Latest / Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast / Autumn'26 Bible School- Exploring Exodus- Session 1- Tim Dobson

Transcript

Autumn'26 Bible School- Exploring Exodus- Session 1- Tim Dobson · Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_10: Okay, so um so this evening what we're gonna do is do a little intro to the book of uh the whole book of Exodus, and then we're gonna look at the first kind of uh four or five uh chapters and take a chance to read those.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_10: Um but before we read them, um I suppose understanding the the background to the book of Exodus I suppose starts um in the book of Genesis.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_10: So so so Genesis is is the the story, the story that starts off of God creating a a good, perfect, wonderful world gives humanity the ability to choose free will and and they have the option to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or not to, and they God says don't, and but they do.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_10: And um, and then evil and sin is in the world, and and there's a kind of knock-on as you go through the book of Genesis that that sin and darkness seems there seems to be this grapple.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_10: So Cain and Abel kind of uh sin wants to master you, but you've got to master it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_10: It's knocking at the door.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_10: Uh oh, I can't master it, I've killed my brother, kind of um, and then you've got as you go on, you you've got um uh Noah and and the flood, and actually, there's there's a wrestle again.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_10: God's intention was for the world to be a wonderful, brilliant place, and and yet it gone it got so evil that ah, I'm gonna have to start again.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_10: Noah plus his four sons and their wives, they survived, but everyone else is is um uh washed away and drowned.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_10: Uh is Noah gonna get it right?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_10: Well, no, he gets drunk and oh, all kinds of stuff happens, and um so and then there's Tara Babel.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_10: Again, let's ignore God, let's try and build a name for ourselves.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_10: And and so those first 12 chapters, you see you see there's this constant battle, good and evil, good and evil.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_10: Are we gonna kind of is God's kingdom gonna come on earth?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_10: Is it gonna happen how God?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_10: And it seems to be as we get kind of uh towards chapter 12, it looks as though evil's winning in some ways, and and then God chooses Abraham and says to Abraham, Abraham, kind of my rescue plan's gonna start with you because you're obedient to what I've asked you to do to move your country.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, I'm gonna bless you in a way that's gonna bless the whole nation.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_10: It's gonna bless nations or the world.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and through Abraham and then through uh Isaac and through Jacob, actually, this this promise of uh a people, a people of God that God's going to bless.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_10: He's going to be their unique kind of uh uh God in order that they can be a conduit through which his plan for redemption for the whole world uh could come.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_10: And so uh Jacob changes his kind of God changed his name to Israel, he has uh twelve sons.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_10: Those twelve sons are the uh um uh again.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_10: You have we have the story of Joseph uh where um again the sons, I mean Joseph is a bit obnoxious, um, but the his brothers decide to kill him uh until they think they can make a bit of money by selling him as a slave.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_10: Um if they just killed him, they don't benefit, but if they sell him as a slave, they get a bit of cash and they get rid of him.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_10: So they sell uh Joseph to be a slave.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_10: And if you know the story as we come towards the end of Genesis, um he ends up being a slave in Egypt, which is where we're going to carry on story.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_10: In Egypt, uh God's with him, God blesses him.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_10: That's what his promise was to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, he it happens to Joseph.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_10: God blesses him.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_10: Why?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_10: So he can bless the nations, and he becomes kind of uh he has this dream, he interprets, the king has a dream, he interprets, and actually the the the nation is safe from a seven years of famine because of Joseph.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_10: And and God blesses Joseph and he blesses the nations.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_10: He blesses, in this case, Egypt.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_10: But he also blesses his own family, who again there's famine in Canaan, so they come down to Egypt as well and and escape the famine, and they have food and provision, and they're given the land of Goshen, which is again if you know where the dial, the Nile Delta is, it's kind of just to the as you look at the dialogue spot on the right, and again was quite a great place to of pasture for sheep and um to and so and it ends up this real sense of blessing, this real sense that God has uh chosen Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_10: He's blessed Joseph with uh um political uh power, the nation of Egypt is blessed through him, his own family is blessed through him, and uh it comes to an end where Joseph says, Joseph is about to die, and says, When I die, I want you to take my bones back to the promised land.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_10: When you go, I I know that we won't be in Egypt all the time.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_10: When we go to the back of Promised Land, will you take um my bones with you and bury them in the uh where my granddad and my great-granddad where they're buried?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_10: Um and so that's the end of Exodus, and it ends on on quite an optimistic, upbeat kind of idea that here's somebody who God's blessed, and and they're second in command to Pharaoh of the whole of the Egyptian kind of empire uh there.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_10: And um and Exodus starts, and Exodus starts and it's 400 years later.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_10: So if you imagine that kind of uh in 1626, a kind of um my history is absolutely rubbish.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_10: If Dan was here, you could say, I don't know which king or queen was on the throne, but it was kind of probably Tudor Times.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_10: Was it was it Tudor Times?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of um so from Tudor times until now, imagine how much has has changed and how much has has happened.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh, and so uh we had probably about 52 uh people that were in the the family of God as they went into into Egypt.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_10: As we start this book here, there's probably over a million uh people who are part of the fact.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_10: So over 400 years they have increased, and there's now about uh at one point I think says 600,000 men plus women and children.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_10: So it would be well over well over a million uh people.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_10: So it's gone from a family to what could be a nation.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_10: They could be a nation only, now they haven't got their own autonomy.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_10: Now, what has happened over the 400 years from Joseph, who was the top dog, actually, now what's happened is uh different pharaohs have come and gone, and and and now there's a pharaoh, and um he feels threatened by these people who are living in a really posh part of the country, and they're obviously flourishing and and and growing, and they could be a political threat.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_10: So, what he does is that he enslaves them, he he enslaves them into forced labor, and and that's where this the story of um uh of Exodus starts.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um so as we've said already, the the name of the book, Exodus, it means exit or escape.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_10: It's that that's that's the the notion, that's the metaphor of the book, is that um here now they are an oppressed people group.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_10: Uh they're large enough to be a nation, but they're uh they're within this nation that is uh forced labor, slavery, uh control.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_10: Um so uh the book of Exodus means exit.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_10: Um as I said, the Exodus starts with the people of God uh being in slavery in Egypt.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_10: Uh again, it's been uh about 400 years um since um uh since uh they uh the end of the book of Genesis.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_10: Um a bit of history.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_10: I don't know if any of you know much about Egyptian history.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_10: We kind of know they put the pyramids, kind of um uh so uh Exodus uh in its ancient setting was probably what's called New Kingdom Egypt.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um so that's about uh 1500 to 1000 uh BC.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_10: Um it was at the height of the empirical power.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_10: So um uh you know kind of world powers.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_10: At the moment we have world superpowers, kind of there's kind of Russia, there's China, there's the United States, kind of um, there's different uh nations that seem to take, kind of want, have a worldview, they want to try and influence uh other countries around about them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_10: And and uh Egypt was the world power.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_10: Egypt was the world power, had the technology to build uh again without any cranes or pneumatic equipment.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, they would be able to build these incredible uh pyramids and monuments.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_10: Um so it was the height of the imperial power, um, there was massive building projects that were going on.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, in order to get those done, uh there was forced labour.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_10: So again, archaeological records, historical records would say that actually the way that the um pyramids were built were not by Egyptians predominantly, it was by forced labour, which goes along with the Exodus story.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_10: Um the Pharaoh that we read about, again, not exactly sure which pharaoh when it talks about Moses and the Pharaoh, not sure, um, but it could be um how's that?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_10: Amenhoppit this one, hoppet.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_10: Uh Ramesses the second, it could be one of those two.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_10: Um it's interesting in Exodus 1.11 it mentions two kind of cities, uh, uh, which are two cities that were significant uh cities in the uh Egyptian Empire.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so uh that's when the story is set.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um this is the the geography.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_10: Uh so uh this is lower Egypt this side, it's got the the Nile, the Nile Delta, again quite a fertile uh agricultural part of Egypt.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_10: Um this the Sinai Peninsula was was also part of Egypt.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_10: It was kind of away from the centre of power.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_10: So the centre of power was was up here.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_10: Um so Ramesses, which is likely where the the story of Exodus was, um, Memphis, uh uh Heliopolis, kind of those are more the central powers.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_10: And this was kind of it was still part of Egypt, but it was kind of wilderness and scrubland and that kind of thing.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_10: Um so uh the story of Exodus is the story, it's the it's this red this red line, the journey from Egypt to uh Mount Sinai, which is uh again, there's a bit of debate exactly where Mount Sinai.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_10: I think most people would say it's here.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_10: A few people think that it could be over kind of over this side here, but but most people would say that Mount Sinai, and also called Mount Horeb.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_10: Again, it's one of these things that in the Bible sometimes a person has two names and a place has two names.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_10: So Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai, uh, again, context would believe it's the same the same place, it's in the same mountain range as um which arrives in the story.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_10: So so that that's that's the geography.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_10: Uh that that's the story from uh from Egypt.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_10: It's escape from Egypt.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_10: Technically, they're still in Egypt.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_10: So that that is Egypt, but because this is a is mostly kind of wasteland wilderness, the Egyptians weren't as bothered about this part as they were about the the Nile here.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_10: Um so technically it was under Egyptian control, political control, but not very much, um, if that makes sense.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_10: Okay, so um people will sometimes ask when was the book of Exodus written?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh now people would say its origin is probably with Moses, but actually Moses didn't write it down in the form that we have it now.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_10: Uh so uh Exodus, the book that we have in the form that we read in the Bible, was actually probably composed um uh during the Babylonian exile or the Persian period, um, when the people of God uh their national identity was under threat.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_10: And in some ways, when your national identity is under threat, you want to remember who you are.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_10: And and so um the book of Exodus was probably compiled in that period uh and and written down in the in the order that we have it now.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_10: But obviously, their source material was documents that did exist, so like was it uh Josiah, who, when he's doing some repairing to the temple, they find uh a manuscript, they find the scroll of the of the law.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_10: So obviously, there's some of the bits of of Moses' book of Exodus and Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, that actually have been written down on scroll.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_10: So, but kind of so there was a mixture of um of scrolls, uh oral tradition that was compiled in the present form.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_10: But obviously, uh the stories were told from father to son, mother to daughter, were passed through the generations.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_10: Some of that was written down and recorded.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_10: Um obviously, some of the, as well as finding manuscripts in temple repairs or um the kings uh writing out the law as they one of them at their coronation, one of the things they would do is copy out in their own handwriting uh the law, so they they took it to heart.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh the early prophets, so Moses and Hosea, they probably they made references to Exodus, so it was obviously in the national tradition that the Moses narrative and the Moses stories, um uh, but it probably wasn't actually in the form that we've got it, in the way that it's compiled and the way the story holds together, was probably right to be during the Babylonian Persian uh exile.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_10: Does that kind of make sense?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_10: People think, oh well, did Moses sit down and and write all five books exactly as we've got them now, and that and they were passed down?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_10: Probably no.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_10: Was he the original author?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_10: Was he the well, yeah, probably he was, and particularly the the book of Deuteronomy, which is when they were just about to head to the Promised Land, he got them all to sit down and to listen to this very long talk as he explained once again all that God had done in their lives and in their nation.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so those things probably were recorded uh and and written down, but certainly oral tradition, kind of passing stories on around the campfire at bedtime, kind of with your friends down the pub, kind of that oral tradition was very, very strong.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_10: So, in some ways, uh there wasn't as kind of we talk about sometimes about Chinese whispers of how things change as you tell the story.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, because they that's the way that they learned was oral tradition, actually it held the integrity of a story, it would hold through generations.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: Can I just ask how many years then after Exodus was the Babylonian exile?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: Is that like another back in the year?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah, so so so um if if this was happening about kind of 1200 uh uh BC, uh the exile was about 600 uh to four hundred.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_10: So it would so it's it's probably from when it happened, it's probably a thousand years, maybe more than a thousand years, um of the story being passed down.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_07: So um you're saying that Chinese whisper to that effect doesn't happen if it in societies where they've got a strong oral.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_10: Well they've got a strong oral tradition where they're almost repeating it word for a word.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, they're repeating it word for word.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_10: Uh which is why some of the Bible actually sounds a bit like a poem, is because you can sometimes remember a poem better than you can remember just text.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um which is why, even like the creation story, it's day one, day two, day three, four four, day six.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, it's quite memorable.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_10: You can pass that on as a as a uh as a as a narrative story.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_10: Um so I think some of those things, and even some of these stories here, kind of, although, as we look at in a minute, how it holds together, uh, there's a flow to the story, and and even though you might just tell a bit of it, you know, you would know within the oral tradition that's repeated quite often where that story fits within the bigger story.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_10: Um if you were to look at the book as a whole, what is the theological significance?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_10: What does it contribute to the big story?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_10: Uh and I suppose it um contributes a deliverance the idea that God rescues his people.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_10: Um God rescued people through Jesus, rescued them from their sin, rescued them from sickness, rescued them from uh kind of uh possession of evil spirits.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_10: He comes as a as a deliverer.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_10: Uh we still need to know for ourselves when we're held captive uh by sin or by forces of darkness, actually Jesus is our deliverer.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_10: The theological significance of being set free from the slavery of Egypt into the freedom of the people of God is a theological, although it physically happened, actually it's it's a spiritual theological uh significance too, that still today we're captive.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_10: Still today we need deliverance, we need freedom.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_10: Um the book is is a book of revelation.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_10: It's the kind of um uh Moses will see uh a bit later this evening uh ask God what his name is.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_10: What's your name?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of you always refer to yourself as the God of Abraham, the god of Isaac, the gods of Jacob.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_10: So that so you've always defined yourself by other people.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_10: Who are you?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_10: Well, I'm their God and I'm their God and their God.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_10: No, no, but who are you?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_10: And and so there's the revelation we'll look at it a bit later on about God saying his name.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_10: But he also kind of for the first time there's this little phrase that's repeated: God is slow to anger, abounding in love.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_10: Um and and not only his name but his character.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_10: He starts to reveal his character.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_10: So uh that's something again in the book of Exodus.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_10: In the book of Exodus, we we see uh the covenant, uh Israel become God's people in Sinai.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_10: There's a there's a covenant agreement.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_10: Now there was a covenant with the rainbow with Noah, there was a covenant uh with animals being sacrificed with with Abraham, but here at Mount Sinai, there's a covenant with with everybody, not just with an Abraham or an Isaac or Jacob.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, here's a covenant with with you as the people.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_10: Let's make a deal together.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_10: You can be a holy nation, a royal priesthood.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_10: And here's some covenant agreements that we're going to make together, a pact that will you'll hold your set set side of the bargain, I'll hold my side of the bargain.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_10: And and and and that's kind of what was what was going on there.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_10: And obviously, Jesus talks about a new covenant.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so but the so the idea of covenant that's first introduced in Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus is a is a theme that goes through the Old Testament, particularly when covenant is broken, and eventually covenant's broken and exile happens.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_10: It's a it's like a new new Egypt.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_10: They leave the promised land and uh they're not where they should be.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um and uh this idea of the presence of God, the the tabernacle with all the different measurements and heights and materials and how you're gonna make it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_10: Um the the tabernacle is introduced, and again, the God who is everywhere, choosing to be somewhere.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_10: Um again, God dwells with them through the tabernacle.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and again, that's uh God always wanted to be with us in the Garden of Eden.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_10: He wanted to be with them, he wanted to walk with them, uh, but because they uh sinned, they were expelled from the garden.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_10: But God's heart was always to be with people, and so here for the for the first time since the Garden of Eden, we've got the the tabernacle that is made.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_10: It's like a portable, a portable Eden.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_10: It's like Eden on sticks.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_10: You can't you can carry it this round, and God's presence is is with you.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_10: Um so um the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, and eventually the tabernacle.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_10: Again, this idea of the presence of God being with you is a theological theme in the book of uh Exodus.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_10: I could I can talk for a long time.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_10: And but any any any questions, any thoughts or any comments so far on those things around the book of Exodus?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_08: When you said the chosen people are in order.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_10: So he chose Abraham, and then all of Abraham's descendants were going to be blessed, and were going to be the people of God.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_10: Right.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_10: And so there was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_10: Jacob was renamed Israel.
• 20:29
  unknown: Right.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_10: So so in some ways the sons of Israel became the nation of Israel.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_10: So those twelve those twelve sons became the twelve tribal leaders, and then so the twelve tribes of Israel.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_10: So they they all their descendants became the people of Israel, so they can all track their ancestry back to Abraham, who was the first person who obeyed God and he credited it to him as righteousness.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_10: And and and that's uh still an issue today, which is the tension around Israel and Gaza at the moment, is that um when Jesus comes, um I mean I thought I think that's there's three there's three viewpoints.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_10: When Jesus comes, some people say, well, Israel is uh still the people of God, and and Israel uh um DNA Israel, so so genetic Israel kind of uh uh is still somehow special and somehow God will still use them and still bless them.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_10: Some people would would say would have something called replacement theology.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_10: So everything that was said about Israel in the Old Testament, all the promises given to Israel, now the church replaces Israel.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_10: So uh so So all the promises were made by Israel, they were intended for the church.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_10: So now the church is the new Israel.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_10: So all that was promised to Israel, so uh political Israel, um uh genetic Israel has no longer any significance within God's purposes because the church has replaced old Israel.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_10: The third option is uh for what's called fulfillment theology.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_10: Fulfillment theology is that all along there's this big story of where the Abraham and his descendants were going to be blessed uh in order to bless the whole world.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_10: And they fail, fail, fail, fail, fail until Jesus comes as the true the true Israelite, the true Jewish person, uh, God Himself, and he fulfills all that the law intended to be fulfilled.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_10: And so when he starts something new, he fulfills what was happening, and the church fulfills the prophecies about Israel rather than replaces the prophecies of Israel, which I think is a subtle, a subtle difference uh in that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_10: So some of these stories that apply to the Old Testament Israel actually do still apply to the New Testament church uh as the people.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_06: They wouldn't be blessed by God as if only Israel got some Egyptians.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_10: And that was always the tension through the Old Testament, is that they thought they were the blessed people of God and they were just going to enjoy the blessing.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_10: They were just gonna be top dogs.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, it was always intended, I was gonna bless you so that you bless everyone.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_10: And the intention was always everyone, and not just them.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_10: And that's why through the Old Testament, they just we are the people of God, we are the special ones, we're the chosen ones.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_10: Ha ha ha, clear off you, kind of it's it's us that's it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and irrespective of what but it was always supposed to be bless them to bless everyone.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and when you hold on to the blessing and become proud, conceited, arrogant, like unfortunately they did, they aren't fulfilling the destiny that God hoped for them.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus, I assume, clashed so much with the thing because they were trying to uphold what they believed that Jesus was basically saying, no, no, it's much more like the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_10: They were trying to, because they were under Roman occupation, they're trying to def to kind of protect the their little worldview, and Jesus was threatening their worldview.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_09: Um sorry.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_09: If God was with them, you can't just start at Israel.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_09: Otherwise, why was he bothered with people before?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_09: So his whole plan must have been for everybody.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_09: It's just that at that time he used those people to fulfill what he did.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_10: I mean there are little moments as you read through the Old Testament story where nations are blessed.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_10: So with Joseph and Egypt, Egypt was blessed through Joseph, through his ability, his God-given ability to interpret that dream.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_10: He, as the blessed representative of people of God, blessed the nations.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, there's times where um uh Solomon, the queen of Sheba, comes from a foreign country and actually kind of uh seems to have some almost some kind of commercial experience that actually that that their Solomon is a blessing to the nations uh round about them.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_10: And and that was always intentional, but but it rarely it rarely happened.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um during Exodus, when they were all being brought out of Egypt, it was like go through all of these places and kill all of them, don't let any of them live.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's like you're we're gonna take out the Jeby site.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_06: Besides, yeah, so yeah, yeah.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_06: So, like, how is that blessing all the nations?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_10: So we are that that so there's there's a um God of violence is an interesting question, isn't it?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh we don't have there's not so much in Exodus, but as you come through Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there is quite a lot of um uh warfare going on.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_10: Um I I think it comes back to the cosmic battle that Andy mentioned, that there there's this there's this battle between good and evil, and and how can good triumph over evil is uh is always the kind of question that you ask through the whole design story.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_10: And here's uh a nation, uh the Canaanite nation, for example, and they're so perverse in the way that they uh sexual immorality is off the charts, uh sacrificing to wooden stone idols, uh, building these furnaces where you can feed live babies in the top, and so they burn to death as a sacrifice to the gods Shimosh.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_10: There was such appalling evil going on there.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_10: How's God going to win of good against evil?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_10: How can a generation be in that land that isn't tainted by such strong pollution?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_10: Now, obviously, in Jesus there's a way to deal with sin.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_10: But in the Old Testament, the only way you could deal with sin was to deal with a sinner.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_10: So if you sin, you die.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_10: And because some of these nations were pervasively sinners, uh, and even the young and vulnerable, like the babies being fed into furnaces to set to please the gods, weren't safe.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_10: So, in some ways, to start afresh, a bit like Noah and the flood, in some ways it was this time he wasn't gonna use water because he promised he wouldn't, but actually he was gonna use his people.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_10: And the way that evil is going to be eradicated from this land is that kind of you can't separate people from evil in the Old Testament.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_10: So if you're gonna deal with evil, you have to deal with the people, and so that was part of the cleansing of the land.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_10: Now, for us as Westerners, that looks atrocious.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_10: We're talking the Bronze Age.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_10: Now, in the Bronze Age, all kinds of crazy stuff was kicking off.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_10: So for them, it it wouldn't have appeared um unusual for a God to say, do that.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_10: So so so that they wouldn't have had a problem with God saying, go and kill all these people, because it was such a violent kind of um uh retaliatory kind of environment they were in.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_10: It was survival of the fittest in the Bronze Age.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_10: Um, we as Western now looking back at that, we think, oh, that is genocide, kind of uh how can God be on the side of genocide?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_10: But he was on the side of good against evil.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_10: Uh and but until Jesus came, kind of, and on the cross, he took our sin so that we can live sin free.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_10: The only way in the Old Testament was to you deal with the sin, you have to deal with the people.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_10: No.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_09: The problem is he gave us free will to start.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_09: Because there's free will, yeah, it's easier, I think, to um control that by having dealing with a small bit than the whole world.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_09: You can't put rules on the whole world as we know, but you can do it to individual things, so that's the way I think it's not around that.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_10: And you hope that it kind of spreads.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_10: And there's something about the the love of God that's kind of it's a bit like yeast, it kind of spreads through the day rather than insisting on it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_10: It's it's it's love that is that kind of flows.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_10: Um yes.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: So that's all what you mentioned about like uh what have been other people there.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_10: Uh um there they're uh for the clicky thing.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_10: Um so so that there there would have been people populating this this area.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh when when Moses flees, when he kills the the Egyptian and fleece, he actually flees to Midian, which is over over here, um, and and he finds um a yeah, some shepherds, and so that there's obviously people here.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh again, for some reason he takes the sheep on a little journey, maybe a little seeking for for for green pastures.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_10: Um, but so he he he meets um Jethro and his family here, but when he comes to the burning bush, the burning bush is down here.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_10: So there was obviously kind of people who were nomadic and and moved around in the area.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_10: But but this was like the the built-up area.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_10: This was this this bit here was where all the pyramids and uh uh all those kind of things were the centre of power, and and they didn't really kind of care about some people think it's like London in the Northeast, kind of people who live in the northeast think no, come on, we have just as much, and then I'm sure some people over here thought they were Egyptians just as much as everyone else, kind of um, so yeah.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_10: Um yeah, and then the other question about who would have been in charge of like yes, so so um the the Levites, the tr the tribe of Levites, they had certain duties to perform, and some of the duties were sacrificial duties, so they're they're they're meant to sacrifice, but the other things they were is they were teachers, so they were supposed to hold the law.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_10: So they were the ones who weren't kind of uh because they got their food from the sacrifice, they didn't have to do agricultural work, they didn't have to do kind of shepherdy work, they didn't have to be builders or artisans.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, they could just dedicate themselves to the temple and to the law.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_10: So the Levites were the custodians of the law.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh so it was the priests that um both were the intermediaries between God and people, but they were all so holders of the of the word of God.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_10: So in all likelihood, that they would the oral tradition would have been strongest amongst the priesthood.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh and um uh and it would probably have been those guys that in exile would have wanted it was in their genetic code.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_10: They were Levites, they should be holding the law, they should be holding the story.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of where is the story?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_10: Let's gather things that we we know are true, we know that happened, let's gather it and organise it together.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_10: So um uh okay.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_10: Well, if I if I just go into the content, then then there's a question for you to ask, maybe talk to people aside.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_10: Is that okay?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_10: Otherwise, I'm doing a lot of talking.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_10: Um so uh yeah, the the story of the book is is one to four is the enslavement of God's people under Pharaoh, uh Moses being born uh and uh him the burning bush.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_10: So but that's all in that first bit where the the Egyptians are enslaving the uh people of God.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_10: From uh five through to eleven, uh this is the kind of the cosmic duel, the the um the ten plagues uh and uh how Pharaoh's free will and God's ability to use someone's free will to his purposes, uh, again Pharaoh hardens his heart to God's purposes, um, and eventually God hardens his heart.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_10: From verse chapter 12 to chapter 15, we have the the Passover.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_10: Again, the the the last plague was going to be the death of the firstborn child of every human family, the firstborn animal of every category of animals that were that were there.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and the only way that they could be protected was by taking the blood of a lamb and putting it on the on the doorposts, and and the angel of death would pass over that household, and nobody within that household would die.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh again, talking about blessing the nations, it's interesting that some Egyptians decided to do that as well.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_10: So actually, Egyptians did have the possibility not to have their firstborn kids dying.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_10: Um, they just head into a house where there's a blood of lamb on it, and then and they were saved.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_10: And there were some Egyptians who who who did that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_10: They they read the signs, they could understand what was going on.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_10: I want to be on their side, not Pharaoh's side.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so um, and then we also then have the the Exodus, the leaving of Egypt, um uh coming to the the Red Sea, the army's affair of being destroyed.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, there's then travelling through the wilderness towards Mount Sinai, and then there's this kind of grumbling in the wilderness, there's provision of manor, and there's water from rocks, and but they I want to be back in, I'd much rather be back in Egypt where we were slaves, having to build bricks without our own straw.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_10: I'd much rather be eating cucumbers and garlic.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_10: Why do they choose those?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh uh but God kind of bears with them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_10: Uh the biggest chunk then is is is 19 through to 31, which is the covenant of the Sinites.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_10: When Moses goes up to the mountain, there's the clouds and the rumbling of thunder.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_10: He talks with God, a covenant's made, he comes down with the Ten Commandments.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_10: Uh again, when he comes down, they've built a golden calf, um, crazy stuff.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_10: Um and and a covenant is is is is broken straight away.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_10: It's not like it's a few weeks or a few months, it's it's a matter of days.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_10: That ah, this wrestle with sin kind of oh, we've got these people out of Egypt, this place of darkness, but somehow darkness is still in them.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_10: They're still kind of grumbling, and they're still kind of breaking my covenant, building golden calves.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_10: Ah, what was happening?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and then the last five chapters is about uh the tabernacle being built.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and how can we build a tabernacle for the presence of God?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_10: And um, and the tabernacle is built, and God's presence is there, and and the book of Exodus finishes with a strange little thing is that that Moses can't enter the temple.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_10: So the tabernacle.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_10: So God's presence is there with them, but somehow Moses still can't access the presence of God, which is why we come on to the book of Leviticus, which is here's here's the kind of things that will enable you to access the presence of God, and particularly some of the sacrificial systems and that point towards Jesus.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_10: So God's presence at the end of it was there with them in the tabernacle, but they they couldn't actually enter the tabernacle.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_10: So uh that's the story of um so far.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_10: So um, from what you know already about the book of Exodus and some of those themes that are in it, uh, just with two or few people who are near you, uh, in what ways does the book of Exodus encourage you?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_10: And what way does the story of the Book of Exodus challenge you?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_10: Is that okay?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_10: So it may be that you're following you around and you're not quite so sure.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_10: You've heard what I've said, but you're not quite sure about the story, that's fine.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_10: Just say, I don't know, really no.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_10: But those of you that have got some ideas, why don't you just share them?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_10: So, how do we read these?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_10: What do we take for them?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of what do we understand?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh again, it's interesting that uh Exodus 1, verse 7 is it's got the hint of Genesis chapter 1, kind of um Genesis chapter 1, which is uh go into all the world, be fruitful and multiply, was the Genesis kind of edict.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_10: And so in Genesis chapter 1, verse 7, it says, But the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied, but they were doing the very thing that God sent them to do.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh so the will of God in some ways was happening, but when that fruitfulness and multiplication was seen by uh the Egyptians, um uh they wanted to resist, uh, resist God, resist what God was doing.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_10: Um, maybe Pharaoh didn't understand that these people were the people of God and that were going to be blessed and multiplied and and fill the earth, but he certainly thought they were a political threat.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so uh we obviously read that Pharaoh wants to uh destroy God's people and and sets the scene for this real conflict of good and evil.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_10: Uh will will the people of God survive this um this misery?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_10: And and again, uh there's been uh battles of good and evil, there's been conflicts of whether it's Noah and his generation, whether it's the Tara of Babel, um uh whether it's the sons of God going to the sons of uh daughters of men.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_10: But Pharaoh kind of he redefines evil uh in what he's he's trying to do.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_10: Um the death of baby boys uh again it was similar when Jesus came to this world uh and Herod killed uh baby boys, uh, because he felt threatened.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_10: He felt that his kingdom, Herod's kingdom was under threat by the per this new people of God, this new king of the Jews.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh and at the beginning of this the story of Jesus, babies are being murdered.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_10: And and here uh it's one of the things that Pharaoh decides to do.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_10: He's going to, in order to bolster his own empire, he's gonna get rid of the threat, which means girls uh uh that'd be great to have around, they'll be servants, they're not going to fight, but the men will fight.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_10: So let's kill all the baby boys.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_10: Um it's interesting there's two two women who are um who are midwives.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_10: Um again in those days, if you had your own children, you were a mother looking after your children.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, if you were infertile and couldn't have your own children, um uh you were quite often the ones with the midwives.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_10: So it's interesting that um when they were faithful and obedient to God, it says actually that God opened up their wounds, God enabled them to have children.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_10: So here they were being brave and courageous, standing up on behalf of God's people to this evil king, um, and God saw their bravery and courage that uh they weren't going to do what the king said.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and God blessed their obedience um by giving them children when before that they hadn't been able to have their own children.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_10: So so in chapter one, it kind of sets the scene for um evil is increasing.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_10: God's people are under threat.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_10: They were supposed to be the people who were being blessed to bless the world, and here they were being far from blessed.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_10: In fact, uh that they were uh forced labor um and uh yeah, building these these great building projects.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_10: So chapter two um starts off with um uh Moses being born.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, Moses his name means drawn out or drawn out from the water, rescued from drowning.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of it's this idea of taking somebody from uh from the water.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_10: And so Pharaoh decides to give him that name.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh and again his sister, we later on know her name's Miriam.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, her sister watches as uh the command of Pharaoh, put your baby sons into the Nile.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_10: She did kind of do that, but she kind of did protect him because she saw that this was a special uh child.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_10: And uh, yeah, coincidentally, God ordained uh Pharaoh's daughters happening to be down the Nile bathing, and uh sees Moses, and Moses is is brought into Pharaoh's household.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and it's interesting that that here's somebody who is even now, he his parents thought he was a special child, even now, in some ways he's been prepared for the destiny that will be his.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_10: In some ways, he's he's he's brought up in an Egyptian in the in the royal family.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_10: He knows how the Egyptian processes work.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, he he has an understanding how evil works.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_10: He's on the inside.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, he's I mean it he could look to other Hebrews as though he was um a conspirator, he was actually somebody who was aligning himself with the ruling class against his own people.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_10: Um, but in his own heart, he obviously was still had his own strong identity.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_10: So when he does see uh an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew, he actually knows, although he's been brought up in the Egyptian culture, he knows that the Hebrew guy is his guy.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_10: And so he um the destiny, so his destiny was to set his oppressed people free.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_10: Um but his destiny wasn't to do it in that way.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_10: So he he thought he could set this person free, so he thought, I I I've got the human strength, I can overpower him, I can kill him, and that will set this Hebrew free from the oppression of Egyptians.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh, but that was a bad move.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and although that was his destiny to set the Hebrews free from the Egyptians, that wasn't the way to do it.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_10: A bit like um Abraham with Hagar.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_10: That that that wasn't the way to do it.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_10: God had a supernatural way to bring Abraham descendants.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_10: Here, he had a supernatural way to set his people free, and it wasn't that that um Moses in his own human strength was gonna sort it out.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_10: Um, again, maybe a lesson for us.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_10: God's there's things that God calls us to do.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_10: Are we gonna do them in our own human strength?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_10: I know what needs to happen, this needs to happen, that justice needs to happen here, whatever, I'm gonna get on and do it with my own strength.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, we could end up like Moses' bad ways, he spends the next 40 years or so uh in the wilderness until God calls him back to that very thing, which is to set his people free from the Egyptians.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um he's taking deliverance in his own hands, and again, because then the the Pharaoh is threatening to kill him, he flees to the land of uh of Midian.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_10: Um there were There were trade routes that would kind of would crisscross the kind of the Bronze Age world.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_10: And here's three of the trade routes that would go kind of east to west.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_10: So there's one that would go up here to the coast, along the coast, one that would go inland, and then this trade route that would go across here and further out.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_10: And probably this is the trade route as Moses tries to escape, whether he kind of gets lift with some camels or some traders.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, but he makes his way to flee from Egypt and he ends up in the land of Midian.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_10: We're not exactly sure where, but he would have followed this trade route here, he would have ended up trying to flee from Pharaoh's influence.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_10: Again, this was this was Egypt, this was just outside the kind of the Egyptian, this was the Egyptian kind of empire.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_10: It was this way that would have been just outside.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_10: So he thought I'm probably safe here in uh in Midian.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_10: Um so uh we then get this uh encounter with uh the presence of God.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_10: Um he's he's he's taken uh again, not quite sure how he comes from Jethro, who's up here somewhere, not quite sure why he's taken his sheep this far away, but obviously there's sheep uh that are looking for um uh yeah, green grass pasture sustainable.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_10: Uh and he's he's wandered with his sheep down here, and it's and it's here Mount Horeb, which is probably again whether it's exactly the same mountain, but it's in the same mountain range as Mount Sinai, um, uh called the Mountain of the Lord.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_10: Uh that's where he uh he sees the burning bush.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_10: Um and and it's it's here that God uh says his his name.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_10: And again, in the Hebrew culture, uh somebody's name is not just oh, there's Tim or Bob or Jane or kind of it wasn't just something that your mum and dad just happened to call.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, but your name, your character, your purpose, those all things were kind of interwoven together.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and so when he asked God, God, what's your name?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_10: He said, So he's trying to say, What kind of what kind of God are you?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_10: Because he'd been in Egypt where they were worshiping all kinds of the sun god, all kinds of god.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_10: He's obviously moved to Midian, and and Jethro was was uh a priest.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_10: We're not exactly sure priest or what kind of god, but there may have been a god the Midianites kind of worshipped that kind of so when he sees the burning bush and and and God's speaking to him, he he he said, Well, I'm the god of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_10: Okay, that that's that's my tribe, that's that that's my people.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_10: But kind of, but it's okay to define yourself by the people that you know, but who are you?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_10: What is your name?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of who who do I when I go and tell people that kind of I I want to know what you're about, what's your business, what kind of how what are you like?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_10: Uh it's not good enough just to know you're the God that Abraham followed, you're the God that Isaac followed, you're the God that Jacob followed.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_10: It's not good enough to know that those were the ones that you blessed and you promised to bless us.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_10: I want to know a bit more about you.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_10: Who are you?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and so for the first time, God, there's some self-disclosure.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_10: Uh God says, Well, my name is Um, and again, YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and and what it means is I it says here, I am who I am.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_10: And it's always that sounds a bit more kind of Greek, that kind of I exist because I think or because I um whereas um it's not a passive um description, it's an active description.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_10: So it's more kind of I am being who I'm being, rather than I am who I am sounds quite kind of static.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_10: But there's within the kind of the way the verb's used, uh, it's an a continual active description.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_10: So I am being who I am being, I'm aming who I'm amming.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_10: There's that there's the kind of it's it's uh uh it's an active thing.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_10: And uh and and God say that I I'm I'm being who I'm being.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_10: There's something about my love, my protection, my provision, my creativity, uh kind of I am being who I am being, and and and and that's the kind of God that you're following.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_10: And so for the first time they have this name, and it becomes a holy name, and and in the Bible, um, when that name's used, uh it's the word Lord is capitalized.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_10: I don't know if you ever noticed in the Bible, sometimes there's a Lord that's a capital L and lowercase O R D, and then sometimes there's the word Lord that is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and the Bible doesn't like that because that's referring to the self-re-revelation of God.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_10: Um, I'm the Lord your God, when it's got all capital letters, it's because it's referring to this revelation of God.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_10: So uh God um uh self-discloses to Moses.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_10: If you if people want to know who I am, I am being who I am being.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and and I think the how do you understand the nature and character of God is is a question that probably at some point we we all ask.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_10: And and how do you define what God is like and and who is it that's sending me in?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_10: Um and I think the Hebrew um idea of God is slightly different from the the Greek view of God.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and I think because Greek philosophy has so influenced scholarship, in some ways, when people think about uh about God, they can sometimes tend a bit more towards uh the Greek way of thinking than towards the Hebrew way of thinking.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_10: So a Greek way of thinking about God is otherness.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_10: So Greek thinkers would say that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immutable.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, those are big kind of words that God's all-powerful, unchanging, all-knowing.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and and they would define God by static qualities.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_10: But the Hebrew Bible would always describe God in active, relational qualities.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_10: So who are you?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_10: Well, I'm the God who's Abraham's God, I'm the God who is Isaac's God, I'm the God who's Jacob's God, I'm the God who's being who I'm being.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_10: I'm the God who John says God is love.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_10: He's not a static kind of Greek idea of so other than here.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, God is a relational kind of God.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_10: He's and in fact, he's so relational that he wanted to dwell amongst his people.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_10: He wanted to be known.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_10: In fact, he wanted to be known so much that Jesus came to show, reveal God totally.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_10: So God isn't some kind of static, omniscient, omnipresent, uh, kind of uh immutable, Greekified God.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_10: He is the Hebrew I am being who I am being.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_10: It's a moving, relational, active, engaging, loving, and looking to be loved.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_10: And there's a that's a very different character to the gods that had to be placated, the gods of the Canaanites, that ritual sacrifices to increase fertility, kind of uh either of your human reproduction or your crops, and they have to be placated, and we want them on our side.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_10: And God said, actually, no, I'm a god that that is is it's your God.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_10: I want to relate to you.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, I want to to dwell with you, I want to be with you, which is part of the story.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_10: Here is that he's not a god that's so distant that we have to try and make some effort to get him to be on our side through these sacrifices.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_10: He says, No, I'm a God who wants to come to be to be with you.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_10: So I am being who I am being.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_10: It there's a description of the God that we worship, the God that we see in Jesus, is a relation relational God and not a static God.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_10: Does that kind of make sense?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_10: Because sometimes our theological understanding of God is his ways are higher than our ways, he's he's so different to us that he's almost kind of unknowable.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_10: And God says, actually, no, I want to be known.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_10: And so he says to Moses, I'm going to be with you.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_10: It's not that I'm up there in heaven, couldn't care less, but I'm going to be with you.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_10: When the people heard that God was bothered about them, they were they they worshiped God because it was a relational connection rather than uh a deity that had to be um uh pleased by human sacrifice or uh those kind of things.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_10: Does that does that kind of make sense?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_10: So uh so this is quite a profound moment of uh God saying his name.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_10: He's not told anybody his name before, but his name is linked very much to his character, his nature, his self-disclosure.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_10: Any any questions or comments or thoughts?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's not got a proper name, has he?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_10: Sorry?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't got a proper name.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, no, his name's not Bob or or Clive or I mean, yeah, but but but the name and character, uh he he does want to be known.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_10: In some ways, when Jesus comes, he he does himself use relational terms.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_10: He says, when you pray, say our father.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_10: It's not our sovereign, our omnipotent ruler.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of his the the phrase that he used or the image he used is pray to God like this, our father.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_10: He's God who who is being, who's who's wanting to connect, wanting to relate, wanting to wanting to love.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_10: And the first revelation is here at the Bernie Bush, but obviously it's perfectly revealed in in Jesus.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's encouragement because he says he says, I've seen you, I've heard you, uh come to you, have intervened and all that stuff that goes on in chapter.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: He basically says I know you.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yes, yeah.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_10: I I am bothered about you.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_10: Again, the Buddha gods or the other gods, uh we we're not quite sure if they're bothered about us on us.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_10: We probably ought to make the sacrifice just in case we can get them on our side, but we don't know if they're bothered about us or not.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_10: But to to feel that actually I've seen your plight, and I am bothered about you, drew worship out of them.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_10: That was their response.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_10: Yes, yeah.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_10: So so that is when they write Lord, that is this word, and it's the it's the word that it's too holy to mention in some ways.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_10: So so within the Hebrew tradition, some sometimes they they wouldn't mention that, or they wouldn't put uh so Hebrew is written just with consonants, and when you read it out loud, you put the vowels in.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_10: Uh and and so you you can re-vowel that that's how you kind of speak Hebrew's just written with consonants that hasn't got any vowels.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_10: So you when you speak out loud, you have to put vowels in it.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_10: So that's why that becomes Yahweh, is that you put a you put some vowels in that to make those four letters say something.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_10: But in some sometimes you just you that name's so holy, he some Jews wouldn't even say the name.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_10: They might just refer to the letters or uh kind of um because the name is so so holy.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_10: Um I don't I don't know.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_10: Uh I think because it works.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_10: Um it's a bit like Adam and Edom.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_10: Adam and Edom is a there's DN in both of them.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_10: And so sometimes when you uh think about Edom, Edom in some ways stands for Adam because they they're the same consonants.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_10: So you can revowel things and they sound different.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_10: Adam and Edom sound different, but actually they are the same consonants that were would be written down.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_10: And so sometimes when you you read about the the the Edomites, it's kind of that's a picture of humanity other than the people of God.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_10: Um, and so you have Mount Edom and Mount Zion, and they're these two two mountains that it's humanity and Mount People of God that um and revowelling can sometimes uh give slights from words.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_09: Um just to like so I don't confuse myself by saying that that you can't even say it, that's like putting it back up there.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you were saying that you were bringing him down.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_10: And I and I don't think that was God's intention for them to do that.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_10: Okay, um uh I don't think it was I don't think still Yeah, yeah, it's the way that they they react to you.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_10: So it's it's what's why that um they said when there's the Ten Commandments being given, kind of they say, actually, Moses, you go, we don't want to go.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_10: He's too holy for us.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_10: We we don't want to engage with him, you engage with him on our behalf.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_10: And so it's just Moses that goes up the mountain and they they stay down because they they they are they themselves are treating God in a slightly different way from the way he wants to be treated.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_06: Well, he did say take take your shoes off, this is holy ground.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_10: So yeah, well, for for the Bernie Bush he did, and and and when it comes to the uh covenant giving, again, there is uh kind of come this far and no further because it's holy ground.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_10: So there is a reference there, but it can in some ways become a little bit almost superstitious, like kind of don't mention uh in is it Macbeth?
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_10: Don't mention whatever is the Scottish play, kind of because you don't want to bring bad luck, and and and I think sometimes it it can be tech kind of you can lose a little bit of what God's trying to say is I want to be with you and somehow you put him or put his name kind of oh he's so holy, he's so other than us, and and God wants to be close, not far.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_10: Um and so um yeah, it is holy ground, and you and you have to respect that, take off your shoes and and whatever.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_06: So there is that attention, God is both creator, yeah, yeah, worthy of the religious.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, totally yes, wants to be great.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_10: And it's like sometimes when we talk about about Jesus, and and sometimes we can um have yeah, Jesus meek and mud, or Jesus is my boyfriend kind of thing.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_10: And actually read the book of Revelation when Jesus appears there, actually you suddenly see actually it's not just tame Jesus, actually, there's here's Jesus with lightning and a sword in his mouth and kind of burning bronzed feet, and and actually there's something magnificent about Jesus uh and his power, majestic as well as compassionate kind.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_10: It's a lion and a lamb.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_10: There's there's there's the both that are that are there.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_10: Um I want to try and finish it by quarter past, and it's quarter past now.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_10: Can I just quickly um uh it's interesting that this the the that uh uh the staff becomes a serpent or snake, uh, because the the snake was the was the symbol of the pharaohs.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_10: So this is Tutum Kamun's kind of death mask, uh, and again the the the serpent uh the snake was was stood for the emblem of of Pharaoh.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_10: Uh so when the when the the um staff becomes a snake, oh that's a symbol of pharaoh, I'm gonna run.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_10: And and and he says, actually, no, you take hold of Pharaoh and he's gonna become inert, kind of um, and and so even the the the miracle was a sign of this is Pharaoh, this is the power of God.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_10: This this stick is is nothing.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_10: Kind of Pharaoh's nothing.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_10: You just get hold of his tail and kind of getting hold of the snake's tail is quite dangerous.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, if you're gonna get hold of a snake, you probably want to get hold of it behind its head, so it can't bite.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, if you get hold of its tail, it can curl round and bite you.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_10: And so there was this there's an element of trust for Moses to do to grab the snake by the tail.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_10: Um, but in that element of trust, mixed with maybe a bit of fear, is this gonna work?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_10: Am I gonna die?
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, prepared him for when I can see Pharaoh, is it gonna work?
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_10: Am I gonna die?
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_10: Well, actually, there's a sign that it's not just a sign of the miraculous, it's a sign of uh power over Pharaoh.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um I just asked really quickly, sorry, in chapter four, verse 24, when it says the Lord met Moses and the right to kill him.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_10: Yes.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_10: So so there was something kind of what marks out God's special people, God's chosen people.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_10: Uh and circumcision was one of those things that was supposed to set them apart for God's purpose and for God's plans.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_10: So here was Moses, and he was about to fulfill the purposes of God, he was about to represent the people of God and his own children, he hadn't fulfilled one of the basic commands that any Jew should, which was to circumcise, because obviously he was in Midian, it was a cross-cultural marriage.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_10: He probably hadn't just hadn't thought about it, but his wife knew what should happen.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_10: So so Moses, but it's not Moses who knows what to do, somehow it's his foreign wife that knows what to do.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, she knows what Moses should have done, um, and she does it, and she circumcised the boy, and God's anger is assured.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_10: God was cross with Moses.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_10: And it was cross with Moses because Moses hadn't obeyed that basic command, and there was something about, yeah, God's gonna, he's he's called him, he's got plans for him, and and yet he's been disobedient here and he's angry.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_09: That's just a quite an interesting yeah, brought up as an Egyptian though, haven't he said?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_10: He'd been brought up as an Egyptian, so so but he he still knew that he was a a person of God, kind of when he was taught to I'm the God of Abraham and Razor, Jacob, yeah, yeah, that's me, I'm in your gang, kind of so he kind of should have maybe known.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_10: Um folks, uh just just one last comment before we finish.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_10: It's about Pharaoh's heart being hardened.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_10: Um again, do we have free will or do we not have free will?
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_10: So did Pharaoh have free will, or did Pharaoh not have free will?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_10: So um, did Pharaoh just do what he did, which was resisting God, when extreme things were happening?
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_10: Was his will violated by God?
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_10: So God hardened his heart, or or was something else going on?
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_10: So he does say to Moses at the word which I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_10: So he in advance he says, There's gonna be a point where I'm gonna harden Phos heart.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_10: But the reality is as you go through the plagues, um uh uh it starts off with uh I will harden Pharaoh's heart.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_10: That that's God's intention.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_10: Uh but the first time it says, yet Pharaoh's heart became hard.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_10: Who hardened it?
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_10: Did he his own heart or did God?
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_10: Not quite sure.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_10: But certainly in the next time, next plague it says that Pharaoh had this heart and he wouldn't listen to Moses.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_10: And the next plague, uh, but Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not listen.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_10: It seemed to be his own choice.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_10: Um this time Pharaoh hardened his heart and he wouldn't let the people go.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_10: Uh this next time um his heart was unyielding and he wouldn't let my people go.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_10: So for the first five times, it seems to be either the story is that Pharaoh's human will hardens his heart, or he's unyielding, not prepared to give in.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_10: And it's only when we get to the fifth time that it says, the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_10: And the seventh time, uh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, it seems to be that now that Pharaoh, for the first five times, he hardens his heart, he hardens his heart, he hardens his heart, and God's sort of saying, Well, if you're going that way, Pharaoh, even though the things are gonna be extreme, now because you've chosen that path, I'm gonna harden your heart.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_10: So even though the threat of your firstborn son dying, um I'm gonna make sure that you still carry out my threat so I can display my glory.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_10: So, in some ways, did um uh did God harden Pharaoh's heart?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_10: Well, he did.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_10: Did that violate his will?
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_10: No, I don't think it does.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_10: I think he chose to start off with, and then after that, God said, Well, if you go that way, I'm gonna push you all the way.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_10: Which is why um in Romans it said, Scripture says, Romans 9, scripture says to Pharaoh, I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_10: Therefore, God has mercy on who he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_10: Um, so in Pharaoh's trajectory of resisting God, of being evil, he hardens his heart, he hardens his heart, he hardens his heart, and then God says, Okay, Pharaoh, I'm gonna carry on that journey for you and does the rest.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_10: And so, in some ways, God has mercy on whom he has mercy.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_10: Is that random, or does he give mercy to the humble?
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_10: Actually, I I want to give mercy to the humble.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_10: So if you've got a humble heart, God gives mercy to those who he wants to give mercy to.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_10: Are you pursuing evil?
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_10: And well, I'm gonna if you've got a hard heart, I'm gonna harden those hearts who are set on pursuing evil.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_10: Does that and I think Pharaoh's in that category, and uh uh so that evil comes to a head, and as we look at next week, uh the Passover is.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_10: Is such a pivotal moment that graphically describes Jesus on the cross that in some ways God wants to say, here's human evil, here's the direction it's going, and just so you can see how evil it is, I'm gonna add my hardening to your preexisting choice to harden your heart to make sure that it goes right to the to the end of the ten plagues.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um that might not be helpful to any of you, uh, but I I I for myself I think it's um it isn't from the point of view why couldn't it have ended at the third plate?
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_09: I that is some other things to understand.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_09: Why could it not have ended at the third plate?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_09: Because you would have let them go, which is the whole ultimate aim of it.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_09: Yes, yeah.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_09: Why did it have to be so extreme to let them go?
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_09: I well that's another you want to go.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_09: So so it's not gonna be.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_10: I I I think so so so.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_10: Some people say there's um in historical drama, there's a spiritual reality being displayed.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_10: Um and so uh I'm not sure if I've got the notes here, uh, but but some people would say that the different plagues stand for different kinds of different kinds of evil.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_10: Um uh no, I've not got it here.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_10: So so the flies, the locusts, the gnats, kind of again it's it's describing the destructive nature of evil, the the boils, the irritation, the the kind of uh the uh water that should be refreshing because somehow the devil wants to make it kind of and and so some people said those those ten plagues are graphic images of what the powers of darkness are trying to do to ruin God's humanity.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_10: So, in some ways, all ten of them were there.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_06: God sent them.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yes, yeah.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_10: God sent them to say that this is what evil's doing, yeah.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_10: This is what evil's doing in the world, and and and this is unveiling as these locusts come, this is unveiling what evil's gonna do to you.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_10: So so it was they were from God to the people, but to demonstrate the the, like you were saying, the costly battle that's happening behind and it's even harder to tolerate.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_09: Well, the only thing is is it doesn't tell us all the Egyptians that were left with no sons and black, you don't hear really what they were thinking.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_09: With did they go on being evil or did they get the story and start changing?
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_10: I don't know, I don't know if the history happened to Egypt.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_10: Well, well, some of them obviously did because there's some Egyptians that did go into the houses when they had the blood on them, and some of the Egyptians uh were very keen to um to give their possessions to them as they were to to to say, I want to to bless what I see God doing.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_10: So he they wanted to bless the physical people they could see because they thought the god behind them might bless.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_10: So there were some who I think in that exchange did understand that the God that the Hebrews were following was the true God, and the God that Pharaoh was representing, the sun god and the uh was not the true God.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_10: So I think within that that there was something else.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_03: There were kind of warnings beforehand.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_10: Yes.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes the Egyptians triggered their livestock into the inside when the hail came and things like that.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you can see that we cover that.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_03: But it's yeah, you can see the the warning was given.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_10: So and some people, some of the Egyptians also also kind of understood what was coming and sorry, we've we've um we've ran out of time.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_10: Um hopefully some of that might be interesting.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_10: And and over the next three weeks we're going to unpack.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_10: So next week we're gonna look particularly at Passover and Covenant Giving.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_10: Uh, week three, uh, we're gonna look at um again some of those themes of of uh of deliverance, uh tabernacle, uh, and how those kind of uh work throughout the rest of Scripture.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_10: And the last week we're gonna look at um just some of the narratives around grumbling, golden calf, those kind of some of the narrative stories and how they instruct us uh how to live for God.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_10: Is that okay?
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_10: Can I say a little prayer and we'll we'll finish there.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_10: So uh Lord, thank you so much for your word.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_10: Uh even when there's things that we we struggle with and we don't understand, and and uh we feel that kind of somehow the character of nature of you God comes off badly in these stories.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_10: We thank you that ultimately Jesus is revealed and and He is uh the good news, He is the deliverer, He's the one that comes to rescue us from the tyranny of sin, from the the slavery uh that we are under to our human nature, that you come, Jesus, to bring us into that great exodus from under the slavery and captivity of darkness into your wonderful light.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_10: And I pray that we'd know this week what it is to be rescued by you and uh to exit to exodus our previous life and to find the new life you have in store for us.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_10: Jesus' name I pray.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_10: Amen.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_10: If you if you want the notes, um again, if you if you sign up with that QR code, I I could send you.