their harvests into Pharaoh’s storehouses during the 7 good years and then he sold it back to them during the bad ones so they weren’t storing up things for themselves (Gen. 41:48,56).
The net result is that Pharaoh wound up owning all the wealth and property of Egypt and the people were effectively reduced to slavery (Gen 47:20-12). This can’t be used as a model for storing up against hard times.
The Bible doesn’t encourage us to store up things in preparation for hard times. Jesus said we should store up treasure in Heaven, not on Earth (Matt. 6:19-20). He clearly told us not to worry about the possibility of hard times. but to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness. He said if we did this, God would provide all our needs (Matt. 6:25-34).
Also, food storage is meant to be the solution to a temporary problem. The coming hard times will not be temporary, so people will not be able to store up enough to get through them. Learning to learn to live by faith is a much better solution.