Podcasts about if moses

Send us a textA single miniature letter in the Torah scroll holds a revolutionary lesson about spiritual growth. The first word of Leviticus contains a mysteriously tiny aleph—a scribal tradition dating back to Moses himself. But why? The classic explanation tells us Moses, in his humility, couldn't bear receiving greater honor than others when God called to him. Yet there's something deeper happening.Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach offers a profound insight that transforms how we view spiritual development. He asks why Moses employed this small-letter strategy only here, when "Vayikra" appears throughout the Torah. His answer? Moses wasn't naturally humble from birth—he fought a daily battle against pride, just as we all struggle with our inclinations. The miniature aleph represents a specific tactical response to that day's unique spiritual challenge.This perspective aligns perfectly with the Talmudic concept of being "shrewd in your fear of Heaven." Spiritual growth isn't about brute-force willpower but about developing increasingly sophisticated strategies against our internal adversary. The yetzer hara (evil inclination) fights dirty—attacking when we're vulnerable and constantly shifting tactics. Our response must be equally strategic.Whether scheduling morning study sessions to ensure we wake up for prayers, finding accountability partners, or creating personal boundaries before temptation arises, these represent our own "small aleph" approaches. The path to growth isn't simply trying harder; it's outsmarting our internal adversary through creative solutions tailored to our unique challenges.As you reflect on that tiny letter in this week's Torah portion, consider: What clever strategies are you developing in your spiritual life? If Moses needed daily tactical innovations to maintain his legendary humility, how much more do we need to be vigilant and creative in our own journeys? What's your "small aleph" going to be today?Support the showJoin The Motivation Congregation WhatsApp community for daily motivational Torah content!Elevate your impact by becoming a TMC Emerald Donor! Your much-needed backing is crucial for our mission of disseminating the wisdom of the Torah. Join today for just $18.00 per month. (Use your maaser money!) https://buy.stripe.com/00g8xl5IT8dFcKc5ky------------------Check out our other Torah Podcasts and content! SUBSCRIBE to The Motivation Congregation Podcast for daily motivational Mussar! Listen on Spotify or 24six! Find all Torah talks and listen to featured episodes on our website, themotivationcongregation.org Questions or Comments? Please email me @ michaelbrooke97@gmail.com

“Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. The LORD said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank” (Num 20: 6 – 11).The Lord was not happy with the way this played out. His instructions to Moses were to take the staff, which he did, gather the assembly together, with Aaron's help (tick!) and then speak to the rock, with everybody watching on.No tick for the last instruction. Instead of speaking to the rock, Moses spoke to the people. Actually, he vented his anger at the people and said, “must we bring water out of this rock?” Moses then struck the rock twice with his staff, which the Lord had not told him to do. You may know the end of the story. In verse 12, we read, “But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” In one stupid moment, Moses lost his ticket into the Promised Land. What did he do wrong?Perhaps the first thing is that Moses didn't follow the Lord's specific instructions. He improvised out of frustration. It is amazing to me that the Lord still went along with it, providing the much-needed water. I guess his compassion for the people outweighed any thought He may have had to hold back the miracle. Second, the emphasis on “we” in Moses' question, “must we bring you water out of this rock?” does suggest that he thought of himself a little too highly in that moment. If Moses had followed his orders to the letter, the Lord would likely have honoured him before the people, as he often did. Instead, Moses stole the glory that belongs only to the Lord and paid the price. Doing the will and work of God is not to be taken lightly. When the Lord entrusts us to serve him in any kind of leadership role, we stand on holy ground. The question is, will we honour him as holy by obeying his instructions and will we honour him as holy by giving the glory to Him? The most humble man on earth failed to be humble by the waters of Meribah and it cost him dearly. Let's not make the same mistake today. 

Daily Dose of Hope May 5, 2024 Day 1 of Week 6   Scripture – Exodus 16-18; Ephesians 4   Welcome to the Daily Dose of Hope, New Hope Church's devotional that complements our Bible reading plan.  I hope you enjoyed your two days off; now it's time to get back to it.  Let's start with our Old Testament reading from Exodus.   Well, the Israelites have begun the road trip of all road trips!!!  It's only the middle of the second month and the Israelites are already complaining!  Just think about it.  It's been what, roughly forty-five days, and they are already saying that Moses and Aaron should have left them in bondage in Egypt.  I can't help but think this points to how much the people have forgotten; they have forgotten how God provides; they have forgotten God's miraculous hand.  They saw miracles in Egypt with the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, but they are a people who has been displaced for generations.  It's going to take some time before they really understand who and whose they are.    It's easy to get exasperated when we read about the Israelites trekking through the desert.  This won't be the only time we find ourselves frustrated with them.  Over and over again, as we read through Exodus, we will ask these questions:  Why are they so impatient?  Why do they think the grass is always greener on the other side?  Why are they so quick to forget God?  Why do they not trust God when they have seen his miracles and goodness?  Why, why, why???    While we might not like to admit it, aren't we just like the Israelites?  I think of how often I've gotten frustrated with God's timing or forgotten God's work in my life.  We are all quick to complain.  We are also forgetful.    And yet God is still faithful.  He is faithful to us, just as he was faithful to the Israelites.  Despite their grumbling, God provided manna for them in the morning and quail at night.  They didn't have to hunt for their food or grind grain for flour.  God provided.  When they complained about lack of water, God provided water from a rock.  When the Amalekites attacked, God provided.  At every turn, God provided.  How has God provided for you, even when you grumbled and complained?   Let's chat just briefly about the Amalekite battle.  This is the first of many battles that the Israelites will be called to fight.  But this was no ordinary battle.  It wasn't going to be won with fancy weapons or fighting skill.  In fact, we quickly learn that the outcome didn't rest on the Israelite army's strength or weakness at all.  Rather, victory rested in Moses lifting his arms.  When Moses lifted his hands to heaven, in a symbolic act of prayer and surrender to God, then the Israelites started winning the fight.  If Moses' arms were to fall, they would take losses.  Thus, Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms for him.  They found a nice big rock for Moses to sit on and they each took an arm.  It took a number of hours, but Joshua and the Israelite army thoroughly defeated the Amalekites.    This may not have been the intent of the passage but I can't help but draw the analogy between this battle and our lives as followers of Christ.  When we are walking closely with Jesus, surrendered and prayerful, then things tend to go smoother.  We remember to whom we belong.  We make better choices; we demonstrate more wisdom, peace, and mercy toward others.  But we are human - we get distracted!  We listen to the wrong voices, we get caught up in other things (health issues, grief, fatigue, frustration, bitterness, etc.) and the end result is we move away from God.  This is why we need Aaron and Hurs in our life.  We need Christian friends to hold up our arms when we get tired.  We need people to walk alongside us, help us persevere, and remind us who we are.  Y'all, I need you to help hold my arms up.  Sometimes they just get tired.  I'm sure yours do too.  Let me know.  I'd be happy to hold yours up whenever you need it.   Let's move on to Ephesians 4.  Paul has been discussing the new life we have in Christ and the new faith community that is created, what we call the church.  The church, as the body of Christ, is an entirely new kind of community-a family of people who belong to Jesus and to one another AND love one another with the extravagant love of Christ. But this unique community has standards. Look at verses 2-4.  This body of believers should be humble, gentle, patient, and bear one another in love.  There should be unity among them as a demonstration of to whom they belong.    While there is unity, there is diversity in gifts and strengths. Jesus has made sure that his church has everything it needs to become mature and effective.  Thus, some people are given the gifts and graces to become apostles, others prophets, still others evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  Jesus obviously excelled in all of these categories but we don't.  Thus, we need one another desperately to build up and strengthen the body of Christ.   Historically, the church has focused more on pastors and teachers than the apostles, prophets, and evangelists.  If we look at the state of the Western church, you can see how badly this has hurt us.  We are incomplete, we are missing some of these critical roles, and without them we are ineffective.  We need everyone to build up the church.  Here is a quick summary of these roles: -Apostles are the entrepreneurs of the church, starting new mission and ministries, leading the church into new territory.  Without apostles, we get stuck in the same place,  not responding to the changing needs of our world.  Apostles are critical. -Prophets often stand on the fringes of the church, as God's messengers, speaking hard words into the family of faith.  We have pushed the prophets aside because we tend to not like hard words.  Prophets are also critical. -Evangelists are the salespeople of the faith. They are particularly gifted at sharing the Good News of Jesus with people who don't get know him.  We are ALL called to be evangelistic but certain people are truly gifted in leading new people to Christ.  We need them. -Pastors are shepherds of the flock.  They nurture and protect the congregation.  They are essentially the caregivers of the flock, ensuring and guarding the spiritual health of the people.  Pastors are incredibly important to the health of the church. - Teachers are the communicators of the faith. They help the people remain Biblically grounded, teach the next generation about Jesus, and ensure that the church is faithful to God's Word, growing in their knowledge of Scripture and doctrine.  Teachers are essential!  How off-track we would get without teachers.   Think about your unique gifts. Are you an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, or a teacher?  How can you use your gifts to build up Jesus' church?   Have a wonderful day.  We will talk again tomorrow.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki

Pastor Robert Baltodano and Pastor Tim Hamilton Question Timestamps: Nicholas, NY (2:02) - Do we have the ability to say “no” to the sanctification of the Lord? If we do, then to what degree? Jefferson, NY (5:03) - Since Jesus had no Earthly father, how did he become a Jew? Louie, NY (7:44) - What does it mean when people hang a cross upside down? Valerie, NJ (9:41) - Should I leave the Methodist church I'm currently attending? John, email (14:38) - I've always understood that God's will was that no one should perish, but John 6 seems to say that no one is saved except those chosen by God, can you explain this for me? Robert, OR (18:26) - I'm in the worst place I've ever been, what should I do? Ross, HI (24:26) - Does the Father have a discernible, visible image like Jesus that we can see and possibly touch him? Karen, email (27:51, continued after break at 33:50) - What does the Bible say about following the traditions of men? Are Biblical festivals celebrated by modern day Christians? Are there any modern day prophets? Michael, NY (41:19) - If we are made in the image of God, but God has no physical form, then what is our image based on? Joshua, YouTube (44:54) - If Moses is the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, where did he get the information to write those books? Susan, UT (48:23) - Who is God, and who is Jesus? Are they the same with just different names? Naomi, email (50:30) - Do humans have an immortal soul? Questions? 888-712-7434 Answers@bbtlive.org

In this podcast I overviewed the amazing dating of the Hebrew Bible by the great scholar Edwin Thiele.  I mentioned in the podcast that how did I come up with the date of 1916 B.C. for the year Joseph entered Egypt at age 17.  So, as promised, this rest of this article is to give more detail on Edwin Thiele's work and how we get to these dates.  Again, this is not something I came up with.  I don't teach my opinion or my speculations as fact.    I have studied the great scholar Edwin Thiele's work on the dating in 1 Kings 6:1 …   Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel (Jacob's other name) came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD Edwin Thiele's work and research is documented in his book, “The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.” He shows that the 4th year of Solomon's reign is 966 B.C. which means the Hebrews left Egypt in 1446 B.C. (we get this by adding 966 and 480 or 966+480 = 1446 B.C. since we are going back in time).  But, how did Edwin Thiele come up with this date?  You'll hear many us this date but they will NOT know the source.  They will not be able to give you the historical research to show where this date came from its total reliability.  However, in Edwin's book this is shown.  Thiele is the one who gave us this date of 966 B.C.  Let's go see what Thiele discovered. Thiele was studying the ancient king lists of the ancient Assyrians.  In these lists, one called the Eponym Canon, references a solar eclipse in the reign of Assur-dan III in the month of Simanu.  Astronomers today easily found the date of this astronomical event as June 15, 763 B.C.  The Assyrians used this solar eclipse to give dates of the reigns of their kings dating from 892 to 648 B.C.  These king lists developed by the ancient Assyrians became their calendar.  Thiele saw that this seemed to be an accurate calendar and could be used to understand dates of events in other cultures and among other ancient peoples like the Hebrews in Israel.  But, was the Assyrian “calendar” correct?  Was it accurate?  Thiele needed to find another “calendar” that would support the dating in the Assyrian calendar. Thiele discovered another ancient writing, the CANON OF PTOLEMY, a Greek astronomer 70-161 A.D.  His writings relate to Middle Eastern history and include a very interesting event; it was a lunar eclipse that happened on March 19, 721 B.C. which was an easy date for our contemporary astronomers to determine.  This lunar eclipse and the dating used from this event in the Canon of Ptolemy result in another “calendar” if you will.  When one matches the Canon of Ptolemy with the Assyrian “calendar” one verifies the accuracy of the other.  Thiele discovered two amazing documents with two amazing astronomical events that resulted in precise dating of key events and reigns of kings in ancient time.  So, how does this help us in Bible dating? Since the Assyrian king list and its dates are now found by archaeology to be accurate we now know the exact dates of the reign of Shalmaneser III.  He reigned from 859-824 B.C.  Two of these years are critical for us.  The 6th year of Shalmaneser's reign and the 18th year.  First, let's focus on the 6th year of his reign. A tall rock with ancient writing was discovered in Turkey in 1851.  It is called the Kurkh Stele (image is public domain accessed at Wikimedia).  On this stele Shalmaneser write about the battle of Qarqar.  This battle occurred in the 6th year of his reign which now has easily been determined from the Assyrian king list as 853 B.C.  What is so awesome is on the stele the Assyrian king gives names of the kings he fought against in the battle.  Ready for this?  Here's our connected to the Bible.  Shalmaneser fought against Ahab who was married to Jezebel.  The Bible says that Ahab ruled for 22 years as we read in 1 Kings 16:29 … Now Ahab the son of Omri became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. So, the next question is of the 22 years of Ahab's reign, when did he fight in the battle of Qarqar?  On top of that when did Ahab die?  If we knew that then we'd know then Ahab started to rule as king of Israel, the northern 10 tribes.  In the year 1846 another amazing stone was discovered.  It is now known as the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (image is public domain accessed at Wikimedia).  On this stone pillar there is an amazing picture; the picture and description is of king Jehu kneeling and paying tribute to the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III.  Jehu became the king in Israel 12 years after Ahad died.  Just consider 2Ki 10:35-36 … And Jehu slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son became king in his place. Now the time which Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years. Jehu reigned as king for 28 years.  On the Black Obelisk Assyrian ancient records state that it was the 18th year of Shalmaneser III when Jehu paid homage to Shalmaneser.  But, the 18th year of Shalmaneser's reign from the ancient Assyrian king's list is 841 B.C.  But, Ahab fought the battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C. as we saw on the Kurkh Stele.  Subtracting 853 and 841 is 853-841=12.  There were 12 years between the battle of Qarqar and when Jehu offered tribute to Shalmaneser.  The Bible helps us with those 12 years.  First we read in 2 Kings 8:25-26 that Ahaziah the son of Ahab became king after Ahab and was king for one year.  Then in 2 Kngs 1:17 and 3:1 we find that Jehoram, the son of Ahab and Ahaziah's brother became king when Ahaziah died and was king for 12 years.  Thiele also discovered that the first year of Jehoram's reign was what is called an accession year.  He officially became king after the accession year so only served for 11 years.  So, let's put this all together.  In 841 B.C. Jehu offers tribute to Shalmaneser III as we just saw.  841 B.C. is 12 years after the battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C. in which Ahab fought.  But, Ahab is killed in another battle as one can read in 1 Kings 22:29-40.  And in the 12 years after Ahab's death his son Ahaziah reigns for 1 year and then his other son Jehoram reigns for 11 years (we're not counting the accession year).  But, Jehu becomes king after Jehoram. We know the year.  It is 12 years after the battle of Qarqar of 841 B.C.  Which means Ahab dies in 853 B.C. in the same year as the battle of Qarqar and shortly thereafter.  This is huge!!  We now have the date of Ahab's death.  Why is this so important? From this date of 853 B.C. based upon real archaeology and history and also supported by the Bible, we can now go backwards in time to Solomon.  For example, Ahab dies in 853 B.C. but reigned for 22 years.  Ahab's reign then starts in 874 B.C. when his dad, Omri dies.  But Omri was king for 12 years as we read in 1 Kings 16:23.  We go back and through other connections between the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel we come to the year when Solomon became king.  Solomon became king in 970 B.C.  Now we can take this to the verse that we first considered 1 Kings 6:1 … Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel (Jacob's other name) came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign (966 B.C.) over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD If the 4th year of Solomon's reign is 966 B.C. then 480 years prior to this the sons of Jacob (Israel) left Egypt.  Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt in 1446 B.C. that we get by adding 966+480=1446 B.C.  From the Assyrian King list that Thiele discovered we now have the precise year of the Exodus.  Once we have this date things get very interesting very fast. As an “fyi” you can study this in more depth at the following links.  These are scholarly sites that help us understand the amazing and awesome work of Edwin Thiele to gives us the dating in the Bible.  Here's the links to check out … Article 1 – great extensive summary of Thiele's work https://www.andrews.edu/library/car/cardigital/Periodicals/AUSS/1996-2/1996-2-12.pdf Article 2 – a second awesome scholarly article on the exactness of Thiele's Bible chronology and its almost universal acceptance https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=auss Let's continue and take these dates into the events of Exodus and the events in the life of Joseph.  Jacob is Israel in the phrase "the sons of Israel" so this can be understood to mean that the sons of Jacob left Egypt in 1446 B.C. and in Exo. 12:4-41 … Now the time that the sons of Israel (Jacob) lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt This might be understood that Jacob (Israel) entered Egypt 430 years prior or in 1876 B.C.  All this from the dates Thiele came up with for the battle of Qarqar, Ahab's death, and the date of the 4th year of Solomon's reign. In 1446 B.C. Moses is 80 (Exo 7:6-7) and the likely Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus was Amenhotep II.  If Moses was 80 then Moses was born in 1526 B.C. and the Pharaoh then is probably Ahmoses I.  Ahmoses I defeated the Hyksos and could it be that Ahmoses enslaved the other Semites in the delta, the Hebrews, since Ahmoses needed to strengthen his northern border and stamp out the potential threat that could come from the Hebrews?  Ahmoses did build forts on his northern border.  This means he may have considered the Hebrews potential enemies since they we Semites just like the Hyksos. What better way to stamp out the threat then by enslaving the Hebrews.  Since Ahmoses I reign was probably 1570-1544 B.C. he could have put the clamps down on the Hebrews years before Moses' birth in 1526 B.C.   Returning back to 1446 B.C. and substituting the name Jacob for Israel one may conclude that Jacob (Israel and his sons) entered Egypt 430 years earlier or in the year 1876 B.C.  At this time Jacob (Israel) tells Pharaoh that he is 130 years old as found in Gen. 47:8-9.  He died 17 years later in 1859 B.C. as noted in Gen. 47:28.  Knowing Jacob's age upon entering Egypt and the year (thanks Edwin!!) we can then easily find the following ... * Jacob born in 2006 B.C. since he was 130 in 1876 * Isaac was born in 2066 B.C. since Isaac was 60 at Jacob and Esau's birth Gen. 25:26 * Since Abraham is 100 at the birth of Isaac in 2066 B.C. - as we find in Gen. 21:5 - then Abraham was born in 2166 B.C. * Abraham left Haran for Canaan when he was 75 years old or in the year 2091 B.C. as found in Gen. 12:4 Knowing the years of these events provides me with an interesting door that I have not entered yet.  If I go through the door I would be able to research what is going on in Egypt, the names of the pharaohs, and I could study the culture and history of Canaan and much more.  For example if I know the dating of when Abraham is in Canaan, might archaeology help me determine who Abimelech was that Abraham made a covenant with at Beer Sheba?  Could I determine using archaeology living conditions in the northern Negev and in ancient Hebron?   Once again taking Thiele's work and expanding its connection to the events prior to the Exodus, there is a very interesting result when this is applied to the life of Joseph.  See the chart below ... Since Jacob (Israel) was 130 when he entered Egypt in the year 1876 B.C. and died 17 year later in 1859 B.C. one can easily determine the connection between the ages of Joseph, the events in his life as found in Genesis, and the years these events would've occurred.  Use the chart above as a help as we go through the following.  Also, get your Bible handy and check the verses used. Starting in  Gen. 37:2 we find Joseph is 17 and he begins his work as 2nd in command of Egypt at age 30. He is 37 at the end of the 7 years of plenty in Gen. 41:53 and 39 or 40 in 2nd year of the famine when his brothers come to Egypt and later, probably the same year, Joseph meets his father Jacob again in Gen. 45:6, 47:9.   So, if Joseph is 39 or 40 when he meets his dad again and then Joseph is 56 or 57 when his dad dies 17 years later in 1859 B.C. we can now go back and assign years to the events in Joseph's life.  It is fascinating to consider that Joseph probably served under three pharaohs.  He started his work at age 30 in the year 1886/87 B.C. or the 12th Dynasty in Egypt.  The pharaoh in office at the time was Senusret II.  His reign ends in perhaps 1878 B.C. and Joseph would've been 38 years old and the seven years of famine would've ended.  The 7 years of famine would start 1879 or 1880 B.C. and continue into the reign of Senusret III.   See the chart below ... Above chart from Aidan Dodson, Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, London 2004 Joseph would serve under Senusret III (under this pharaoh all the Egyptians sold their land to the king and seemingly the government became centralized), Amenemhat III, and died in 1806 B.C. under Amenemhat IV.  Knowing the pharaohs is interesting that Senusret III took all the control away from the provincial governors in upper and lower Egypt that seems to relate to the events in Genesis where all Egyptians sold everything including their land (the possession that implies power) to Joseph (ala pharaoh).  Another fascinating thing to consider is the area of Faiyum - the amazing oasis west of the Nile.   Consider the following ... and and Accessed from the awesome and credible scholarly site on ancient Egypt -www.ancient.eu/Fayum/  It is interesting to assign actual years of the events in Joseph's life that are a result of Thiele's work as per the ancient Assyrian calendar.  When we do we see that the pharaohs connected to Joseph's reign were using the ancient area of Faiyum to irrigate and reclaim agricultural land.  Why?  What's the big deal?  Is there some reason to reclaim needed agricultural land and provide irrigation for other areas?  Perhaps this is connected to Joseph and 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of famine.  And when we assign years we find that the pharaoh who would've been the pharaoh in the 7 years of famine where the land all came under the control or the king is Senusret III.  And he historically did something similar as we find in the account in Genesis.  The last thing that was very exciting is extending the dating into the years before the Exodus and into the life of Joseph.  We find that Joseph died in 1806 B.C. (chart above) and this was 280 years before Moses was born in 1526 B.C.    However, Jacob and entered Egypt when he was 130 (1876 B.C.) , he died when he was 147 (1859 B.C.) when Joseph was 56/57 years old.  This means the "sons of Israel" or Jacob and his family lived for 17 years in Egypt until Jacob dies.  Joseph was 57 (I will use 57 for ease of calculation) when Jacob dies and lived another 53 years when he died at 110 as we read in Gen. 50:22.  That means the "sons of Israel" or the "sons of Jacob" lived another 53 years in Egypt until Joseph died for a total of 70 years.  But, Joseph died 280 years before Moses was born.  Finally, Moses and the Hebrews leave Egypt when Moses was 80.  So, the Hebrews lived 70 years in Egypt till Joseph died, another 280 years till Moses was born, and 80 more years till they left Egypt or a total of 430 years.  This is the exact number as found in Exod. 12:40.  I have always asked myself where did this number come from?  No one has explained it to me.  And then I extended Thiele's work into the Exodus and beyond.  I was "blown away" that Thiele's work verified Exod. 12:40 by me taking his work and assigning years to the Bible events.  This was so so exciting to say the least.  And we now read Gen. 39:1-4 knowing the year is actually happened, Joseph enters Egypt in 1916 B.C.   Rev. Ferret - who is this guy?  What's his background?  Why should I listen to him?  Check his background at this link - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ortnret3oxcicu4/BackgrndTeacher%20mar%2025%202020.pdf?dl=0  

Moses looks at his own resources and knows they don't equal the task at hand.  If Moses would dare to lift his eyes up, he'd realize his human limitations are...

Delivered by Hadi Witanto and Theodore Joseph Witanto from Saint John Bosco Church, Archdiocese of Jakarta, Indonesia. Numbers 12: 1-13; Rs psalm 51: 3-4.5-6a.6bc-7.12-13; Matthew 15: 1-2.10-14 LET NOT THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND   Our meditation today has the theme: Let Not the Blind Lead the Blind. We can identify the act of guiding with directing and teaching. This presupposes that the guide is a person who is more qualified than the one being led or guided. Let's say the one who guides is the teacher and the one who is guided is the students. Those who guide are parents and those who are guided are children or grandchildren.   God provides our lives with a model of natural learning and becoming to follow this pattern. In the animal world, natural law follows its course, and this becomes so special in humans who have a civilization where reason and faith are the fundamental instruments used to guide and teach. Moses was chosen and filled with all abilities to guide. He managed to carry out the task splendidly. He received the dignity of being a prophet and the great leader of the Israelites.   This special task can be seen more as a privilege or distinguished honour. If Moses himself looked and recognized this well, it must be true. Just as a bishop or priest or president sees professional duties as a privilege, so that he can carry them out responsibly and fairly. But on the other hand, people who are jealous or are not in favour of this special honour must see it as something that is unfair, unnatural and not right. Usually there is a contribution of Satan's influence that cause them inclining with ambitions for power, then they want such position or privilege.   That's what happened with Myriam and Aaron who had evil intentions targeting the task of Moses to be the elected leader. The Lord God sees this as a sign of ambition that will bring destruction to His mission of salvation. They are like blind people who will guide the blind Israelites to the promised land. Their behaviour is similar to the Pharisees who were criticized by Jesus. In practice both their words and deeds are contrary to Jesus Christ.   They make themselves responsible for guiding people according to their desires and moral principles. But it turns out that what they say and do doesn't lead people to the truth and salvation. They are truly blind, then they lead people who still really need light in their lives. The blind lead the blind. Perhaps they fell together into destruction. Or worse, they could plunge people into the abyss of sin, while they know how to escape themselves. So, just one piece of advice for us today: let not the blind lead the blind.   Let's pray. In the name of the Father... O Lord and our God, may it be in Your grace that we can always fill this whole day with words and deeds that acknowledge Your greatness and glorify Your name. Hail Mary full of grace... In the name of the Father... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/media-la-porta/message

If Moses and Paul wished to be personally damned so others could be saved, didn't they prioritize mission for others over joy in God?This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3279340/advertisement

If Moses and Paul wished to be personally damned so others could be saved, didn't they prioritize mission for others over joy in God?

If Moses and Paul wished to be personally damned so others could be saved, didn't they prioritize mission for others over joy in God?This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4231678/advertisement

If Moses and Paul wished to be personally damned so others could be saved, didn't they prioritize mission for others over joy in God?This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3485657/advertisement

“But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.”‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10‬:‭39‬ ‭NLT‬‬When we hold true to the living word of God, we will see God move in our generation and our lives. We do not need to be overcome by the current state of the world or the depravity all around us. If Moses could stay hungry despite all the grumbling, setbacks and complaints, why can't we? Want to stay hungry and saturated…who are you surrounding yourself with?For more information visit: www.kingdomencounters.usEvangelist Caleb Wampler continues a powerful message from a conference in Clermont, Florida in today's episode, listen in. If you are hungry for more of the Lord head over to www.kingdomencounters.us/free where you can get all of our 7 day devotional series for FREE! You can also get your copy of Evangelist Wampler's newest book,Audience of ONE: Behold the Lamb here: https://calebwampler.com/store/audience-of-one-behold-the-lamb Stay connected through Evangelist Caleb's social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalebWampler/YouTube: https://youtube.com/evangelistcalebwamplerTo give to what the Lord is doing with Kingdom Encounters International: www.kingdomencounters.us/

Episode 204 – Eternal Information – Part 12 – Confidence Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: I will destroy my people because they are ignorant. You have refused to learn, so I will refuse to let you be my priests. Hosea, chapter 4, verse 6, God’s Word Translation ******** VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re so happy that you’re with us here today on Anchored by Truth as we wrap up a series we called “Eternal Information.” This has been a fascinating series because during it we have talked about yet another way we can be assured that God is the creator of everything. Today, as we conclude and summarize what we’ve covered in the series we have RD Fierro back in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, we use information every day and we take its existence for granted. But information could not exist if the universe consisted only of matter and energy could it? RD: No. It couldn’t. But before we go to much farther I would also like to welcome everyone and thank them for joining us as we close out this rather extensive view of information. Simply put, information only exists where there is intelligence. Information is an organized system of units or symbols capable of containing or conveying purpose or meaning. I know that sometimes subjects like the laws of information and how information is necessary for life can seem pretty far removed from what people think about when someone mentions the Bible or Christianity or faith. But that’s why we opened our episode today with that quote from the Old Testament prophet Hosea. Hosea makes the link between knowledge and service to Christ abundantly clear. VK: Just to be sure we’re clear, our opening scripture for this episode was Hosea 4:6 which says, “I will destroy my people because they are ignorant. You have refused to learn, so I will refuse to let you be my priests.” That’s from the God’s Word Translation. The New International Version puts it this way. “… my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests …” RD: Yes. God is speaking in that verse. And God is saying that because his people – in this case the inhabitants of Old Testament Israel – have rejected the knowledge of His law, He is going to reject them as serving as His priests. A priest was someone who represented the people before God. VK: A prophet was someone who represented God before the people. Conversely, a priest was someone who represented the people before God. RD: And in this verse God is connecting knowledge with service to Him. He is specifically saying that He wants His people to possess knowledge of Him and His law for them to be qualified to represent Him before the nations. Jesus would later say the same thing from a slightly different perspective when He said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. VK: That’s the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verse 30. In the New Living Translation that verse says, “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” RD: Yes. Jesus was telling His audience that God wants us to love and worship God with our entire beings. Yet, in our contemporary church all too often we focus almost exclusively on the hearts of believers and not their minds. And while it is certainly true that we must always be concerned about appealing to people’s hearts, we must never ignore their minds. If we do so, we are not only ignoring a specific command of the Lords but we are also denying them an important, and maybe the most important source of spiritual power. VK: The command you are thinking about is Romans, chapter 12, verse 2 which says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” That’s from the New International Version. So, the command is very clear. We are not to be conformed to “the pattern of this world.” And the way we avoid that is by being transformed “by the renewing of your mind.” But why do you say that if we don’t follow this command we may be sacrificing a source of spiritual power? RD: Because any and all spiritual power that a Christian ever possesses must come from God. By ourselves we are totally at the mercy of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Simply put if are not connected with God, united with God, we are going to be adrift in the world like a boat without an anchor. VK: That’s why we call this show Anchored by Truth. And why we open every episode by encouraging people to anchor themselves to the only true source of eternal life the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God – the Bible. RD: Amen. Back to our verse from Hosea – God said that He would reject the people who reject knowledge – specifically the knowledge of his law. God’s law is contained in the Bible. Then our verse from Romans tells us to renew our minds so we won’t be conformed to the pattern of this world. Flip that verse around. It warns that if we don’t “renew our minds” we will wind up being conformed to the pattern of this world. No one can be conformed to the pattern of this world and possess God’s power. And if we don’t possess God’s power we will not have the ability to remain godly in a godless world. VK: You know this may very well be what the Apostle Paul was warning his disciple Timothy about in 2 Timothy. In 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 4 and 5 Paul warned Timothy that a day was coming when people would “… betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.” That does seem to be a characteristic of our age. RD: Sadly, it is and I am firmly persuaded it is because so many Christians in our day and age don’t want to make the investment in their faith of understanding not only its content but also its intellectual underpinnings which includes subjects like apologetics. In the most basic sense apologetics is simply the area of study that teaches us how to be confident in our faith – confident that God exists, confident that the Bible is God’s word, and confident that the lies that the world pushes are not true. VK: And in our last episode of Anchored by Truth we spent the whole episode talking about doubt – about how doubts can sometimes seem so real and yet doubt has little to no informative value. RD: Right. So, I wanted to close out this series on information with the positive side – how the study of apologetic systems and approaches, including the study of areas like information, can increase our confidence in our faith. Let’s face it. Today the shifting tides of cultural chaos are surging around us. In fact in many ways we are dealing with a tsunami of cultural dysfunction. And you can couple that with the fact that people in the church are regularly confronted with what I would label denominational deviance. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that in Christ, through the renewing of our minds and our commitment to the truth of His word, we are more than overcomers. The really good news about Christianity is that it is true. So, even when Christians feel doubt that does not change the fact that they are still saved eternally because of Jesus’s finished work on the cross. VK: And what we want at Anchored by Truth is for our listeners, everyone really, to experience the confidence and peace of knowing that fact. But the world these days does not make that easy. Today the world attempts to raise innumerable barricades to block the “narrow gate” that opens to salvation. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 Jesus said, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” That’s from the New Living Translation. RD: And today those barricades inevitably start with informational questions. If the universe and earth are billions of years old how can Genesis chapter 1 be true? What evidence is there that there was ever a worldwide flood? If Moses wrote all of the first five books of the Bible why did he use different names for God? How could the prophets in the Bible have information about the distant future? Today, informational questions are thrown at believers not just daily but every time they turn on a TV, look something up on the internet, or enter a classroom. It can be a lot for people to have to overcome. VK: But we don’t have to overcome the world. Jesus has already done that for us. In the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse 33 Jesus said, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” That’s also from the New Living Translation. RD: Right. Jesus has overcome the world. But one of the ways He overcame the world is by giving us His word which is always available to strengthen and comfort us. And another way He overcame the world is by giving us the ability to make observations about the world around us and think logically about what we can see. And when we do so, we see that without God the world we know could not exist in the absence of a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent Being who could create everything and impart the ability to observe and reason to the creature He created in His own image. VK: We then can pose our own questions. If the universe is eternal why do the laws of thermodynamics tell us that the universe will one day run out of energy? If galaxies and stars can form from interstellar clouds of dust why do scientists tell us that 85% of the matter is “dark” meaning we cannot see it or detect it? If living creatures are the result of the random collision of inanimate particles why can’t supposedly intelligent people create life in a laboratory from non-living chemicals? How did 100 billion atoms of just the right type collide all of a sudden at just the right place and form the first cell? And how did that collision occur when there was just the right energy source available to provide the energy necessary for it to feed, live, and reproduce? So, Christians have our own set of questions that need answering before we would need to accept the Big Bang and evolution as being the best explanation for why the universe is the way we see it. RD: And that brings us back to what we have learned in this series on information. Information is present in the universe and in our own experience but information is not created, and does not interact, with matter or energy. Apple trees produce apples. Orange trees produce oranges. Dogs produce puppies. Cats produce kittens. Like produces like. Information is massless and non-material. So, material causes cannot produce a non-material phenomenon. And information is not present if intelligence is not present. Therefore the non-material source that gives rise to information must also be intelligent. VK: And, unless you acknowledge the existence of God, that would be a big enough conundrum all by it. But we also see information present in living creatures. DNA is not just an information storage and organization system but it is one that is far more complicated than any information system yet created by man. The human body produces somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 individual proteins but human DNA only contains about 20 to 25,000 genes. To produce all those individual proteins the genes within DNA must sometimes act in concert with one another. So, the 1st level of information within DNA is the information that is simply stored in the sequence of DNA “letters” – the 4 different kinds of bases that are the letters of the genetic code. But the 2nd level of information within DNA is the information that is stored when various sections of DNA actually interconnect with one another to perform additional functions. RD: And there is a 3rd level of information stored in DNA which results from the 3-D configuration with which DNA is stored within a cell. A single strand of human DNA contains about 3 Billion base pairs and would be 6 feet long if it were uncoiled. But it is present within the 30 to 40 trillion cells in a normal adult. To store the DNA molecule it is folded into a complicated shape and yet we find out that the folded shape also provides information to the cell to enable the cell to carry out its functions properly. Moreover, there is a 4th level of information that DNA supplies which is that as we go through our lives how DNA behaves actually changes. It is, in effect, a dynamic reprogramming system that functions throughout our lives. This is a level of information sophistication that has never been achieved in any human information system. VK: And all of this sophistication isn’t even the end of how amazing DNA really is or how it performs. DNA has its own unique repair system because every time we go out into the sun we are bombarded with minute amounts of cosmic radiation that would decimate our DNA if it could not repair itself. But it can. And the scientists who explored that repair system won a Nobel prize for their discovery. Furthermore, there are delicate and sophisticated motors that carefully control the DNA replication process. If these motors didn’t precisely guide the unraveling of the double helix it would be a tangled mess that would never allow it to be duplicated. And a creature that can’t duplicate its DNA wouldn’t live very long. And all of this informational complexity is present just within the DNA system. We haven’t even begun to address RNA, protein construction, how the cell’s permeable membrane is built. This cellular sophistication generates an entirely new set of questions that a world that doubts God can’t answer. RD: Exactly. The more we probe into the mysteries of life the more we realize the inadequacy of the answers that the God-alternatives provide. It’s impossible to explain the existence of intelligence in a universe that would be comprised of only matter and energy. That would make intelligence the product of random chaos. I can’t think of many things that are more unreasonable. But, even if somehow, a godless science could answer those questions we then get into the question of the supernatural intelligence which is displayed in the Bible. VK: The Bible is a unique book. It was written by over 3 dozen authors over a period of 1,500 years but it contains a unified message about creation, fall, and redemption. Yet it presents that message while giving people information about living better lives, managing money, overcoming troubles, raising families, and organizing a more fair and responsible society. If the only information we gained from the Bible was by reading it from left to right, front to back it would be an amazing work. But besides the pragmatic information the Bible contains it also contains an unparalleled body of prophetic information. RD: Indeed – or as I sometimes say in our Life Lessons - exactamundo. VK: Exactamundo – again. Really? RD: Really. The body of accurate prophetic information in the Bible is enormous. Moses wrote the 1st five books of the Bible besides leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. But in addition Moses was also a prophet. He gave several prophecies that would later come true in the future of the Israelite nation and Moses foretold the future arrival of the Messiah. David was the 2nd king of the Jewish nation and in many ways its most successful king but he was also a prophet. God revealed to David that the coming Messiah would be David’s descendant which is why the Jews were so focused on whether or not Jesus was a “son of David.” David wrote several Messianic psalms including Psalm 22 which describes a crucifixion experience before that method of execution was used. He also wrote Psalm 110 where he prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a king and priest combined like the Old Testament figure Melchizedek. Only Jesus every satisfied this criteria. VK: The prophet Isaiah provided the name of the Persian emperor who would release the Jews from the Babylonian captivity 150 years before Cyrus arrived on the world scene. He also prophesied that a confederation of Israel and Syria would fail in their attempts to conquer Jerusalem which they did. And he prophesied that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Daniel was a Hebrew captive of the Babylonians but he named a series of 4 empires that would dominate the Middle East for over 500 years and the series unfolded just as he said. And Daniel gave the famous prophecy of “seventy weeks” which actually foretold the exact day Jesus would enter Jerusalem just prior to his death. RD: Right. By studying the Bible carefully we see that there was prophet after prophet that was inspired by God and gave the world information about the future that only an eternal God who sees all of history accurately could possess. Men can’t predict the weather more than a few days out but God gave His prophets names, places, and events centuries ahead of time. As we said during this series if natural information requires the presence of natural intelligence, supernatural information requires the presence of supernatural intelligence. And the Bible’s evidence of supernatural intelligence isn’t just contained within its pragmatic and prophet information. It’s also contained within the interconnected details we can see between the Old and New Testaments. We covered some of that in our 10th episode in this series and used the example of Melchizedek to illustrate this point. VK: So, the point that we have tried to make in this series is by applying ourselves just a bit we can overcome the stumbling blocks that the world, the flesh, and the devil would like to place in our path to the narrow gate that leads to salvation. Satan manufactured the fall out of a seed of doubt. But God has given us the ability to think clearly to refute those doubts and approach our lives with a spirit of confidence in our faith, in our Bible, and in our God. But as we started out saying we do have to embrace this knowledge to acquire this confidence. RD: Well, as you have said, “God expects us to do our own homework.” That I think is part of what Jesus referred to when he admonished his followers to take His yoke on their own shoulders. Now, His yoke is easy and His burden is light but it is not non-existent. We live in a fallen creation. We face a hostile world. And the Devil roams about looking for people to devour. We can’t change any of that. But what we can do is what Jesus asks us to do – love Him and the Father with all our soul, hearts, strength, and minds. I am always struck by the fact that when Jesus gave that commandment He used an “and” and not an “or.” Jesus didn’t say to love God with our hearts “or” our minds but with them both. We have free will. We can obey Him or not obey Him. What we can’t do is disobey Him without consequence. VK: People have good, solid reasons based in science and fact to believe in God and the Bible but all too often we seem to be willing to embrace the doubts without being willing to do what it takes to change that doubt into confidence. They will cling to discredited ideas about the universe popping into existence from nothing and living creatures spontaneously arising from pond scum and scarcely ever express doubts or reservations. We want to help people understand there is no need to do that. Information, accurate information, is the antidote to the poison of doubt. The stakes for us not doing so are truly eternal and – worse – for the mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers their unwillingness to set a positive pattern can affect many other lives. None of us should want to be like the people Hosea spoke to – where we risk being rejected as being a suitable witness for God because we wouldn’t embrace the knowledge that is readily available. This sounds like a good time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer of for those people who place their lives and safety at risk to serve and save others. We should all be willing to exchange a bit of our time and entertainment to serve others by having the answers that could bring eternal life to our friends and family. ---- PRAYER FOR FIRST RESPONDERS VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the God’s Word Translation) Hosea, chapter 4, verse 6, God’s Word Translation

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:I'd like to begin today by talking about how important our Old Testament reading is for understanding the Bible. Then I'd like to relate what we learn about Abraham to the relationship we have had as congregation and pastor. Our Old Testament reading is from Genesis chapter 12. That's not too far into the book. We meet a couple name Abram and Sarai who are later given the names Abraham and Sarah. Since we know their latter names better than their former names I'm just going to call them Abraham and Sarah. One day the Lord said to Abraham, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father's house and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you,” and so on. What is going on here is that the Lord is making a promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sometimes this promise is called a covenant or a testament. The Lord is telling them that he will be their God and they will be his people. Abraham and Sarah are going to leave the places with which they are familiar. They are going to leave the safety and comfort of their homeland, but they are going to be alright because God is for them and not against them. Allow me to pause for a moment to point out to you how important this is. God tells Abraham and Sarah that he is for them. He's on their side. If God is for you, who cares who or what might be against you! And the fact that God tells them this is very good. They are not left wondering about the inscrutable mysteries of God. Who can know the mind of God or who has been his counselor? But a person can know the mind of God when God reveals his mind and his will. Here in Genesis chapter 12 God reveals that he is for Abraham and Sarah. He will bless them, and through them and their seed the whole world will be blessed. Realize that although God has chosen Abraham and Sarah, although God has made a covenant with them to be their God and bless them, this didn't mean that their life would be painless and whatsoever they might desire would come true. That is a false assumption. When someone hears that God is for them, he or she might immediately think, “Oh good. Now everything is going to go exactly how I want.” God, they imagine, is kind of like a genie in a bottle. God's going to do whatever I tell him. This is obviously not the case as anyone knows who has even a passing familiarity with the stories of the Bible. This wasn't true with Abraham. In the chapters that follow our reading from Genesis chapter 12 we hear about all kinds of difficulties that Abraham and Sarah encountered. However, even though they went through painful, stressful, and harrowing adventures God was nevertheless for them. His covenant remained true. I'll just mention one extreme test, which is horrifying to anyone who takes it seriously—the time that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. As you know, God provided a ram as a substitute for Isaac, but that whole experience was terribly trying and awful. If Moses hadn't recorded it, I wouldn't think it would be possible that the Lord God would do that. But even in the midst of that great struggle, God was for Abraham and not against him. Abraham, for his part, believed God, and this was credited to him as righteousness. You shouldn't misunderstand that statement to mean that Abraham's faith was some great accomplishment on Abraham's part. It wasn't like Abraham tried his hardest, never gave up, and voila! he believed. No, it was the Holy Spirit in God's Word of promise that caused him to believe. God said, “I will be your God. I'm for you,” and Abraham believed that God was telling him the truth and not lying. If God wouldn't have told him what he told him Abraham never would have believed. By God telling him, by God giving Abraham the gift of faith, Abraham believed, and this was credited to him as righteousness. He was justified by faith in God's promise. Now I mentioned at the beginning that our Old Testament reading is important for understanding the rest of the Bible. It's important because it is the beginning of the story that is going to subsequently play out over the course of thousands of years, even up to the present day. In our reading you heard God's promise that he would bless Abraham and Sarah. He would make a great nation of them. All the families of the earth would be blessed in them. And so it went. Abraham and Sarah had a son named Isaac. Isaac and his wife Rebecca had a son named Jacob. Jacob, like his grandfather, would eventually get a new name from God. He was given the name Israel. And Israel had 12 sons. Those twelve sons would eventually become the 12 tribes of Israel. The Old Testament, with all its history, with its dozens upon dozens of generations, is about the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose God was the Lord God. All of this traces back to the reading we heard this morning. It all starts with God talking to a man named Abram who was 75 years old at the time. He promised him that he would be his God, and that he and his descendants would be his people. They believed this promise and their faith was credited to them as righteousness. This carries over also into the New Testament. In our Epistle reading from Romans Paul is making a wonderful and persuasive argument for why the real descendants of Abraham are not those who are descendants according to the flesh, but are those who follow Abraham's example. Abraham's descendants are those who believe God's promise and are justified by faith. This is how Genesis chapter 12 is important and applicable also to us, all the way down to our current time and place. Unlike Genesis 12, the Lord God has not appeared to us or spoken to us in the same way that he spoke to Abraham, but that was never what was really important about what happened. What was important was the content of God's message to Abraham. What was important was the promise God made to Abram and his descendants. Abraham came to know the mind of the Lord towards him. We, too, have come to know of the Lord God's promises to us. We learn that God is for us and not against us when the good news of Jesus's full and complete redemption is made known to us. Whenever you hear the good news that Jesus has died for your sins and that you are therefore forgiven, you are hearing something very similar to what God told Abraham—except, if anything, the message you hear is an even higher and better message. And when you were baptized, God said to you essentially: “I am yours and you are mine. I'm baptizing you into the death of my beloved Son. You are now born again by the water and the Holy Spirit so that through the forgiveness of sins you are welcome to enter the kingdom of God.” God most assuredly has said this to you in your baptism, for that is the meaning of your baptism. There's no doubt about God having said this because we know that you have been baptized. You might not believe it, but that doesn't change what God has said or done. Blessed are you if you do believe it. Blessed are you if you believe that God is for you and not against you, come what may. You are his and he is yours. And we have been given another promise, another statement of God's loving care towards us, in the Lord's Supper. Jesus says of the bread: “This is my body which is given for you.” And of the wine he says: “This cup is the new testament—that is, new covenant or promise, the very kind of thing that God did with Abraham—this cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you drink of it, do so in remembrance of me.” The Lord's Supper is nothing other than Jesus saying to you that he is for you, God is for you, your sins are forgiven. God is for you and not against you. Blessed are you if you believe this. Through faith in this promise you are justified. So now let's move to the relationship that you and I have had these past 12 years. God has given me the job of telling you what God has promised. The Gospel, baptism, the Lord's Supper—these are never-failing promises from God about his forgiveness and loving care for sinners. When you believe that God is for you and not against you because God has told this to you, and you believe that he is not a liar, but speaking the truth, then you are just like Abraham of old. He believed that God was for him and not against him. So my job as pastor has not been anything original or anything that came from me—at least when it comes to anything that is truly worthwhile. I only repeat to you what I myself have heard from others. The Gospel and the Sacraments do what they do because God makes them work, because God who says them is truthful. The one thing I will say about a pastor's effectiveness is that a pastor needs to be faithful to what he has been given to do. A pastor needs to baptize. A pastor needs to not mess around with the Lord's Supper or the Creed. A pastor needs to actually talk about these things and not waste people's time with any number of other things—even if those other things might be more entertaining, more attractive to new-comers, or in some other way might seem to promise success for himself or the congregation. If a pastor does not faithfully give out what he is supposed to, such a pastor would be like Abraham if Abraham were to squander God's promise by not telling others about it. Suppose that he didn't tell his children and grandchildren about God's promise, but instead liked to entertain them with jokes or stories. Or maybe even he liked to tell them about how to be good citizens or some other serious things. If Abraham wouldn't have told his descendants about God's promise, then God's promise would not be known and believed. Abraham needed to be faithful to what was given to him. How can anyone know God's will towards them unless it be told them? And so the most essential thing about a pastor is that he be faithful to what he has been commanded to give. What the pastor has been commanded to give is what also already belongs to all of you. When I speak of God's promises, when I administer the sacraments—none of that comes from me, none of that is secret, none of that comes from my genius. All of that is common property in Christendom. You all know that just as well as I do. And now this job that I have been doing is going to be passed along to somebody else. You are going to have a vacancy pastor. And then, God willing, God will give you another pastor to serve you full time. These other pastors will inevitably be different from me. No two pastors are ever the same. God gives different gifts to all his Christians, pastors included. But although your pastors in the future will be different from me in terms of their gifts and personality, they will be giving you the same things I've been giving you— at least when it comes to the important things, the saving things. These pastors have taken the same solemn oath that I've taken—to do the job of preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments. It is God's promise that is so essential and important. It is by faith in this promise—faith that God is for me and not against me—that makes anyone a Christian. It is by faith in Christ that we are justified. So as my time with you draws to a close, what is good, important, and saving about the work that I have done is going to continue on among you. I am sure that you are going to continue to hear that you are sinners. I am sure that you are going to continue to hear that you are sinners who have been justified, made righteous, by God in Jesus. God has worked these good things in this congregation before I ever came, he has worked through my service, and he will continue to work in this congregation after I have gone. If you hold to these promises that God has spoken to you, then we will most certainly see each other again. We might not see each other again in this life—although I'd like that very much—but we will certainly see each other again at the marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom which has no end. There we will be with a multitude that comes from the east and the west to sit at the feast of salvation. With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the blessed obeying the Lord's invitation. Have mercy upon us O Jesus! I'm thankful for the time that we have spent together. May God continue to bless us with faith in his love toward us for Jesus's sake. Amen!

Holy moments can be anywhere. However, sometimes we miss them if we are fixated on the wrong thing. When we read the account of Moses and the burning bush, God tells him to “turn aside.” If Moses hadn't adjusted his approach, he very well could have missed God's presence. For us, turning aside means looking away from anything that would distract us from Him.

Holy moments can be anywhere. However, sometimes we miss them if we are fixated on the wrong thing. When we read the account of Moses and the burning bush, God tells him to “turn aside.” If Moses hadn't adjusted his approach, he very well could have missed God's presence. For us, turning aside means looking away from anything that would distract us from Him.

 Afternoon, passion Creek. What a great day to be a part of this community. Amen. Exciting times ahead and as we prepare tonight for the word, let's take a look at Exodus chapter three. But Moses asked God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt? He answered, I will certainly be with you and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you. When you bring the people out of, You will all worship God at this mountain. Then Moses asks, God, if I go to the Israelites and I say to them, the God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name? What should I tell them? God replied to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are To say to the Israelites I am has sent me to. Amen. Thank you Ron so much. If you guys can open your Bibles to that. In Exodus chapter three, we're just doing like a six part series on the life of Moses. And so, and leading up to, uh, when we we're finished, we're gonna be actually in the new place and we have a whole nother series we're really excited about as we start in the junior high. Uh, but Pastor Caleb, I thought did a phenomenal job last week. We learned, uh, many things, but one of the things in Exodus two is Moses, he did the right thing for all the wrong in all the wrong. , right? And so he was bothered by the oppression of his people. And so we see that he took matters into his own hands. He struck the Egyptian, hid him under the sand. And I don't, it seems kind of in the text, he wasn't particularly remorseful or guilty until he got caught. Uh, the next day, uh, the, uh, the Israelites were saying you were the one who murdered this Egyptian. And so what he does, kind of what all of us would do, he bottles up that shame and he runs away and he runs to the. So now we're back into the story where Moses' dreams are dashed. This royalty he was in the house of the Pharaoh, is now a refugee Moses, which actually means to be drawn out by water. This significant imagery of water is now stuck in a dry and barren desert. Everything his life thought was going to be is completely opposite. Now, what does he do? We actually learned in Acts chapter seven that Moses was in the wilderness here for 40 years, and at the 40 year mark, Moses noticed something out of the ordinary. Look at it mean. Look at it with me. In verse one of chapter three, it says, meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law jet. The priest of Midian, he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horrib the mountain of God. By the way, later, Horeb is also the same phrase for Sinai, which is where Moses gets the 10 Commandments. We'll probably talk more about that later in a few, uh, messages. Why does he say hob sometimes than Sinai and other, but it's pretty significant. Verse two, then an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. We first need to give Moses props for noticing, right? Like most of us, especially today, we are so focused on getting attention that we never give enough space to give attention. Especially in our economy and our world of attention grabbing with social media. How many of us are even at a spot like Pastor Caleb said to practice last week? Silence and solitude. If Moses wasn't practicing silence and solitude, maybe he would've never seen this bush and maybe this story wouldn't have happened. Look at verse three. So Moses thought I must go over and look at this remarkable. Why isn't the bush burning up now? Scholars have long debated the significance of the burning bush. Lemme give you a few theories of what people think the bush and the fire represent. Uh, the first one is the bush is Israel and the fire is the oppression of Egypt. And so bush, uh, what's interesting too about Israel, that it's a very. Israel has always kind of mentioned as just common people. There's nothing particularly amazing about them, just that God chose them, which by the way, amen. Nothing particularly great about you, but God loves you and that's what makes you so great. All right, so the bush is Israel, and what's interesting here is the fire, which would normally do wet to a bush, completely dissipate it. Instead, the bush is still living. And it's a picture. Some scholars point to the fact that although Israel is in the midst of slavery and oppression with seemingly no way out, they're still strong despite being enslaved, despite them wanting to kill all of the sons, they're still here. Another example though of the bush. The bush equals God's imminence and the fire equals God's transcendence. These are big theological terms. Let me explain. Imminence simply means that God isn't just high in the sky. He is with us. He's present with his people in the most ordinary of circumstances in the most ordinary of ways. If you hear Christmas Eve, we talked about how Jesus is fully. Right. He is imminent. He is with us. You would assume God is in this special place up in a high tower, but instead his presence is with us even in the midst of something as common as a bush, but also the transcendence. The transcendence points to the power and holiness of God. So the fire is something altogether, not like we're used to. God is not someone to be trifled with. He may be in the ordinary, but do not. He is not like us. He is not even just extraordinary. He is holy other than us, which again, kind of points to Jesus. He is fully man. God's imminent with us, but also he is still. Jesus is fully God worthy of our worship and praise on his holy other than us. One more theory. That. I think, by the way, this is like the main reason why it's the bush and the fire. But one more that I think is really interesting. Uh, pastor Caleb has me in, not really, but getting me into more and more, uh, where is he? A Greek Orthodox art . Oh, he's fixing his guitar. I call them out the worst time. Yo. Okay, so he has me looking into Greek Orthodox art more, which is weird. Don't do it. But what's pretty fascinating is Mary, there's a picture of Mary and she is painted as if. Fully consumed, not consumed, but surrounded by fire. And so the bush equals Mary's womb and the fire equals the presence of Jesus. And isn't that amazing like a bush? Mary is just an ordinary woman, but extraordinarily used by God. And in the God of the Old Testament as we read, God is so holy and unlike us, typically, if you encounter God, you die at the spot, and yet God in His grace doesn't consume. Mary is preserved and Mary is used for the story of God. Anyways, that'll preach, but let's keep going. Verse four, it says, when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, look at that he noticed. He's responding to Moses's attention. God called out to him from the bush, Moses, Moses. You see this throughout the Bible when they say the phrase multiple times, it's to get someone's attention, but it's also affectionate. If you see like Jesus, he always says, Peter, Peter, it. It's actually a sign of love and a, it's almost like saying, Hey, look in my eyes. And so Moses replies, here I am. He answered, do not come closer. He said, remove the sandals from your feet for the place where you're standing is holy ground. So then he continued. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of. Now you have to recognize this is news to Moses. Moses has been an identity crisis. He was born a Hebrew, but raised in Egyptian. So when a God appears the God and says, Hey, I'm the God of your fathers, he must be thinking, which one? I don't know who I am the God of Pharaoh. Or the God of Abraham, the, the story of those, uh, of, of that lineage. He doesn't know who his dad really is. And so God here is already giving him an assurance of who he is. No, your father is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And so Moses hit his face because he was afraid to look at God. This is to insinuate how powerful in the presence of God in this moment was, was overwhelming. So then the Lord said, I ob observed the misery of my people in. And I've heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I've come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land. A land flowing with milk and honey, the territory of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, parasites, HIEs, and Jes. So because the Israelites cry for help has come to me, and I've also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing. Therefore go, I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites out of Egypt. So first we have to see this passage says more about God than it does about Moses. First of all, God didn't pick Moses because he's perfect. It's not like Moses all of a sudden because he was in the desert for 40 years as this perfect human being. Instead, we see here that God's just a God of grace, and in his gracious choosing, he chooses Moses. Also, we see God doesn't have to. God is right for just not intervening because God is God. He doesn't need us. He doesn't owe us anything. And so the fact we even read in the Old Testament that he's calling them my people, that he feels their, their, their cries and, and wants to come down. This is a personal God. This is a God that nobody had ever heard of, especially in the ancient Near East. No one imagined a God like this who's so extremely personal. But also we have to see here in this text, God doesn't need any of us. He is wholly self. We're about to see in verse 14. He has that phrase, I am. I am who I am, Yahweh, which means this. In his kindness, God is inviting Moses. Look, verse 10, therefore go. He's inviting Moses to have a part to play, not because he needs Moses, but because in his grace he decides to use him. And that can be the same for you and me. God does not need us, but in his grace, he invites. To be a part of his mission, but I do want to, so there's, I, we can literally talk for eternity about God and his character and what we even see just in this passage. But I also want us to use this moment to, to what does this mean for the life of Moses now? Now, quickly, it's likely Moses was never expecting a word from God, and there's three reasons why, uh, should be on the screen. Number one, he's a murderer. Right, so God is holy. We are not, and and God in his holiness cannot be approached, especially by someone who as sinned so much that he murdered someone. So Moses is carrying around this shame, and so he is not imagining God coming and intervening. The second reason is the last time God spoke was 400 years prior. Anybody else noticed the significance of the 400 year gap of silence? Where else did that?  between the old and the New Testament, right? When Jesus was introduced, when, when the angel came down and said, I've become to bring good news, there was a 400 year gap of silence. We also have it here. And so the last time God spoke to his people was to Jacob to go to Egypt, and that one day they will be rescued and sent to the promised land. But now that's been 400 years. So Moses doesn't know anyone who knows anyone who heard a word from God. So he's not expecting it. And number three, he's in the middle of nowhere. Midian is a desert in the ancient Near East Place meant something. I actually think we can do a great service to us if we begin to recognize the significance of a place. I think one reason why our souls are so distraught and disconnected is we never stay somewhere long enough. , right? There's something beautiful about planting roots and just being who you are with the people who are around you, whatever those, whoever those neighbors are. But anyways, he says he names his son in Exodus two. He's, he names his son, gosh. And gosh, literally means I am a foreigner in a foreign land. What's Moses saying here? Saying, I'm lost? My son represents this season of life, and in this season, nobody knows who I am and I don't know where. So he is thinking, God won't speak to me. He has no home. Moses has no security. Moses has no identity, and by this point he is in a deep identity crisis. In fact, one could argue he just has given up to even figure out who he is. Is Moses like pastor Caleb mentioned last week. Is he an Egyptian or a Hebrew? Is he special? Or is he just a shepherd? Is he a deliverer or is he just a murderer? Is Moses chosen by God or just forgotten by God? And I imagine you are well acquainted with this type of crisis. And I know , I know I am right, but this crisis is way too important for us to brush off and distract ourselves. And I think that's the grace that Moses had getting to the desert. He had nothing to distract himself and now he had to encounter God. Now, the world today, we'll call this identity crisis, but here's what the crisis really is. Write this down. The crisis of knowing self and knowing God, these are two equally important crises, that for some of us, it's why we are so disintegrated, so depressed, and so. There's been a lot of theologians throughout history who have claimed that these two things are the most important tasks to partake in the journey, to partake in, uh, for us to really live out what God has called us to German theologian, a meister I Eckhart, he said the following, he says, no one can know God, who does not first know himself. Sounds a little new agey, doesn't it? What's going on here? No, we need to know ourself. How about the 15th century Spanish nun, St. Teresa of Avila, where we get a lot of our stage theory of the Christian life from? She says, almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self knowledge. Now, let me give you one more person, which may most people, if you, if you're a theology nerd in the room, you would never guess he would say such a thing. Reform theologian, John Calvin. He said the following, our wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts. The knowledge of God and of ourselves. He actually goes on to say, but as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. So in other words, do you try to know yourself first or you try to know God first? And John Calvin says, yes, it is a journey that goes together hand. And so this journey, this process is what I would call is the egoic journey, the journey of the ego, figuring out who you are and what God's called you to. So there are stages if you, if you're around passion Greek, you know, we love this stuff. But there seems to be throughout the biblical text, throughout just life in general, there seems to be stages of your journey in figuring out who you are. And in so doing, also figuring out who God is. Now, most of us begin here at stage one, which is the conceited. This is the blessing of being young, by the way, cuz you don't know any better. You're just ignorant and you think you're awesome. , God will fix that. But anyways, concede itself. What happens when you're conceited is a simple reality and it's okay. Life hasn't beat you up enough. And so there's still something in you that says, I can figure it out. I have the power. Just give me the control. And in God's patie, You'll see throughout the Bible, God uses conceited people for some pretty extraordinary things. Now, he beats out that conceit, but he uses them. Think of the story of Joseph in his arrogance, tells his brothers about how great he is and how they're going to worship and serve him. One day he's conceited. That was not the point of the vision, but God still used them. Moses in his conceit, saw the Israelites hurting and he thought, I'll take care of this. Let me just kill. Conceited, and this is what happens. And here's what, what. Here's different ways you can figure out if you're conceited. And it's okay. There's grace in this room. Let me just say quickly. This has been a lot of my life. All right, so the conceit itself finds identity in one of three ways, or possibly all three. First off is performance. So some of us, we think I'm great because of what I do. Right, so you'll see this a lot in the sports world, in the career world, right? I'm just really good at this specific task, and let me just say, it's great to have pride in what you're doing. I think that's totally fine, but you cannot base your worth off of what you're doing. See the difference there. What's hard though is some of us we're so good at what we do. It's a pretty good idol. You're pretty satisfied for a while because you work hard and you get paid. The second way that the conceit itself finds its identity is in possessions. I'm great. Maybe not for what I do, but I'm great because of what I have. Some of you have won the lottery, like literally, if you have talked to me, we're trying to get a church building. You know what? But possessions wise, right? You find your hope and satisfaction on the things that you own, right? You actually compare your worth and value by comparing what items you have versus what items they. This is all good and dandy until that no longer works, right? Or the third one is popularity. I think some of us have actually never graduated from high school, right? All of life is who's at the popular table. So I'm great because of what others think of me. Social media has taken that and cranked it up to a hundred. You can now people say your value is based off how many people follow. Like I have people, I have a YouTube channel, been slaving over it for six years. I have this, it's a steady amount of subscribers, but oh, the judgment. When I tell people how many subs they have, they go, oh, hmm, okay, and move on. And you're like, no, I'm worth more than what you think. You know, like this is a thing. Popularity, the conceited self runs to this. And the reality is is Moses could actually run to at least several of these popularity. He was in the Pharaoh's home possessions. He was in the Pharaoh's house. And so this probably helped, you know, boost his ego, but by the grace of God, and here's what happens. If God is so gracious to you, God will meet you at a moment where you have been completely stripped of all your arrogance and conceit. God does this many different ways. I think one way, God, we as a church went through the Book of Ecclesiastes last year and I, and I think that's a huge way God can grace you with a sense of exhaust. You're just exhausted. Like possessions. Just they, they never satisfy performance. There's always somebody better popularity. I'm never enough. And so the chase isn't fulfilling, and so if you're here for the Ecclesiastes series, you just kind of say, heaven, it's useless. You have it all and you still need more. Or God can grace you, not with exhaustion, but with embarrassment. There's maybe a moment where you are publicly humili. You lose everything, someone takes over the spotlight. Or like Moses, you take it a step too far and wind up murdering someone and having to run away. So Moses was the conceit itself, and he ran away embarrassed and ashamed. And after the beat down, if you and I are given the Grace Long enough, what typically happens is we now enter into the desert of the defeat. Your wounds have stacked up against you. Your opportunities have slipped away from your fingertips. Those relationships were not based on love, but on a contract on performance. And you are now left alone. And if I can be honest, I am much more acquainted with this one in more recent. And as I wrestle with this text and as I've been praying about us getting victory over the defeat itself, I have to acknowledge moving on from here does not happen quickly, nor does it happen easily. Let me give you some examples. What does it mean to be the defeat itself? Maybe you're in the room thinking, is this who I am? Well, here's how you can know. The defeat itself finds its identities in one of three ways. One is victim. , right? You live your whole life. If others knew how hard I had it, your, your identity is your illness, right? You just tell everyone how bad you have it, and that's how you find hope. You're defeated. Your hope isn't in victory. It's in being a victim. The second thing is vengeance. The defeated self thinks, okay, if I can just make them feel the pain that they made me feel, then I'll be. So you're living really an operation of defeat. You're bitter, you're looking to the past, not to the future. And this next one honestly, is a word that I haven't heard until recently and I'm hearing a lot of psychologists, experts, uh, mention. It's, is voyeurism. Voyeurism at its most basic element is just finding pleasure and watching others do what you can never do or what you would never be brave enough to do. Not, it's worse. Voyeurism can be uh, things like watching things online, but it's also just in being a fan of, of, of a football team. And your whole life is just about that cuz you can't find victory. So you just watch others do victory while you sit on the couch. That's the defeat itself. And to be honest, I know that we get so annoyed with, with young men being so conce. But I think some of us, we just put them to the defeated realm and we just leave 'em alone. Men, we, we need to have a journey to go towards, right? It's not a victory that many teenagers can't even think of what life could look like, and so many have committed suicide. So many have no future because we have made sure to tell them how terrible this world is, how terrible they are, and then we wonder why we're in the mess. So, so many men, and I'm speaking to that just cuz I'm a man if you didn't know. Um, voyeurism is a huge, huge thing that men are running to. They've raised their white flag and they just wanna watch somebody else be victorious for them. Now Moses, he, he had a lot of emotions to process in the desert, right? Victimhood, maybe thinking, man, they don't understand why I did that. Right? I murdered that guy because I wanted to save them, but now they were mad at me, right? Vengeance. Man, I need a man. Look what the Egyptians have done to me. Look what those Israelites have done to me. But they don't know, right? And they're stuck. And we're honest with ourselves. You and I are well acquainted with this cycle of being conceited and then being defeated and then having enough self illusion we are conceited again, and then we get defeated all the more. And the reality is, is without God, you are either conceded or. But God can step in sometimes in a burning bush moment and flip things around. What's what's fascinating is today, technically it's on Tuesday, but today is our seven year anniversary as a church.  and, um, it is entirely not gone the way that I planned at all on the five year vision board or the 10, or even the two. And so the ver the first few years and some of you in the room you were there, um, I, I would say I was clearly the conceited self. And the reality is, is, uh, church planning book I read last year has said that. I think every single church planner is conceited or else they would be too wise to not plant a church. Uh, but we're so arrogant we think, no, we can do it. Okay. The stats are 90% failed. Yeah, but I'm like, the 1%, you know, I'm the greatest, so let's do it. And so God in his grace somehow does that. And so this journey of planning a church has been humiliating. It has been slow, so slow, way slower than I thought. And um, for the first few years, I would just give myself a pep.  or I go to Disneyland, , and then we would move forward. But eventually that exhaustion and that embarrassment got to me. And as I look back at my life, like I I, I had this moment where I looked at Jordan and I said, look, the more effort I put in doesn't equal more success. And that's frustrating, right? I try harder, but get almost the very same or even less results. What do I. . So the last few years has really, I know some of you're like, Trey, you, you're too vulnerable. Whatever. The last few years has like broken me like, um, it's been hard. I think it's hard for all of us. I'm only sharing this because I want to identify with the story, Moses, and hopefully it's helpful to you. But I think what, what I've noticed is I've kind of shifted from conceit itself to defeat itself, and it is very, very hard to lead when you are defeated. Man. I even think about last year I went from like full of energy to just fighting for any amount of energy. And so I found out about this thing called coffee and I was like, whoa, this is how humans actually exist. This makes sense to me now. And then I found out about monsters and I was like, wow, like how did I get through college without these drugs? Uh, and so, but I went from. So much energy to like needing substances to push me forward. I went from clarity. You would, if you would ask me ever, like, what's your five year, 10 year plan? What? Oh, I would have all the answers. I went through a season where I was confused. I don't know. I just know my Bible's right, so let's just keep reading it. One more. The, the biggest thing I found from going conceited to defeated, um,  in the first few years, I, I loved my sermons. Like I would watch him again and go, why aren't more people listening? You know, like, come on. Did you hear that rhyme? You know, And now, like I despise them. And every week I walk down and go, what am I supposed to be? An artistic, like graphic designer? You know? Like, I'm just like, what is my purpose in life? And, and what's been so helpful, and this all has a purpose besides like making sure you never look at me like a strong leader ever again. But part of this is recognizing this is the journey of the Christian life. This is a part of. I read Hebrews, uh, 10 through 12 this morning, and in it he says, no. Listen. Listen. God disciplines, those he loves, like God in his mercy actually makes life hard on you because he's teaching you this thing called faith and perseverance and humility. And even like for me, man, two years ago, I would've said a sermon on identity would've made that would've made me. Quit struggling. You know, like I would always make fun of people like, you know, the friends who say, I just need to go across the world to find myself. I'm like, that's not gonna help. You know, like, you're right there, you know? But now I'm like, I kinda get it. Like, anybody got a ticket? Let's go to Malaysia. I don't know, let's figure something out. You know? And this struggle, like the dark fog of the unknown. And, and I hesitate to say this, but I, I really do feel like we're entering into a new season as a church and in my own life, and it's very exciting. And now I, I believe clarity is coming back and opportunity and favor in ways we've never seen before. But, but what, what I've learned, and I think what Moses is interacting with here, is you cannot skip the desert. The reality is, is God will keep you in the desert as long as he needs because he loves you. Here's the good. God's deliverance is imminent. When you accept, you are limited. This was the burning bush moment for Moses. God had to wait until Moses was at this beautiful crossroads of knowing. Man, I can't do it all by myself, but man, I still wanna do something good. H, how do I, I need God or else I can't. Well, I need to do something. See, Moses had to get to the end of himself so that he had the eyes to see God. Look at verse 11. This is how God now introduces himself. So, so he says, Moses, ask God, who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of? Look how he answers. He says, I will certainly be with you. That's all you need to know that I'm with you, and this will be the sign to you just to comfort him. I'm the one who sent you. When you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain. You know this mountain? You keep walking around for 40 years. There's a purpose I've been, this feels useless. But this mountain here was always here for the future. You just never understood it until now. This is the sign, the very fact where you're sitting, standing, I'm gonna give you the 10 commandments in the law, verse 13. Then Moses asked if I go to the Israelites. So he is still kind of like that defeated itself. Like, okay, uh, well what about this? What about that? So now he says, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your ancestors will send me to you, and they ask, well, what's his name? What should I tell them? These are the most two simple questions we always ask. Who am I? And God, who are you? So God, in his grace answers, God replied to him saying, I am who I am. This is what you are to say. The Israelites I am has sent you this. This name means Yahweh. This is He always was. He always is. He will forever will be. Don't worry, he has this in his hands.  look at the two gifts, even just in 11th through 14 that Moses has given. Number one, Moses is given the gift of a limited self, not conceited, not defeated, just limited. See, God doesn't call him up to be strong and mighty. Again, that's exactly what the conceited self wants to hear. But also notice God doesn't like cast him out for failing to live up to God's standards. That's what the defeat itself expects to. Instead, he's saying, Moses like, who am I? God is saying, Moses, you're limited, but you're anointed. You're limited, but you have my presence, so it's gonna be good. Other passages say, I am who I am. Other people translate as I, I will be who I will be. You just watch. You just wait and see. And that's the second thing He, he's given the grace of a covenant God. So who am I? I'm. God, who are you? God's a covenant loving, faithful God. Time and time again, God is saying, I will be with you. Moses says, but what about this? He says, I am with you. I will go before you. I am your power. I am who you need me to be, but God, who are you? I'm the God of mercy. I'm the God of faithful, never-ending. Love. Love. And this is where the egoic journey eventually leads us to. It eventually leads. These are the two questions I want us as our response time to think about, to pray to meditate, maybe kind of just spend some time with God is this first question, will you accept who you have actually become? Now to the conceit itself, you're not as great as you think . Just accept who you really are to the defeat itself. Hey, actually, God's doing a lot more in your life than you. You're just limited. You're one human and that's actually such a grace. I want you to wrestle with that question this week. Will you ex, will you accept who you have actually become? This is especially true for those of us on the back half of life. The saying goes, young people are only nice cuz they keep thinking one day they'll be nice. Right? They have expectation. They'll actually. Will you accept who you've actually become? Will you get really honest the things that have been done to you? Will you just accept that? Realize this is always, this trauma is a part of my story. James K. Smith, he wrote a book, wait, it's, it wasn't that great, but he had a line in there that I thought was so good, talking about the grace of just recognizing who you are and being okay. It's not on the screen, but I put it on my notes this afternoon cause I think it's so good. It says, grace is not a time machine. Grace is not a reset button. I think that's what we want. We come to church cuz we don't like who we become. So we want the reset. It says no Grace is something even more unbelievable. It's restoration. It is reconciliation of, and despite our histories of animos. Grace isn't an undoing, it is overcoming. Isn't that interesting? When Jesus rose again on the third day, he still had the scars. See, when we talk about come to Christ, come to the cross, come to His grace, we're not saying we reset everything that's ever happened in your life. But the reality is, is there is a resurrection that. The pain is now being resurrected into something beautiful. The brokenness is being resurrected into something powerful. This wandering by Mount Ho for 40 years is now being resurrected to where this is the very place where people will encounter God and the ethics of all of Israel will be set throughout all eternity. What he does is God isn't looking to reset, to ignore. No. He is taking all your pain and all your hopes and dreams, and what he wants to do is for you to come to the end of your. Clinging to the cross of Christ, receive him, surrender to him, trust him, and in his power. What he does is he takes your history, he takes your pain, he takes your sin, and and the very things he used to struggle with, the things that you hate about yourself now through the resurrection, gives you a grace to be a source of love to those people who you once were. You now have greater empathy. You now have greater patience and love and purpose and courage. This is all according to his plan. The second question you have to wrestle with, that you have to get honest with is will you surrender to who God actually is? Man, God is way more personal than you've ever imagined. Look at the text. God is way more holy than you'd ever expect, but God is so much more loving than you could ever hope for. Will you surrender? Will you surrender to him, Phil led, just to kind of just sit there. Will you actually accept who you've actually become and will you surrender to who God actually is? What we're gonna do this week in your together groups? We're gonna put forth, we're trying to think through what's a practice here that can help you kind of have a burning bush moment And just thinking through the daily examine. It's a, most of this just go on the, on the group guide on the website, but quickly it's an exercise where you just review your day and you say, okay, where's all the bad stuff? What was all the gracious stuff? And, and just thank God for it. And we wanna do is actually, as you start groups again, this week, pastor Caleb's done a great job of doing a a decade by decade. What, what we wanna invite you to do is to, to look at your life a and and to ask for the spirit's guidance and get honest and accept your past failure, decade by decade. Writing him down, but then recognizing and accepting God's grace throughout all of that decade by decade and giving thanks to him. I'm really encouraged for us to do that, but again, I want us to, Which question are you wrestling with most? Will you accept who you've actually become? Cuz God doesn't want to work with your idealized self. He wants to impact and work with your real self. And will you surrender to who God actually is? Way more loving than you'd ever imagined. Way more gracious, personal, holy. And it's that intersection. We can have a burning bush moment that sets. Towards a purpose and mission for the rest of our life.

I had a fascinating discussion about Robert Moses and The Power Broker with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.He's the pre-eminent historian on NYC and author of Robert Moses and The Modern City: The Transformation of New York.He answers:* Why are we so much worse at building things today?* Would NYC be like Detroit without the master builder?* Does it take a tyrant to stop NIMBY?Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.If you end up enjoying this episode, I would be super grateful if you share it, post it on Twitter, send it to your friends & group chats, and throw it up wherever else people might find it. Can't exaggerate how much it helps a small podcast like mine.A huge thanks to Graham Bessellieu for editing this podcast.Timestamps(0:00:00) Preview + Intro(0:11:13) How Moses Gained Power(0:18:22) Moses Saved NYC?(0:27:31) Moses the Startup Founder?(0:32:34) The Case Against Moses Highways(0:51:24) NIMBYism(1:03:44) Is Progress Cyclical(1:12:36) Friendship with Caro(1:20:41) Moses the Longtermist?.TranscriptThis transcript was produced by a program I wrote. If you consume my podcast via transcripts, let me know in the comments if this transcript was (or wasn't) an adequate substitute for the human edited transcripts in previous episodes.0:00:00 Preview + IntroKenneth Jackson 0:00:00Robert Moses represented a past, you know, a time when we wanted to build bridges and super highways and things that pretty much has gone on. We're not building super highways now. We're not building vast bridges like Moses built all the time. Had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit. Essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. And I think it was the best book I ever read. In broad strokes, it's correct. Robert Moses had more power than any urban figure in American history. He built incredible monuments. He was ruthless and arrogant and honest. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:54I am really, really excited about this one. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson about the life and legacy of Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the preeminent historian on New York City. He was the director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and the Jock Barzun Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he has also shared the Department of History. And we were discussing Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the author and editor of Robert Moses and the Modern City, the Transformation of New York. Professor Jackson, welcome to the podcast.Kenneth Jackson 0:01:37Well, thank you for having me. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:40So many people will have heard of Robert Moses and be vaguely aware of him through the popular biography of him by Robert Caro, the power broker. But most people will not be aware of the extent of his influence on New York City. Can you give a kind of a summary of the things he was able to get built in New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:02:03One of the best comparisons I can think of is that our Caro himself, when he compared him to Christopher Wren in London, he said, if you would see his monument, look around. It's almost more easier to talk about what Moses didn't do than what he did do. If you all the roads, essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. I mean, he didn't actually do it with his own two hands, but he was in charge. He got it done. And Robert Caro wrote a really great book. I think the book was flawed because I think Caro only looked at Moses's own documents and Moses had a very narrow view of himself. I mean, he thought he was a great man, but I mean, he didn't pay any attention to what was going on in LA very much, for example. But clearly, by any standard, he's the greatest builder in American history. There's nobody really in second place. And not only did he build and spend this vast amount of money, he was in power for a long time, really a half century more or less. And he had a singular focus. He was married, but his personal life was not important to him. He did it without scandal, really, even Caro admits that he really died with less than he started with. So I mean, he wanted power, and boy, did he have power. He technically was subservient to governors and mayors, but since he built so much and since he had multiple jobs, that was part of his secret. He had as many as six, eight, ten different things at once. If the mayor fired him or got rid of him, he had all these different ways, which he was in charge of that the mayor couldn't. So you people were afraid of him, and they also respected him. He was very smart, and he worked for a dollar a year. So what are you going to get him for? As Caro says, nobody is ready to be compared with Robert Moses. In fact, compares him with an act of nature. In other words, the person you can compare him with is God. That's the person. He put the rivers in. He put the hills in. He put the island in. Compare that to Moses, what Moses did. No other person could compare to that. That's a little bit of exaggeration, but when you really think about Robert Moses and you read the Power Broker, you are stunned by the scope of his achievement. Just stunned. And even beyond New York, when we think of the interstate highway system, which really starts in 1954, 55, 56, and which is 40-something thousand miles of interstate highways, those were built by Moses' men, people who had in their young life had worked with the parkways and expressways in and around New York City. So they were ready to go. So Moses and Moses also worked outside New York City, mostly inside New York City, but he achieved so much. So probably you need to understand it's not easy to get things done in New York. It's very, very dense, much twice as dense as any place in the United States and full of neighborhoods that feel like little cities and are little cities and that don't want change even today. A place like Austin, for example, is heavy into development, not New York. You want to build a tall building in New York, you got to fight for it. And the fact that he did so much in the face of opposition speaks a lot to his methods and the way he… How did Moses do what he did? That is a huge question because it isn't happening anymore, certainly not in New YorkDwarkesh Patel 0:06:22City. Yeah. And that's really why I actually wanted to talk to you and talk about this book because the Power Broker was released in 1974 and at the time New York was not doing well, which is to put it mildly. But today the crisis we face is one where we haven't built significant public works in many American cities for decades. And so it's interesting to look back on a time when we could actually get a lot of public works built very quickly and very efficiently and see if maybe we got our characterization of the people at the time wrong. And that's where your 2007 book comes in. So I'm curious, how was the book received 50 years after, or I guess 40 years after the Power Broker was released? What was the reception like? How does the intellectual climate around these issues change in that time?Kenneth Jackson 0:07:18The Power Broker is a stunning achievement, but you're right. The Power Broker colon Robert Moses and the fall of New York. He's thinking that in the 1970s, which is the… In New York's 400-year history, we think of the 1970s as being the bottom. City was bankrupt, crime was going up, corruption was all around. Nothing was working very well. My argument in the subtitle of the 2007 book or that article is Robert Moses and the rise of New York. Arguing that had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit and St. Louis and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and most cities in the Northeast and Midwest, which really declined. New York City really hasn't declined. It's got more people now than it ever did. It's still a number one city in the world, really, by most of our standards. It's the global leader, maybe along with London. At one point in the 1980s, we thought it might be Tokyo, which is the largest city in the world, but it's no longer considered competitive with New York. I say London too because New York and London are kind of alone at the top. I think Robert Moses' public works, activities, I just don't know that you could have a New York City and not have expressways. I don't like the Cross Bronx expressway either and don't want to drive on it. How can you have a world in which you can't go from Boston to San Francisco? You had to have it. You have to have some highways and Carroll had it exactly wrong. He talked about Moses and the decline of public transit in New York. Actually what you need to explain in New York is why public transit survived in New York, wherein most other American cities, the only people who use public transit are the losers. Oh, the disabled, the poor and stuff like that. In New York City, rich people ride the subway. It's simply the most efficient way to get around and the quickest. That question needs, some of the things need to be turned on its head. How did he get it done? How did he do it without scandal? I mean, when you think about how the world is in our time, when everything has either a financial scandal or a sexual scandal attached to it, Moses didn't have scandals. He built the White Stone Bridge, for example, which is a gigantic bridge connecting the Bronx to Queens. It's beautiful. It was finished in the late 1930s on time and under budget. Actually a little earlier. There's no such thing as that now. You're going to do a big public works project and you're going to do it on time. And also he did it well. Jones Beach, for example, for generations has been considered one of the great public facilities on earth. It's gigantic. And he created it. You know, I know people will say it's just sand and water. No, no, it's a little more complicated than that. So everything he did was complicated. I mean, I think Robert Caro deserves a lot of credit for doing research on Moses, his childhood, his growing up, his assertion that he's the most important person ever to live in and around New York. And just think of Franklin Roosevelt and all the people who lived in and around New York. And Moses is in a category by himself, even though most Americans have never heard of Robert Moses. So his fame is still not, that book made him famous. And I think his legacy will continue to evolve and I think slightly improve as Americans realize that it's so hard, it's hard to build public works, especially in dense urban environments. And he did it.0:11:13 How Moses Gained PowerDwarkesh Patel 0:11:33Yeah. There's so much to talk about there. But like one of the interesting things from the Power Broker is Caro is trying to explain why governors and mayors who were hesitant about the power that Moses was gaining continued to give him more power. And there's a section where he's talking about how FDR would keep giving him more positions and responsibilities, even though FDR and Moses famously had a huge enmity. And he says no governor could look at the difficulty of getting things built in New York and not admire and respect Moses' ability to do things, as he said, efficiently, on time, under budget, and not need him, essentially. But speaking of scandal, you talked about how he didn't take salary for his 12 concurrent government roles that he was on. But there's a very arresting anecdote in the Power Broker where I think he's 71 and his daughter gets cancer. And for the first time, I think he had to accept, maybe I'm getting the details wrong, but he had to accept salary for working on the World's Fair because he didn't have enough. He was the most powerful person in New York, and he didn't have enough money to pay for his daughter's cancer. And even Caro himself says that a lot of the scandals that came later in his life, they were just kind of trivial stuff, like an acre of Central Park or the Shakespeare in the park. Yeah, it wasn't... The things that actually took him down were just trivial scandals.Kenneth Jackson 0:13:07Well, in fact, when he finally was taken down, it took the efforts of a person who was almost considered the second most powerful person in the United States, David Rockefeller, and the governor of New York, both of whom were brothers, and they still had a lot of Moses to make him kind of get out of power in 1968. But it was time. And he exercised power into his 70s and 80s, and most of it was good. I mean, the bridges are remarkable. The bridges are gorgeous, mostly. They're incredible. The Throgs Neck Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, they're really works of art. And he liked to build things you could see. And I think the fact that he didn't take money was important to it. You know, he was not poor. I wouldn't say he's not wealthy in New York terms, but he was not a poor person. He went to Yale as a Jewish person, and let's say in the early 20th century, that's fairly unusual and he lived well. So we can't say he's poor, but I think that Carol was right in saying that what Moses was after in the end was not sex and not power, and not sex and not money. Power. He wanted power. And boy, did he get it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:37Well, there's a good review of the book from, I'm not sure if I remember the last name, but it was Philip Lopgate or something. Low paid, I think.Kenneth Jackson 0:14:45Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:46And he made a good point, which was that the connotation of the word power is very negative, but it's kind of a modern thing really to have this sort of attitude towards power that like somebody who's just seeking it must necessarily have suspicious motivations. If Moses believed, and in fact, he was probably right in believing that he was just much more effective at building public works for the people that live in New York, was it irrational of him or was it selfish of him to just desire to work 14 hour days for 40 years on end in order to accumulate the power by which he could build more public works? So there's a way of looking at it where this pursuit of power is not itself troubling.Kenneth Jackson 0:15:36Well, first of all, I just need to make a point that it's not just New York City. I mean, Jones Beach is on Long Island. A lot of those highways, the Northern State Parkway, the Southern State Parkway are built outside the city and also big projects, the Power Authority in upstate New York. He also was consultant around the world in cities and transportation. So his influence was really felt far beyond New York City. And of course, New York City is so big and so important. I think also that we might want to think about, at least I think so, what do I say, the counterfactual argument. Can you imagine? I can remember when I was in the Air Force, we lived next door to a couple from New York City. We didn't know New York City at the time. And I can't remember whether she or he was from the Bronx or Brooklyn, but they had they made us understand how incredibly much he must have loved her to go to Brooklyn or the Bronx to see her and pick her up for days and stuff like this. You couldn't get there. I mean, it would take you three hours to go from the Rockaways in Brooklyn to somewhere in the Northern Bronx. But the roads that Moses built, you know, I know at rush hour they're jammed, but you know, right this minute on a Sunday, you can whiz around New York City on these expressways that Moses built. It's hard to imagine New York without. The only thing Moses didn't do was the subway, and many people have criticized him because the subways were deteriorated between the time they were built in the early part of the 20th century in 1974 when Carol wrote to Power Broker. But so had public transit systems all over the United States. And the public transit system in New York is now better than it was 50 years ago. So that trajectory has changed. And all these other cities, you know, Pittsburgh used to have 600,000 people. Now it has 300,000. Cleveland used to have 900,000 and something. Now it's below five. Detroit used to have two million. Now it's 600 something thousand. St. Louis used to have 850,000. Now it's three hundreds. I mean, the steep drop in all these other cities in the Midwest and Northeast, even Washington and even Boston and Philadelphia, they all declined except New York City, which even though it was way bigger than any of them in 1950 is bigger now than it was then. More people crammed into this small space. And Moses had something to do with that.0:18:22 Would NYC Have Fallen Without Moses?Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:22Yeah, yeah, yeah. You write in the book and I apologize for quoting you back to yourself, but you write, had the city not undertaken a massive program of public works between 1924 and 1970, had it not built the arterial highway system and had it not relocated 200,000 people from old law tenements to new public housing projects, New York would not have been able to claim in the 1990s that it was a capital of the 20th century. I would like to make this connection more explicit. So what is the reason for thinking that if New York hadn't done urban renewal and hadn't built the more than 600 miles of highways that Moses built there, that New York would have declined like these other cities in the Northeast and the Midwest?Kenneth Jackson 0:19:05Well, I mean, you could argue, first of all, and friends of mine have argued this, that New York is not like other cities. It's a world city and has been and what happens to the rest of the United States is, I accept a little bit of that, but not all of it. You say, well, New York is just New York. And so whatever happens here is not necessarily because of Moses or different from Detroit, but I think it's important to realize its history has been different from other American cities. Most American cities, especially the older cities, have been in relative decline for 75 years. And in some ways New York has too. And it was its relative dominance of the United States is less now than because there's been a shift south and west in the United States. But the prosperity of New York, the desire of people to live in it, and after all, one of its problems is it's so expensive. Well, one reason it's expensive is people want to live there. If they didn't want to live there, it would be like Detroit. It'd be practically free. You know what I mean? So there are answers to these issues. But Moses' ways, I think, were interesting. First of all, he didn't worry about legalities. He would start an expressway through somebody's property and dare a judge to tell him to stop after the construction had already started. And most of the time, Moses, he was kind of like Hitler. It was just, I don't mean to say he was like Hitler. What I mean is, but you have such confidence. You just do things and dare other people to change it. You know what I mean? I'm going to do it. And most people don't have that. I think there's a little bit of that in Trump, but not as much. I mean, I don't think he has nearly the genius or brains of Moses. But there's something to self-confidence. There's something to having a broad vision. Moses liked cities, but he didn't like neighborhoods or people. In other words, I don't think he loved New York City. Here's the person who is more involved. He really thought everybody should live in suburbs and drive cars. And that was the world of the future. And he was going to make that possible. And he thought all those old law tenements in New York, which is really anything built before 1901, were slums. And they didn't have hot and cold water. They often didn't have bathrooms. He thought they should be destroyed. And his vision was public housing, high-rise public housing, was an improvement. Now I think around the United States, we don't think these high-rise public housing projects are so wonderful. But he thought he was doing the right thing. And he was so arrogant, he didn't listen to people like Jane Jacobs, who fought him and said, you're saying Greenwich Village is a slum? Are you kidding me? I mean, he thought it was a slum. Go to Greenwich Village today. Try to buy anything for under a million dollars. I mean, it doesn't exist. You know what I mean? I mean, Greenwich Village, and he saw old things, old neighborhoods, walking, is hopelessly out of date. And he was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of his vision. And now we understand that. And all around the country, we're trying to revitalize downtowns and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and gasoline and cars. But Moses didn't see the world that way. It's interesting. He never himself drove a car. Can you believe that the man who had more influence on the American car culture, probably even than Henry Ford, himself was always driven. He was chauffeured. In fact, he was so busy that Carol talks about him as having two limousines behind each other. And he would have a secretary in one, and he would be dealing with business and writing letters and things like this. And then she would have all she could do. They would pull off to the side of the road. She would get out of his car. The car that was following would discharge the secretary in that car. They would switch places. And the fresh secretary would get in the backseat, Moses, and they would continue to work. And the first secretary would go to type up whatever she had to do. He worked all the time. He really didn't have much of a private life. There are not many people like Robert Moses. There are people like Robert Moses, but not so many, and he achieved his ideal. I think that there are so many ironies there. Not only did he not drive himself, he didn't appreciate so much the density of New York, which many people now love, and it's getting more dense. They're building tall buildings everywhere. And he didn't really appreciate the diversity, the toleration. He didn't care about that, but it worked. And I just think we have to appreciate the fact that he did what was impossible, really impossible, and nobody else could have done what he did. And if we hadn't done it then, he sure as heck wouldn't be able to do it in the 21st century, when people are even more litigious. You try to change the color of a door in New York City, and there'll be—you try to do something positive, like build a free swimming pool, fix up an old armory and turn it into a public—there'll be people who'll fight you. I'm not kidding this. And Moses didn't care. He says, I'm going to do this. When he built the Cross Bronx Expressway, which in some ways is—it was horrible what he did to these people, but again, Carol mischaracterizes what happened. But it's a dense working class—let's call it Jewish neighborhood—in the early 1950s. And Roses decides we need an interstate highway or a big highway going right through it. Well, he sent masses of people letters that said, get out in 90 days. He didn't mean 91 days. He meant—he didn't mean let's argue about it for four years. Let's go to legit—Moses meant the bulldozers will be bulldozing. And that kind of attitude, we just don't have anymore. And it's kind of funny now to think back on it, but it wasn't funny to the people who got evicted. But again, as I say, it's hard to imagine a New York City without the Cross Bronx Expressway. They tore down five blocks of dense buildings, tore them down, and built this road right through it. You live—and they didn't worry about where they were going to rehouse them. I mean, they did, but it didn't work. And now it's so busy, it's crowded all the time. So what does this prove? That we need more roads? But you can't have more roads in New York because if you build more roads, what are you going to do with the cars? Right now, the problem is there are so many cars in the city, there's nothing to do. It's easy to get around in New York, but what are you going to do with the car? You know, the car culture has the seeds of its own destruction. You know, cars just parking them or putting them in a garage is a problem. And Moses didn't foresee those. He foreseed you're all going to live in the Long Island suburbs or Westchester suburbs or New Jersey suburbs. Park your car in your house and come in the city to work. Now, the city is becoming a place to live more than a place to work. So what they're doing in New York as fast as they can is converting office buildings into residential units. He would never have seen that, that people would want to live in the city, had options that they would reject a single family house and choose high rise and choose the convenience of going outside and walking to a delicatessen over the road, driving to a grocery store. It's a world he never saw.0:27:31 Moses the Startup Founder?Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:31Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like the thing you pointed out earlier about him having the two limousines and then the enormous work ethic and then the 90 day eviction. I mean, I'm a programmer and I can recognize this trope immediately. Right. Robert Moses was a startup founder, but in government, you know, that attitude is like, yeah, it's like Silicon Valley. That's like we all recognize that.Kenneth Jackson 0:27:54And I think we should we should we should go back to what you said earlier about why was it that governors or mayors couldn't tell him what to do? Because there are many scenes in the power broker where he will go to the mayor who wants to do something else. And Moses would, damn it. He'd say, damn it, throw his pages on the desk and say, sign this. This is my resignation. You know, OK. And I'm out of here because the mayors and governors love to open bridges and highways and and do it efficiently and beautifully. And Moses could do that. Moses could deliver. And the workers loved him because he paid union wages, good wages to his workers. And he got things done and and things like more than 700 playgrounds. And it wasn't just grand things. And even though people criticize the 1964 World's Fair as a failure and financially it was a failure, but still tens of millions of people went there and had a good time. You know, I mean, even some of the things were supposedly were failures. Failures going to home, according to the investment banker, maybe, but not to the people who went there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:20Right. Yeah. And I mean, the point about the governors and mayors needing him, it was especially important to have somebody who could like work that fast. If you're going to get reelected in four years or two years, you need somebody who can get public works done faster than they're done today. Right. If you want to be there for the opening. Yeah, exactly.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:36And it's important to realize, to say that Moses did try public office once.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:41Yeah.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:42And I think it's true that he lost by more than anybody in the history of New York. He was not, you know, he was not an effective public speaker. He was not soft and friendly and warm and cuddly. That's not Robert Moses. The voters rejected him. But the people who had power and also Wall Street, because you had to issue bonds. And one of the ways that Moses had power was he created this thing called the Traverse Bridge and Tunnel Authority to build the Traverse Bridge. Well, now, if in Portland, Oregon, you want to build a bridge or a road, you issue a couple hundred million dollars worth of bonds to the public and assign a value to it. Interest rate is paid off by the revenue that comes in from the bridge or the road or whatever it is. Normally, before, normally you would build a public works and pay for it itself on a user fees. And when the user fees paid it off, it ended. But what Moses, who was called the best bill drafter in Albany, which was a Moses term, he said he was somewhere down in paragraph 13, Section G, say, and the chairman can only be removed for cause. What that meant was when you buy a bond for the Traverse Bridge or something else, you're in a contract, supported by the Supreme Court. This is a financial deal you're making with somebody. And part of the contract was the chairman gets to stay unless he does something wrong. Well, Moses was careful not to do anything wrong. And it also would continue. You would get the bond for the Traverse Bridge, but rather than pay off the Traverse Bridge, he would build another project. It would give him the right to continually build this chain of events. And so he had this massive pot of money from all these initially nickels and dimes. Brazil made up a lot of money, the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s, to spend more money and build more bridges and build more roads. And that's where he had his power. And the Wall Street, the big business loved him because they're issuing the bonds. The unions loved him because they're paying the investors. Now what Carroll says is that Moses allowed the investors an extra quarter percent, I think a quarter percent or half percent on bonds, but they all sold out. So everybody was happy. And was that crooked? It wasn't really illegal. But it's the way people do that today. If you're issuing a bond, you got to figure out what interest am I going to pay on this that will attract investors now.0:32:34 The Case Against Moses HighwaysDwarkesh Patel 0:32:34And the crucial thing about these tales of graft is that it never was about Moses trying to get rich. It was always him trying to push through a project. And obviously that can be disturbing, but it is a completely different category of thing, especially when you remember that this was like a corrupt time in New York history. It was like after Tammany Hall and so on. So it's a completely different from somebody using their projects to get themselves rich. But I do want to actually talk in more detail about the impact of these roads. So obviously we can't, the current system we have today where we just kind of treat cities as living museums with NIMBYism and historical preservation, that's not optimal. But there are examples, at least of Carroll's, about Moses just throwing out thousands of people carelessly, famously in that chapter on the one mile, how Moses could have diverted the cross Bronx expressway one mile and prevented thousands of people from getting needlessly evicted. So I'm just going to list off a few criticisms of his highway building and then you can respond to them in any order you want. So one of the main criticisms that Carroll makes is that Moses refused to add mass transit to his highways, which would have helped deal with the traffic problem and the car problem and all these other problems at a time when getting the right of way and doing the construction would have been much cheaper. Because of his dislike for mass transit, he just refused to do that. And also the prolific building of highways contributed to urban sprawl, it contributed to congestion, it contributed to neighborhoods getting torn apart if a highway would crossKenneth Jackson 0:34:18them.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:19So a whole list of criticisms of these highways. I'll let you take it in any order you want.Kenneth Jackson 0:34:27Well first of all, Moses response was, I wasn't in charge of subways. So if you think the subways deteriorated or didn't build enough, find out who was in charge of them and blame that person. I was in charge of highways and I built those. So that's the first thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:41But before you answer that, can I just ask, so on that particular point, it is true that he wasn't in charge of mass transit, but also he wasn't in charge of roads until he made himself responsible for roads, right? So if he chose to, he could have made himself responsible for mass transit and taken careKenneth Jackson 0:34:56of it. Maybe, although I think the other thing about it is putting Moses in a broader historical concept. He was swimming with the tide of history. In other words, history when he was building, was building Ford Motor Company and General Motors and Chrysler Corporation and building cars by the millions. I mean, the automobile industry in the United States was huge. People thought any kind of rail transit was obsolete and on the way out anyway. So let's just build roads. I mean, that's what the public wanted. He built what the public wanted. It's not what I was looking historically. I don't think we did the right thing, but we needed to join the 20th century. New York could have stayed as a quaint, I don't know, quaint is not the right word, but it's a distinctly different kind of place where everybody walks. I just don't think it would have been the same kind of city because there are people who are attached to their cars in New York. And so the sprawl in New York, which is enormous, nobody's saying it wasn't, spreads over 31 counties, an area about as large as the state of Connecticut, about as large as the Netherlands is metropolitan New York. But it's still relatively, I don't want to say compact, but everybody knows where the center is. It's not that anybody grows up in New York at 16 and thinks that the world is in some mall, you know, three miles away. They all know there is a center and that's where it is. It's called Manhattan. And that's New York and Moses didn't change that for all of his roads. There's still in New York a definite center, skyscrapers and everything in the middle. And it's true, public transit did decline. But you know those, and I like Chicago, by the way, and they have a rail transit from O'Hare down to Dan Ryan, not to Dan Ryan, but the JFK Expressway, I think. And it works sort of, but you got to walk a ways to get on. You got to walk blocks to get in the middle of the expressway and catch the train there. It's not like in New York where you just go down some steps. I mean, New York subway is much bigger than Chicago and more widely used and more. And the key thing about New York, and so I think what Carol was trying to explain and your question suggests this, is was Moses responsible for the decline of public transit? Well, he was building cars and roads and bridges. So in that sense, a little bit, yes. But if you look at New York compared to the rest of the United States, it used to be that maybe 20 percent of all the transit riders in the United States were in the New York area. Now it's 40 percent. So if you're looking at the United States, what you have to explain is why is New York different from the rest of the United States? Why is it that when I was chairman or president of the New York Historical Society, we had rich trustees, and I would tell them, well, I got here on a subway or something. They would think, I would say, how do you think I got here? Do you know what I mean? I mean, these are people who are close to billionaires and they're saying they used the subway. If you're in lower Manhattan and you're trying to get to Midtown and it's raining, it's five o'clock, you've got to be a fool to try to get in your own limousine. It isn't going to get you there very quickly. A subway will. So there are reasons for it. And I think Moses didn't destroy public transit. He didn't help it. But his argument was he did. And that's an important distinction, I think. But he was swimming with history. He built what the public wanted. I think if he had built public transit, he would have found it tougher to build. Just for example, Cincinnati built a subway system, a tunnel all through the city. It never has opened. They built it. You can still see the holes in the ground where it's supposed to come out. By the time they built it, people weren't riding trains anymore. And so it's there now and they don't know what to do with it. And that's 80 years ago. So it's a very complicated—I don't mean to make these issues. They're much more complex than I'm speaking of. And I just think it's unfair to blame Moses for the problems of the city. I think he did as much as anybody to try to bring the city into the 21st century, which he didn't live to. But you've got to adopt. You've got to have a hybrid model in the world now. And I think the model that America needs to follow is a model where we reduce our dependence on the cars and somehow ride buses more or use the internet more or whatever it is, but stop using so much fossil fuels so that we destroy our environment. And New York, by far, is the most energy efficient place in the United States. Mainly because you live in tall buildings, you have hot floors. It doesn't really cost much to heat places because you're heating the floor below you and above you. And you don't have outside walls. And you walk. New Yorkers are thinner. Many more people take buses and subways in New York than anywhere else in the United States, not just in absolute terms, in relative terms. So they're helping. It's probably a healthier lifestyle to walk around. And I think we're rediscovering it. For example, if you come to New York between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there's so many tourists in the city. I'm not making this up. That there is gridlock on the sidewalks around. The police have to direct the traffic. And in part, it's because a Detroit grandmother wants to bring her granddaughter to New York to see what Hudson's, which is a great department store in Detroit or in any city. We could be rich as in Atlanta, Fox, G Fox and Hartford. Every city had these giant department and windows where the Santa Claus is and stuff like this. You can still go to New York and see that. You can say, Jane, this is the way it used to be in Detroit. People ringing the bells and looking at the store windows and things like that. A mall can't recapture that. It just can't. You try, but it's not the same thing. And so I think that in a way, Moses didn't not only did he not destroy New York. I think he gets a little bit of credit for saving it because it might have been on the way to Detroit. Again, I'm not saying that it would have been Detroit because Detroit's almost empty. But Baltimore wasn't just Baltimore, it's Cleveland. It's every place. There's nobody there anymore. And even in New York, the department stores have mostly closed, not all of them. And so it's not the same as it was 80 years ago, but it's closer to it than anywhere else.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:16OK, so yes, I'm actually very curious to get your opinion on the following question. Given the fact that you are an expert on New York history and you know, you've written the encyclopedia, literally written the encyclopedia on New York City.Kenneth Jackson 0:42:30800 people wrote the encyclopedia. I just took all the credit for it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:34I was the editor in chief. So I'm actually curious, is Caro actually right that you talked about the importance just earlier about counterfactual history. So I'm curious if Caro is actually right about the claim that the neighborhoods through which Moses built his highways were destroyed in a way that neighborhoods which were in touch by the highways weren't. Sorry for the confusing phrasing there. But basically, was there like a looking back on all these neighborhoods? Is there a clear counterfactual negative impact on the neighborhoods in which Moses built his highways and bridges and so on?Kenneth Jackson 0:43:10Well, Moses, I mean, Caro makes that argument mostly about East Tremont and places like that in the Bronx where the Cross Bronx Expressway passed through. And he says this perfectly wonderful Jewish neighborhood that was not racially prejudiced and everybody was happy and not leaving was destroyed by Moses. Well, first of all, as a historian of New York City, or for that matter, any city, if a student comes to you and says, that's what I found out, you said, well, you know, that runs counter to the experience of every city. So let's do a little more work on that. Well, first of all, if you look at the census tracts or the residential security maps of S.H.A. You know, it's not true. First of all, the Jews were leaving and had nothing to do with the thing. They didn't love blacks. And also, if you look at other Jewish, and the Bronx was called the Jewish borough at the time, those neighborhoods that weren't on the Cross Bronx Expressway all emptied out mostly. So the Bronx itself was a part of New York City that followed the pattern of Detroit and Baltimore and Cleveland. Bronx is now coming back, but it's a different place. So I think it's, well, I've said this in public and I'll pay you for this. Carol wouldn't know those neighborhoods if he landed there by parachute. They're much better than he ever said they were. You know, he acted like if you went outside near the Bronx County Courthouse, you needed a wagon train to go. I mean, I've taken my students there dozens of times and shown them the people, the old ladies eating on the benches and stuff like this. Nobody's mugging them. You know, he just has an outsider's view. He didn't know the places he was writing about. But I think Carol was right about some things. Moses was personally a jerk. You can make it stronger than that, but I mean, he was not your friendly grandfather. He was arrogant. He was self-centered. He thought he knew the truth and you don't. He was vindictive, ruthless, but some of those were good. You know, now his strategies, his strategies in some were good. He made people building a beach or a building feel like you're building a cathedral. You're building something great and I'm going to pay you for it and let's make it good. Let's make it as best as we can. That itself is a real trick. How do you get people to think of their jobs as more than a job, as something else? Even a beach or a wall or something like that to say it's good. He also paid them, so that's important that he does that and he's making improvements. He said he was improving things for the people. I don't know if you want to talk about Jane Jacobs, who was his nemesis. I tend to vote with Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs and I agree on a lot of things or did before she died a few years ago. Jane Jacobs saw the city as intricate stores and people living and walking and knowing each other and eyes on the street and all these kinds of things. Moses didn't see that at all. He saw the city as a traffic problem. How do we tear this down and build something big and get people the hell out of here? That was a mistake. Moses made mistakes. What Moses was doing was what everybody in the United States was doing, just not as big and not as ruthless and not as quick. It was not like Moses built a different kind of world that exists in Kansas City. That's exactly what they did in Kansas City or every other city. Blow the damn roads to the black neighborhoods, build the expressway interchanges, my hometown of Memphis crisscrossed with big streets, those neighborhoods gone. They're even more extensive in places like Memphis and Kansas City and New Orleans than they are in New York because New York builds relatively fewer of them. Still huge what he built. You would not know from the power broker that Los Angeles exists. Actually Los Angeles was building freeways too. Or he says that New York had more federal money. Then he said, well, not true. I've had students work on Chicago and Chicago is getting more money per person than New York for some of these projects. Some of the claims, no doubt he got those from Moses' own records. If you're going to write a book like this, you got to know what's going on other places. Anyway, let's go back to your questions.Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:10No, no. That was one of the things I was actually going to ask you about, so I was glad to get your opinion on that. You know, actually, I've been preparing for this interview and trying to learn more about the impact of these different projects. I was trying to find the economic literature on the value of these highways. There was a National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Morgan Foy, or at least a digest by Morgan Foy, where he's talking about the economic gains from highways. He says, the gains tend to be largest in areas where roads connect large economic hubs where few alternative routes exist. He goes on to say, two segments near New York City have welfare benefits exceeding $500 million a year. Expanding the Long Island Expressway had an estimated economic value of $719 million, which I think was Moses. He says, of the top 10 segments with the highest rate of return, seven are in New York City area. It turns out that seven of the top 10 most valuable highway segments in America are in New York. Reading that, it makes me suspect that there must have been... The way Cairo paints Moses' planning process, it's just very impulsive and feelings-based and almost in some cases, out of malice towards poor people. Given that a century later, it seems that many of the most valuable tracks of highways were planned and built exactly how Moses envisioned, it makes you think that there was some sort of actual intelligent deliberation and thought that was put into where they were placed.Kenneth Jackson 0:50:32I think that's true. I'm not saying that the automobile didn't have an economic impact. That's what Moses was building for. He would probably endorse that idea. I think that what we're looking at now in the 21st century is the high value put on places that Moses literally thought were something. He was going to run an expressway from Brooklyn through lower Manhattan to New Jersey and knock down all these buildings in Greenwich Village that people love now. Love. Even movie stars, people crowd into those neighborhoods to live and that he saw it as a slum. Well, Moses was simply wrong and Cairo puts him to task for that. I think that's true.0:51:24 The Rise of NIMBYismDwarkesh Patel 0:51:24Okay. Professor Jackson, now I want to discuss how the process of city planning and building projects has changed since Moses' time. We spent some good amount of time actually discussing what it was like, what Moses actually did in his time. Last year, I believe, you wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal talking about how the 27-story building in Manhattan was put in limbo because the parking lot, which we would replace, was part of a historic district. What is it like to actually build a skyscraper or a highway or a bridge or anything of that sort in today's New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:52:06Well, I do think in the larger context, it's probably fair to say it's tougher to build in New York City than any other city. I mean, yeah, a little precious suburb, you may not deploy a skyscraper, but I mean, as far as the city is concerned, there'll be more opposition in New York than anywhere else.It's more dense, so just to unload and load stuff to build a building, how do you do that? You know, trucks have to park on the street. Everything is more complicated and thus more expensive. I think a major difference between Robert Moses' time and our own, in Robert Moses' time, historic preservation was as yet little known and little understood and little supported. And the view generally was building is good, roads are good, houses are good, and they're all on the way to a more modern and better world. We don't have the same kind of faith in the future that they did. We kind of like it like it is. Let's just sit on it. So I think we should say that Moses had an easier time of it than he would have had he lived today. It still wasn't an easy time, but easier than today. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:40Well, actually, can you talk more about what that change in, I guess, philosophy has been since then? I feel like that's been one of the themes of this podcast, to see how our cultural attitude towards progress and technology have changed.Kenneth Jackson 0:53:54Well, I think one reason why the power broker, Robert Carroll's famous book, received such popular acclaim is it fits in with book readers' opinions today, which is old is better. I mean, also, you got to think about New York City. If you say it's a pre-war apartment, you mean it's a better apartment. The walls are solid plaster, not fiber or board and stuff like that. So old has a reverence in New York that doesn't have in Japan. In Japan, they tear down houses every 15 years. So it's a whole different thing. We tend to, in this new country, new culture, we tend to value oldness in some places, especially in a place that's old like New York City. I mean, most Americans don't realize that New York is not only the most dense American city and the largest, but also really the oldest. I mean, I know there's St. Augustine, but that's taking the concept of what's a city to a pretty extreme things. And then there's Jamestown and Virginia, but there's nobody there, literally nobody there. And then where the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, Plymouth plantation, that's totally rebuilt as a kind of a theme park. So for a place that's a city, it's Santa Fe a little bit in New Mexico, but it was a wide place on the road until after World War II. So the places that would be also, if you think cities, New York is really old and it's never valued history, but the historic preservation movement here is very strong.Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:33What is the reason for its resurgence? Is it just that, because I mean, it's had a big impact on many cities, right? Like I'm in San Francisco right now, and obviously like you can't tear down one of these Victorian houses to build the housing that like the city massively needs. Why have we like gained a reverence for anything that was built before like 80 years?Kenneth Jackson 0:55:56Because just think of the two most expensive places in the United States that could change a little bit from year to year, but usually San Francisco and New York. And really if you want to make it more affordable, if you want to drop the price of popsicles on your block, sell more popsicles. Have more people selling popsicles and the price will fall. But somehow they say they're going to build luxury housing when actually if you build any housing, it'll put downward pressure on prices, even at super luxury. But anyway, most Americans don't understand that. So they oppose change and especially so in New York and San Francisco on the basis that change means gentrification. And of course there has been a lot of gentrification. In World War II or right after, San Francisco was a working class city. It really was. And huge numbers of short and longshoremen live there. Now San Francisco has become the headquarters really in Silicon Valley, but a headquarters city is a tech revolution and it's become very expensive and very homeless. It's very complex. Not easy to understand even if you're in the middle of it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:57:08Yeah. Yeah. So if we could get a Robert Moses back again today, what major mega project do you think New York needs today that a Moses like figure could build?Kenneth Jackson 0:57:22Well if you think really broadly and you take climate change seriously, as I think most people do, probably to build some sort of infrastructure to prevent rising water from sinking the city, it's doable. You'd have to, like New Orleans, in order to save New Orleans you had to flood Mississippi and some other places. So usually there is a downside somewhere, but you could, that would be a huge project to maybe build a bridge, not a bridge, a land bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan to prevent water coming in from the ocean because New York is on the ocean. And to think of something like that's really big. Some of the other big infrastructure projects, like they're talking about another tunnel under the river, Hudson River from New Jersey to New York, the problem with that is there are already too many cars in Manhattan. Anything that makes it easier to bring cars into Manhattan because if you've not been to New York you don't really understand this, but there's no place for anything. And if you bring more cars in, what are you going to do with them? If you build parking garages for all the cars that could come into the city, then you'd be building over the whole city. There'd be no reason to come here because it would all be parking garages or parking lots. So New York City simply won't work if you reduce the density or you get rid of underground transportation because it's all about people moving around underneath the streets and not taking up space as they do it. So it won't work. And of course, it's not the only city. Tokyo wouldn't work either or lots of cities in the world won't work increasingly without not just public transportation but underground public transportation where you can get it out of the way of traffic and stuff like that. Moses probably could have done that. He wouldn't have loved it as much as he loved bridges because he wanted you to see what he built. And there was an argument in the power broker, but he didn't really want the Brooklyn battle very tunnel built because he wanted to build a bridge that everybody could see. So he may not have done it with such enthusiasm. I actually believe that Moses was first and foremost a builder. He really wanted to build things, change things. If you said, we'll pay you to build tunnels, I think he would have built tunnels. Who knows? He never was offered that. That wasn't the time in which he lived. Yeah. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 1:00:04And I'm curious if you think that today to get rid of, I guess the red tape and then the NIMBYism, would it just be enough for one man to accumulate as much influence as Moses had and then to push through some things or does that need to be some sort of systemic reform? Because when Moses took power, of course there was ours also that Tammany Hall machine that he had to run through, right? Is that just what's needed today to get through the bureaucracy or is something more needed?Kenneth Jackson 1:00:31Well, I don't think Robert Moses with all of his talents and personality, I don't think he could do in the 21st century what he did in the middle of the 20th century. I think he would have done a lot, maybe more than anybody else. But also I think his methods, his really bullying messages, really, really, he bullied people, including powerful people. I don't think that would work quite as easy today, but I do think we need it today. And I think even today, we found even now we have in New York, just the beginnings of leftists. I'm thinking of AOC, the woman who led the campaign against Amazon in New York saying, well, we need some development. If we want to make housing more affordable, somebody has got to build something. It's not that we've got more voter because you say you want affordable housing. You got to build affordable housing and especially you got to build more of it. So we have to allow people, we have to overturn the NIMBYism to say, well, even today for all of our concern about environmental change, we have to work together. I mean, in some ways we have to believe that we're in some ways in the same boat and it won't work if we put more people in the boat, but don't make the boat any bigger. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 1:01:59But when people discuss Moses and the power accumulated, they often talk about the fact that he took so much power away from democratically elected officials and the centralized so much power in himself. And obviously the power broker talks a great deal about the harms of that kind of centralization. But I'm curious having studied the history of New York, what are the benefits if there can be one coordinated cohesive plan for the entire city? So if there's one person who's designing all the bridges, all the highways, all the parks, is something more made possible that can be possible if like multiple different branches and people have their own unique visions? I don't know if that question makes sense.Kenneth Jackson 1:02:39That's a big question. And you've got to put a lot of trust into the grand planner, especially if a massive area of 20, 25 million people, bigger than the city, I'm not sure what you're really talking about. I think that in some ways we've gone too far in the ability to obstruct change, to stop it. And we need change. I mean, houses deteriorate and roads deteriorate and sewers deteriorate. We have to build into our system the ability to improve them. And now in New York we respond to emergencies. All of a sudden a water main breaks, the street collapses and then they stop everything, stop the water main break and repair the street and whatever it is. Meanwhile in a hundred other places it's leaking, it's just not leaking enough to make the road collapse. But the problem is there every day, every minute. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.1:03:44 Is Progress CyclicalDwarkesh Patel 1:03:44I'm curious, as a professor, I mean you've studied American history. Do you just see this as a cyclical thing where you have periods where maybe one person has too much power to periods where there's dispersed vitocracy and sclerosis and then you're just going to go through these cycles? Or how do you see that in the grand context of things, how do you see where we are, where we were during Moses and where we might be in the future?Kenneth Jackson 1:04:10Well you're right to say that much of life is cyclical. And there is a swing back and forth. But having said that, I think the person like Robert Moses is unusual, partly because he might have gone on to become a hedge fund person or didn't have hedge funds when he was around. But you know, new competitor to Goldman Sachs, I mean he could have done a lot of things, maybe been a general. He wanted to have power and control. And I think that's harder to accumulate now. We have too much power. You can demonstrate and you can stop anything. We love demonstrations in the United States. We respect them. We see it as a visible expression of our democracy, is your ability to get on the streets and block the streets. But you know, still you have to get to work. I mean at some point in the day you've got to do something. And yeah, Hitler could have done a lot of things if he wanted to. He could have made Berlin into a... But you know, if you have all the power, Hitler had a lot of it. If he turned Berlin into a colossal city, he was going to make it like Washington but half-sive. Well Washington has already got its own issues. The buildings are too big. Government buildings don't have life on the street and stuff like this. Like Hitler would destroy it forever because you build a monumental city that's not for people. And I think that was probably one of Moses' weak points is unlike Jane Jacobs who saw people. Moses didn't see people. He saw bridges. He saw highways. He saw tunnels. He saw rivers. He saw the city as a giant traffic problem. Jane Jacobs, who was a person without portfolio most of her life except of her own powers of judgment and persuasion, she thought, well what is the shoe repairman got to do with the grocery store, got to do with the school, got to do with something else? She saw what Moses didn't see. She saw the intricacies of the city. He saw a giant landscape. She saw the block, just the block.Dwarkesh Patel 1:06:45Yeah there's a common trope about socialist and communist which is that they love humanity in the abstract but they hate people as individuals. And it's like I guess one way to describe Robert Moses. It actually kind of reminds me of one of my relatives that's a doctor and he's not exactly a people person. And he says like, you know, I hate like actually having to talk to the patients about like, you know, like ask them questions. I just like the actual detective work of like what is going on, looking at the charts and figuring out doing the diagnosis. Are you optimistic about New York? Do you think that in the continuing towards the end of the 21st century and into the 22nd century, it will still be the capital of the world or what do you think is the future ofKenneth Jackson 1:07:30the city? Well, The Economist, which is a major publication that comes out of England, recently predicted that London and New York would be in 2100 what they are today, which is the capitals of the world. London is not really a major city in terms of population, probably under 10 million, much smaller than New York and way smaller than Tokyo. But London has a cosmopolitan, heterogeneous atmosphere within the rule of law. What London and New York both offer, which Shanghai doesn't or Hong Kong doesn't at the moment is a system so if you disagree, you're not going to disappear. You know what I mean? It's like there's some level of guarantee that personal safety is sacred and you can say what you want. I think that's valuable. It's very valuable. And I think the fact that it's open to newcomers, you can't find a minority, so minority that they don't have a presence in New York and a physical presence. I mean, if you're from Estonia, which has got fewer people than New York suburbs, I mean individual New York suburbs, but there's an Estonian house, there's Estonian restaurants, there's, you know, India, Pakistan, every place has got an ethnic presence. If you want it, you can have it. You want to merge with the larger community, merge with it. That's fine. But if you want to celebrate your special circumstances, it's been said that New York is everybody's second home because you know if you come to New York, you can find people just like yourself and speaking your language and eating your food and going to your religious institution. I think that's going to continue and I think it's not only what makes the United States unusual, there are a few other places like it. Switzerland is like it, but the thing about Switzerland that's different from the United States is there are parts of Switzerland that are most of it's Swiss German and parts of it's French, but they stay in their one places, you know what I mean? So they speak French here and they speak German there. You know, Arizona and Maine are not that different demographically in the United States. Everybody has shuffled the deck several times and so I think that's what makes New York unique. In London too. Paris a little bit. You go to the Paris underground, you don't even know what language you're listening to. I think to be a great city in the 21st century, and by the way, often the Texas cities are very diverse, San Francisco, LA, very diverse. It's not just New York. New York kind of stands out because it's bigger and because the neighborhoods are more distinct. Anybody can see them. I think that's, and that's what Robert Moses didn't spend any time thinking about. He wasn't concerned with who was eating at that restaurant. Wasn't important, or even if there was a restaurant, you know? Whereas now, the move, the slow drift back towards cities, and I'm predicting that the pandemic will not have a permanent influence. I mean, the pandemic is huge and it's affected the way people work and live and shop and have recreation. So I'm not trying to blow it off like something else, but I think in the long run, we are social animals. We want to be with each other. We need each other, especially if you're young, you want to be with potential romantic partners. But even other people are drawn. Just a few days ago, there was a horrible tragedy in Seoul, Korea. That's because 100,000 young people are drawn to each other. They could have had more room to swing their arms, but they wanted to crowd into this one alley because that's where other people were. They wanted to go where other people were. That's a lot about the appeal of cities today. We've been in cars and we've been on interstate highways. At the end of the day, we're almost like cats. We want to get together at night and sleep on each other or with each other. I think that's the ultimate. It's not for everybody. Most people would maybe rather live in a small town or on the top of a mountain, but there's a percentage of people. Let's call it 25% who really want to be part of the tumble in the tide and want to be things mixed up. They will always want to be in a place like New York. There are other places, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia a little bit. They're not mainly in the United States, but in Europe, Copenhagen. Copenhagen is not a big city, neither is Prague, but they have urbanity. New York has urbanity. I think we don't celebrate urbanity as much as we might. The pure joy of being with others.1:12:36 Friendship with CaroDwarkesh Patel 1:12:36Yeah. I'm curious if you ever got a chance to talk to Robert Caro himself about Moses at someKenneth Jackson 1:12:45point. Robert Caro and I were friends. In fact, when the power broker received an award, the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, it turned out we lived near each other in the Bronx. And I drove him home and we became friends and social friends. And I happened to be with him on the day that Robert Moses died. We were with our wives eating out in a neighborhood called Arthur Avenue. The real Little Italy of New York is in the Bronx. It's also called Be

Episode 182 – 10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know 10 – Right Time, Right Number Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: For if God did not spare … the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; …— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 2 Peter, chapter 2, verses 4 through 9, New International Version ******** VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very glad to be with you today as we continue the series we started several weeks ago on Anchored by Truth. We are calling this series “10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know.” In the studio today we have RD Fierro. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. So far we have covered 7 of the 10 facts and we have done 2 other episodes to talk about what those facts mean. RD, the purpose of this series is to give listeners 10 solid facts that they can turn to when they encounter narratives in the world that try to cast doubt on the reliability of the Bible. It would take quite a while for us to go over all 7 of those facts, but why don’t you catch us up on our last couple since they relate to our discussion today? For those listeners who want to listen to any of episodes might have missed they are all available on their favorite podcast app or from our website crystalseabooks.com. RD: Well, I would also like to say hi to the listeners joining us here today. And as you mentioned today we are going to build on facts number 6 and 7. Just as a brief review the first 5 facts we covered that every Christian needs to know demonstrated that the popular narratives of Deep Time, evolution, and uniformitarianism don’t possess nearly the quality of scientific support that they are normally assumed to possess. In short, they aren’t trustworthy as a basis for forming a coherent worldview yet so many people today, including Christians, have accepted them without question. So, our first 5 facts gave Christians a solid basis to begin questioning these narratives which are so often used as the basis for doing away with the need for God to explain the physical universe and life. With fact number 6 we moved on to beginning our demonstration that the foundational book of the Bible, Genesis, is, in fact, a trustworthy foundation for our understanding of the universe, life, and human history. Fact number 6 showed that Moses was the author of the Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch VK: The Pentateuch is a collective name for the first five books of the Bible. They are also sometimes referred to as the Torah or Five Books of Moses. By reaffirming that Moses wrote the Pentateuch we are establishing when those books were written. Right? RD: Right. The traditional date assigned to Moses writing the Pentateuch is in the 15th century B.C. Many scholars place the composition starting around 1445 or 1446 BC which is the so-called “early date” for the start of the Hebrew exodus out of Egypt. But even the scholars like the supposed “late date” for the exodus would place the composition of the Pentateuch in the 13th century BC. VK: And those dates are in conflict the dates some liberal Bible critics have tried to assign to those books which has the books being written as late as 400 or 500 B.C. And the reason the critics want to assign those dates is that it allows them to claim that many of the prophecies contained in the Pentateuch weren’t prophecies at all. But instead the alleged writers were writing a sort of pious history to encourage the Jewish people who were then under the dominion of foreign powers. RD: Again, right. The liberal critics can’t stand the thought that Moses, as well as other inspired prophets, wrote accurate prophecies hundreds of years before certain event occurred. Fulfilled prophecy is a powerful argument that an all-powerful, all-knowing God supernaturally inspired the human authors. If the liberal critic can perform literary alchemy and turn prophecy into history they can argue against the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. VK: I like that phrase – literary alchemy. The critics do that a lot, don’t they? They have to. If Moses correctly predicted that the Jews descent into idolatry would result in them being conquered and deported from their “promised land,” it is a powerful indictment of those who attempt to dismiss the Bible’s authenticity. RD: So, our 7th fact, that we covered on our last episode, was that we can see from the genealogies contained in chapter 10 of Genesis that Moses gave us an accurate record insofar as the repopulation of the earth is concerned. The Bible tells us that the ark settled on the mountains of Ararat. It doesn’t say Mt. Ararat as sometimes is said, but the mountains of Ararat. Most commentators place that range somewhere in modern Turkey. Since that’s where the repopulation of the earth began you would expect to see the tribes and nations that descended from Noah to fan out from there. VK: And indeed that’s what human history shows us. There are 16 names of Noah’s grandsons contained in chapter 10. And in our last episode of Anchored by Truth we traced the names of several of those grandsons and how their names are embedded in geographic sites or regions as well as in the names of nations. For instance, we pointed out that the descendants of one of Noah’s grandsons, Tubal, began settling the country to the north of Turkey. Today Tubal’s name is commemorated in various places in both the nations of Georgia and Russia. RD: The prophet Ezekiel mentioned Tubal along with Gog and Meshech (Ezekiel 39:1) who are generally regarded as also having settled in territories to the north of Turkey. Meshech is the ancient name for Moscow. Moscow is both the capital of Russia, and the region that surrounds the city. To this day, one section, the Meshchera Lowland, still carries the name of Meshech, virtually unchanged by the ages. Tubal’s name is preserved in the name of the capital city of the nation Georgia whose capital to this day is called Tbilisi. Tubal’s descendants also crossed the Caucasus mountains, migrated due north-east, and gave their tribal name to the river Tobol, and hence to the famous city of Tobolsk, Russia. VK: So, knowing that Moses actually authored the Pentateuch, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, establishes when the book of Genesis was written – most likely in the 15th century BC but certainly no later than the 13th century BC. As part of his record Moses gave us the name of Noah’s sons and grandsons. We can trace the expanding population of the post-flood period by following the names of those grandsons in history and geography. Tracing the settlement patterns of Noah’s grandsons and their descendants shows that Moses’ record was accurate for nations and regions throughout Europe, western Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. We’ve established that through facts 6 and 7 of the 10 facts every Christian needs to know. But you said that today you want to show that the Genesis record Moses wrote is reasonable even when you consider the entire earth. How is that possible? RD: We can demonstrate that Moses gave us an accurate record of the creation of the earth – and its subsequent destruction by a global flood – by taking a look at the current population of the entire earth. The 8th fact that every Christian needs to know is that the Biblical time periods and population sizes are far more reasonable that the alternatives that are commonly believed. By taking a look at the earth’s population we can see not only that the Genesis history is an accurate history but also that the alternate explanation, evolution, is deeply flawed. Bear in mind that the Bible tells us that the universe and earth were created about 6,500 years ago. The deep time and evolutionary hypothesis tell us that the universe is 14.5 Billion years old and the earth is 4.5 Billion years old. The evolutionary hypothesis also tells us that the first human beings came into existence at least a million years ago. There are some historians that will tell us that the earliest humans were using stone tools over 2 million years ago. VK: Well, let’s start with the fact that the Bible tells us that there were 8 people on the ark: Noah, his wife, their 3 sons and their wives. Genesis, chapter 5, verse 32 tells us that Noah had 3 sons – and interestingly they were all born when Noah was over 500 years old. Then Genesis, chapter 7, verse 1 tells us that God told Noah to take his whole family into the ark. And Genesis, chapter 8, verse 18 says, “So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.” So, we can be very confident of the number of people that were available to begin the repopulation of the earth. There were at least 3 surviving couples and it is possible that Noah and his wife might have had more children. This number is reinforced by what we heard in our opening scripture from 2 Peter. Peter tells us that God “protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven other [people]…” That gives us a very firm starting point. And a quick internet search says that the world’s current population is expected to cross 8 Billion during 2022. So, the question is – can 6 or 8 people grow into a population of 8 Billion in 4,500 years? RD: And the answer may be surprising but it is a firm “yes.” To see why let’s start with the time periods that we get from the Bible. For our purposes today I am going to use the time periods calculated by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, the lead scientist for Creation Ministries International. These periods are available in his commentary on the first 11 chapters of Genesis entitled The Genesis Account. I like this as a source because Dr. Sarfati is not only very detailed in his description but he “presents his work” as they used to say in math class. Dr. Sarfati believes the earth was created in the year 4178 BC plus or minus 50 years. I’m just going to use round numbers and say 4,200 BC. VK: Dr. Sarfati also believes that the flood occurred 1,656 years after creation. That would mean the flood occurred a little more 2500 years before Jesus was born. We live more than 2,000 years after Jesus was born. So, it’s fair to say that we have those 4,500 years since the flood in which to achieve the necessary population growth. RD: Right. The question then is what growth rate is necessary to achieve that level of population growth. And as I mentioned the number may surprise you. VK: So surprise me. RD: In financial management there is a well-known rule called the “rule of 72.” The rule of 72 tells you how long it will take your money – or anything else for that matter – to double. For instance, if you invest your money at 6% per year it would take 12 years for $100 to become $200. You divide 6 into 72 and you get 12. VK: By the same token if you could invest your money and get a 12% return ... RD: Oh, I wish... VK: … yes, you do. Anyway, if you could invest your money and get a 12% return it would only take 6 years to double your money. At 12% interest $100 becomes $200 in just 6 years. All this tells you why people are always seeking a better rate of return – especially in today’s inflationary environment. RD: Exactly. Well, the rule of 72 doesn’t just work for money it also works for people. So, if the world’s population since the flood had grown at an average rate of 2% per year it would have doubled every 36 years. In 4,500 years that means that it would have 125 times. And here’s where the surprise comes in. At an annual average growth rate of 2% today you would have way more than 8 Billion people on the earth. The actual annual average growth rate that you need to go from 6 people (assumes Noah and his wife did not have any more children) to over 7 Billion people in 4,500 years is less than one-half of one percent. VK: Let me repeat that – because as you said that is a surprise. To go from 6 people to over 7 Billion people in a period of 4,500 years you only need a growth rate of less than one-half or one percent. That is a bit of a surprise – and it certainly doesn’t seem impossible. RD: And it’s not. The Encyclopedia Britannica claims that by the time of Christ, the world’s population was about 300 million. It apparently didn’t increase much up to AD 1000. It went up and down in the Middle Ages because of frequent wars, invasions, plagues etc. But the world’s population is thought to have reached 800 million by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750. That would have been an average growth rate of 0.13% in the 750 years from 1000–1750. By 1800 though it was thought to be one billion while the second billion was reached by 1930—an average growth rate of 0.53% annually. This period of population growth cannot be due to improved medicine, because antibiotics and vaccination campaigns did not impact till after WWII. But from 1930 to 1960 the population reached three billion. The growth rate during that period was 1.36% annually. By 1974, the fourth billion was reached, so the average growth rate was 2.1% from 1960 to 1974. From 1974 to 1990, when the mark hit five billion, the growth rate had slowed to 1.4%. World population reached 6 billion in 1999 and 7 billion in 2011. The increase in population growth since WWII is most likely due to fewer deaths in infancy and improved health care which leads to reduced loss from disease. VK: In other words during those time period for we have much more accurate data we can see that a population growth rate of one-half of one-percent per year is not at all out of the question. At times we seem to have had periods of slower growth in population but at times we have had much faster growth. RD: Right. So, let’s step back and take a look at what this means. Let’s focus on our 8th fact. The 8th fact that every Christian needs to know is that the Biblical time periods and population sizes are far more reasonable that the alternatives that are commonly believed. We have already seen that to get from 3 reproducing couples to 7 to 8 Billion people in a period of 4,500 years you don’t need an outlandish population growth rate – one-half of one-percent a year will do it. So, that raises a huge problem for the evolutionary hypothesis which is the alternative to the Biblical contention. Evolutionists believe that the human race is a million years old or older. So, that raises a big question – where are all the people? VK: What you’re saying is that if the human race really were a million years old the human race would have had a lot more time in which to reproduce. If the human population could go from 6 people to over 7 billion in a period of 4,500 years there should be a lot more people on the earth now if the human race were hundreds of thousands of years older. That’s not an idea you hear being discussed. RD: No. It’s not. Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. Here are some interesting numbers from an article on the Creation Ministries International website entitled “Where are all the people.” If the human population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there would be 1043 people today—that’s a number with 43 zeros after it. To try to put this number of people in context, say each individual is given ‘standing room only’ of about one square meter per person. However, the land surface area of the whole Earth is ‘only’ 1.5 x 1014 square meters. If every one of those square meters were made into a world the size of ours, all these worlds put together would still ‘only’ have a surface area able to fit 1028 people in this way. This is only a tiny fraction of 1043 (1029 is 10 times as much as 1028, 1030 is 100 times, and so on). Those who adhere to the evolutionary story say that disease, famine and war meant the numbers remained constant for most of this period, but that would mean that mankind was on the brink of extinction for over 99.9% of its supposed history. VK: Talk about asking someone to exhibit faith in a proposition that stretches credulity. The Biblical concept is an absolute certainty compared to that. And that of course doesn’t end the problems with the evolutionary hypothesis. We supposedly routinely unearth fossils and bones from tens or hundreds of millions of years ago. The dinosaurs were supposed to have perished 65 million years ago when a giant meteor struck the earth yet we find their bones all the time. And we don’t just find bones from T-Rex sized dinosaurs. We find bones from dinosaurs the size of deer or chickens. So, if mankind had been in existence for a million years –and even if the population was nowhere near current levels – there should be lots of bones of humans lying around. But we don’t find them. I guess besides the question, “where are all the people” we can ask the question “where are all the bones?” RD: Evolutionists claim there was a ‘Stone Age’ that lasted about 100,000 years when supposedly between one million and 10 million people lived on Earth. Fossil evidence shows that even people from primitive ages buried their dead. They often buried them with artifacts. Cremation was not practiced until relatively recent times (in evolutionary thinking). If there were just one million people alive during their supposed Stone Age time, with an average generation time of 25 years, they should have buried 4 billion bodies and a huge amount artifacts. If there were 10 million people alive, it would mean 40 billion bodies buried in the earth. If the evolutionary timescale were correct, then we would expect the skeletons of the buried bodies to be largely still present after 100,000 years, because, as we’ve discussed, many ordinary bones claimed to be much older have been found. And even if the bodies had disintegrated, those artifacts should still be found. But we haven’t found those treasure troves of either bodies or artifacts. VK: Again, the purpose of this “10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know” series is to enable people to put a solid intellectual foundation beneath their conviction that the Bible is the inspired word of God. In our day and time we need to ensure that we have that foundation because the Bible is under attack from just about every quarter. We are told by popular culture that the Bible is not relevant because it is not accurate. But as we have been discussing here today the Bible’s continuing relevance is established by the abundant evidence that it is accurate. RD: Yes. Again, let’s step back and see why these last three facts are so important. Our 6th fact, the fact that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, including the book of Genesis tells us when Genesis was written. And a reasonable date for that is the mid 1400’s B.C. Our 7th fact which is that we can trace the lines of descent of Noah’s grandsons through history and geography confirm that the flood story in Genesis is true. So, we can confirm the truth of the Genesis account in the history and geography of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa such as Egypt and Ethiopia. VK: And the fact that the population of the earth is easily achievable from 6 people starting 4,500 years ago shows that, in effect, the entire human population around the world testifies to the accuracy of the book of Genesis, especially the flood account. RD: Yes. One researcher who studies genetics, CW Nelson, has said this. “By comparing DNA from different humans around the world, it has been found that all humans share roughly 99.9% of their genetic material—they are almost completely identical, genetically. This means that there is very little polymorphism, or variation. …” VK: Polymorphism, as related to genomics, refers to the presence of two or more variant forms of a specific DNA sequence that can occur among different individuals or populations. Simply put, the absence of polymorphism means that a given cohort of living creatures displays very little difference genetically. Species that have existed for hundreds of thousands or millions of years would be expected to show some amount of polymorphism because mutation in individuals would gradually lead to perceivable differentiation. But studies of humans don’t show this. RD: The lack of a significant amount of polymorphism is consistent with a recent human origin and the global flood. Evolutionary models of origins would not predict such low human genetic diversity. Mutations should have produced much more diversity than 0.1% over millions of years. Again, this means that pretty much the entire population of humans on the earth provides testimony to the accuracy of the first several chapters of Genesis. Let’s remember that Moses wrote Genesis about 1400 years before Jesus lived. He would have had very little knowledge of civilizations and peoples outside of Egypt and Palestine. Yet far away from where he was writing people were living and developing in exactly the way we would expect if the account he was writing was true. We still see that today. The size of the earth’s population is consistent with a significant bottleneck that occurred about 4,500 years ago. The names of nations, rivers, and even languages give testimony to the first generations that emerged from the ark after the flood waters receded. The lack of genetic diversity among human beings today testifies to a common ancestor. And as we have covered on other Anchored by Truth shows even the bit of DNA contained in human mitochondria gives evidence that people today can trace their ancestry back to 3 female ancestors. VK: The point of this series and today’s discussion is to help Christians guard against the narratives that circulate so widely today. One of those narratives is that the Bible cannot be trusted. So, to push that narrative the critics must cast doubt on the reliability and authenticity of scripture. But reality pushes back on the claim that the Bible can’t be trusted. And that’s what these 10 facts that every Christian needs to know points to. Furthermore, the evolutionary explanations that are offered all come with significant problems. If humans had been around for over a million years we should have countless numbers of additional people alive today. And, at a minimum, we should find billions of remains and the artifacts of those who came before. We don’t find either. Moses could not have known what the population of the earth would be in 2022. But God did. Moses just knew to record the history God gave to him. He did so faithfully and accurately and we see the fidelity of his account all around us today. Sounds like a good time for a prayer. To close, for today let’s listen to a prayer for the missionaries that God sends to bring His word to a world that needs His encouragement. We may not all be called to go to distant lands but we can all be missionaries to our families and communities. ---- PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Opening Bible Quote from the New International Version) 2 Peter, chapter 2, verses 4 through 9, New International Version The Date of Noah’s Flood - creation.com Where are all the people? - creation.com Population growth since Flood - creation.com Biblical human population growth model - creation.com The sixteen grandsons of Noah - creation.com Satan’s Strategy • Cast doubt on God’s goodness • Deny God’s truth • Elevate self-importance • Establish a replacement in the mind and heart for God’s truth Cultural Narratives One way to look at narratives is that there are primary and secondary narratives that circulate in our culture. The primary narratives are so embedded in our culture that they are not even noticed any more. They are like the framed prints on your wall. Initially you see them but as time goes by you notice them less and less. Eventually you only know they are there when a visitor comes in and remarks about them. Deep time, evolution, uniformitarianism, and the equality of all religious viewpoints are now primary narratives in our culture. Only fools and the suspect disagree with them. The narratives we notice (such as the prominent social and political narratives) are secondary ones - the acceptability of abortion, same sex marriage, the difference between "green" energy and fossil fuels, "public" education, increased government control and regulation, etc. The secondary ones emerge from and are dependent on the primary ones. • The Big Bang/deep time does away with the need for God as Creator. • Evolution does away with the need for God as the Author of life. • Uniformitarianism does away God as the Administrator of justice (become evil continually and God will wipe you off the face of the earth). Since we've done away with God we now create our own standards for what constitutes "personhood," family, man's dominion over the earth, etc. The problem is, of course, we didn't do away with God or His truth. And the house built on intellectual sand falls when the river of reality hits it. So, we will proclaim the truth to try to save some and maybe by God's grace many or most. People who doubt the inerrancy of scripture never think about any of this but they should. The line from that which they doubt the Word to a life they don't want to live is very straight. The line grows even more straight as it uncoils - just like the hangman's rope.

Episode 180 – 10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know 8 – Moses the Author Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: Don't think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you. Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me.” Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 45 and 46, Contemporary English Version ******** VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very glad to be with you today as we continue the series we started a few weeks ago on Anchored by Truth. We are calling this series “10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know.” In the studio today we have RD Fierro. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. So far we have covered 5 of the 10 facts and we have done 2 other episodes to talk about what those facts mean. RD, last time we pointed out that the reason we are doing this series is to begin to give Christians a factual foundation for being able to reject some of the false narratives that circulate widely in our culture. Before we get into our 6th fact that every Christian needs to know why don’t you remind us of how you differentiate between primary and secondary narratives? RD: Well, I would also like to say hello to all the listeners joining us here today. As listeners are well aware today we are bombarded by political and cultural messages from every side. It’s gotten so bad that corporations even embed these cultural dictates in the commercials they use to sell their products. Most of the messages we see, though, are what I call secondary narratives. They are messages about the environment, family structures, marriage, politics, etc. What most people rarely think about is that these secondary narratives are dependent on other more foundational narratives which I call primary narratives. In our culture these primary narratives include ones such as Deep Time (the universe and earth are billions of years old), uniformitarianism (the present is the key to the past), and evolution (living organisms gradually changed over hundreds of millions of years to produce the biosphere we see today). But the overarching result of these primary narratives is that we don’t need God to explain the earth and universe as we know and see it. VK: So, another primary narrative that has taken hold of much of society is that since God is no longer necessary to explain life and the physical universe man is free to act as he wishes. This narrative is sometimes labeled homo mensura which means “man is the measure.” If God isn’t around man may organize his life and his communities in any manner that suits him or her. RD: Correct. The problem with this whole scheme, obviously, is that just because man has invented explanations for why God isn’t necessary does not mean that God went out of existence. God is still very much in existence and much to the chagrin of modern man – sovereign over the affairs of creation, nature, nations, and individuals. Truth is that which corresponds to reality not that which corresponds to our convenience or preferences. And the stubborn, unrelenting truth is that God has always existed and is still in control. The only question is whether or not we will acknowledge His existence and sovereignty. VK: We want to make it clear that God exists and is sovereign regardless of whether any or all acknowledge that. Our acknowledgment of that fact is for our benefit not God’s. And that’s the point of this “10 facts every Christian needs to know” series. We want Christians to have a solid foundation of fact that they can use to support their faith. The facts we are presenting in this series help demonstrate that the primary narratives that are circulating in our culture are flawed – fatally flawed. So, if we put our trust in them we are building the houses of our lives on sand that is ultimately going to wash away. Even if that sand does not wash away to our detriment in this life it will all be gone when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. RD: Exactly. The ten facts that we are covering help people begin to chip away at the hold those primary narratives have over their lives. Now the first five facts demonstrated that the scientific support for Deep Time, uniformitarianism, and evolution is not nearly as strong as most people believe – and not nearly as strong as is taught in most educational settings. We’ll let people revisit those episodes to see why. But today we want to move on our 6th fact – because we want people to understand that while our first 5 facts help demonstrate the need for God to explain the existence of the universe and life these next five facts will help show that the Bible contains incontrovertible evidence that it is the inspired word of God. VK: So, what is fact number 6? RD: Fact number 6 is that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. VK: The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Another name that is often given to these books is the Torah. So, Torah means the same as Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. In the Jewish tradition these books are sometimes referred to as the Written Torah. You would think that calling these books “the Five Books of Moses” would sort of settle the question of authorship. RD: And the question of the author of the Pentateuch was essentially a non-question for over 3,000 years. But in the last couple of hundred years liberal Bible critics have begun to postulate that Moses was not, in fact, the author of the Pentateuch. Instead based on supposed linguistic analysis liberal critics have said that there were multiple authors who wrote the first five books of the Bible. Even more than that, these critics have asserted that the Pentateuch was not written during the period of the Exodus and 40 years in the wilderness. Instead the critics date the production of the books to dates that vary between 900 BC or so to around 500 BC. VK: The traditional dating for the Pentateuch is that they were written either in the 15th century BC or at the latest in the 13th century BC. The variance in the dates depends on whether the scholar supports either the “late date” or the “early date” for the time of the Israelites departure from Egypt that is described in the book of Exodus. Probably, the most widely accepted date is the early date which would place the departure of the Hebrews around 1445 or 46 BC. So, the assertion that the books of the Pentateuch were written between 900 BC to 500 BC places it in a difference of several centuries. That’s not a negligible difference. So, if the liberal critics do not believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible who do they believe wrote them? RD: One common hypothesis is the so-called JEDP hypothesis. It’s called that because this hypothesis says that there were at least 4 different documents that were combined to create the Pentateuch. The “J” document supposedly used was created by a writer who preferred to use the term “Jehovah” as the name for God. Jehovah, of course, is the Greek version of the Hebrew term “Yahweh” which most people know means “I am.” VK: This name was made famous in Moses encounter with God at the burning bush when God declared that His name was “I am who I am.” In Exodus, chapter 3, verses 13 and 14 we have this exchange. “Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” RD: Right. So, the hypothesis says that the “J” document writer liked the name Jehovah for God but the “E” document writer used the name “Elohim” for God. The Elohist author(s) supposedly lived around 700 – 750 BC and lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. VK: This would have been after the kingdom of Israel which had been unified under David and Solomon had been divided under Solomon’s son. The Northern Kingdom was called “Israel” and the Southern Kingdom was called “Judah.” RD: The “D” stands for Deuteronomy because it is supposed that this document writer or writers wrote most of this book. It is also usually assumed that this was the book that was referred to in 2 Kings 22:8 and was found in the temple in Jerusalem in 621 BC. Then the “P” refers to one or more “Priests” who supposedly lived during the period of the Babylonian exile or immediately after. It is supposed that these priests wanted to compile a sort of pious fiction to either encourage the people … VK: Who obviously would have been very discouraged when they were either in exile in Babylon instead of in their homeland in Palestine – or still recovering from the exile even after they returned back to their homeland after the Persians conquered the Babylonians. RD: … yes. Or they were writing a book because they wanted to compose a kind of holiness code for the exiles or returnees and so compiled a final set of books from existing earlier documents and wanted to imprint them with a form of authority so they ascribed their authorship to the most famous Jewish figure ever: Moses. VK: The problem of course is that if this hypothesis is true it immediately discredits a number of other scriptural passages that refer to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. There are references to Moses as the author in the books of Joshua, 1st and 2nd Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Malachi in the Old Testament. And there are more references to Moses as being the author of the Pentateuch in the New Testament such as our opening scripture from the Gospel of John. RD: Right. And of all of these scriptural references to Moses as being the one who received the law from God and transmitted it to the Israelites the reference from John 4:45 & 46 is certainly one of the most troubling – if Moses didn’t actually receive the law. It is Jesus speaking in John 45 & 46. In these verses Jesus unequivocally states “that Moses wrote about me.” VK: When he said this, many commentators believe Jesus was referring to passages such as Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15 and Genesis, chapter 49, verse 10. But Jesus was also likely referring to Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 15 where Moses wrote, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.” RD: Right. If Moses did not write the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy then Jesus was mistaken. Moses had not, in fact, written about Him. This would not just be a problem. It would be catastrophic for our salvation. In order to be our Savior Jesus must be both fully human and fully divine. A fully divine being cannot sin or make errors – even errors pertaining to historical fact. So, if Jesus was mistaken and Moses did not write the Pentateuch it threatens the whole basis of Christianity. VK: Well. I guess that tells you what’s at stake with fact number 6 – that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. So, what evidence is there that Moses did write the first five books of the Bible? RD: Well, we don’t have time today to get into all the lines of evidence but there are several of them. But let’s start with this. The JEDP hypothesis and others like it all depend on some form of linguistic analysis to declare that the Pentateuch was not the work of a single author. The fundamental claim is that the use of multiple names for God indicates that the books must have come from one writer. But while linguistic analysis is the basis for the JEDP hypothesis linguistic analysis also destroys the hypothesis. VK: How so? RD: Supposedly under this hypothesis the JEDP documents were being produced between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Well, during that time period many other books of the Bible were being written. We know for certain then that the most popular name that was being used during this time period was a different term from “Jehovah” or “Elohim.” It was the term “Jehovah Sabaoth.” The English translation of this term is the title “the Lord of Hosts.” The term “hosts” here equates to the term “armies.” VK: According to Dr. Jonathan Sarfati’s commentary on the first 11 chapters of Genesis entitled The Genesis Account, the term “the Lord of Hosts” “occurs about 67 times in Isaiah (late 8th century BC), 83 times in Jeremiah (turn of the 7th and 6th centuries BC), 13 times in 2 chapters of Haggai (late 6th century BC), and 51 times in Zechariah (turn of the 6th and 5th century). That is, this title for God was used the whole time the Documentarians claim the Pentateuch was written. But this title is not in the Pentateuch at all, most strange for redactors.” RD: Right. So, supposedly linguistic analysis tells us that there was not have a single author for the first five books of the Bible but linguistic analysis also tells us that during the very time period in which the Pentateuch was supposedly being fabricated the priests doing the fabrication never used the title for God that most commonly being employed for over 200 years. Said slightly differently, the principle reason the critics use to criticize Mosaic authorship actually demonstrates that the Pentateuch was created long before the period during which they want to ascribe creation. VK: That seems like a relevant point. Are there any other reasons for believing that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch? RD: Plenty actually. But here’s one that’s fairly easy to understand. It is pretty obvious from reading the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy that whoever wrote them was very familiar with the land of Egypt but had only very limited familiarity with Palestine. Dr. Gleason Archer in The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties provides these observations. The climate and weather that is cited in the book of Exodus as illustrated in the crop sequence in Exodus 9:31 & 32 is typically Egyptian not Palestinian. The trees and animals referred to in Exodus through Deuteronomy are all indigenous to Egypt or the Sinai Peninsula but are not common to Palestine. VK: This is relevant because according to the books themselves they were written during the period in which they were leaving captivity in Egypt and heading for the land that had been promised to Abraham – Palestine. The book of Genesis covers the period from creation until the Israelites left Palestine to settle in Egypt because of a severe famine. While in Egypt the nation grew from just about 80 people to a nation of close to two million. The book of Exodus, of course, describes Moses confronting Pharaoh and the initial period after the Hebrews left Egypt. For the next 40 years they wandered in or around the Sinai peninsula. So, for instance, Dr. Archer notes that the acacia [AH-KAY-SHUH] tree which figures prominently in the construction and furnishing of the tabernacle described in Exodus is found widely in Egypt and the Sinai but is only found in Palestine in the region around the Dead Sea. He also notes that the hides that were supposed to furnish the outer covering of the tabernacle came from an animal called a dugong [DOO-GAAHNG]. The dugong is a form of marine mammal that is similar to a manatee. It is found in the seas adjacent to Egypt and the Sinai but is unknown in Palestine. RD: And the lists of clean and unclean animals that are contained in Leviticus chapter 11 and repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 14 include a number of animals that are peculiar to the Sinai but are not found in Palestine. It’s hard to know how a group of priests who had been living either in Palestine or the territory around Babylon which is far to the east of Palestine could or would have constructed such a list. Even if they familiarized themselves somehow with a group of animals completely foreign to them the people to whom they were writing would have had no way to relate. Bear in mind the supposed date the documents that supposedly formed the basis for the Pentateuch were written hundreds of years after the Exodus. VK: Dr. Archer also notes that all of the geographic references in the first five books show someone who is very familiar with Egypt but not familiar at all with Palestine. In Genesis, chapter 13, verse 10 when the author is trying to describe what the vegetation is like in the Jordan River valley he compares it to a well-known region in the Eastern part of the Nile River delta. This reference would have made no sense to a group that had lived in Palestine or Babylon but made perfect sense for a people who, at that time, had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years. Remember that after Jacob went with his family down to Egypt they stayed there for over 400 years. By that time the descendants would have forgotten all about what Palestine was like but would have been very familiar with Egyptian geography. RD: And another thing that makes perfect sense for the view that Moses wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy during the period immediately after the Egyptian captivity was the emphasis that is placed in the books on the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a large tent that was built according to very exacting specifications. The specifications are exact about size, materials, structure, organization, and furnishing. It is an extraordinary focus on what is essentially an elaborate tent set up. There is no other example in ancient literature of so much attention paid to a mobile worship center. There is so much detail provided that even the weight of the base sockets for the pillars that hold the sides of the tent is specified. VK: If the JEDP hypothesis were true the readers of the assembled documents would have been living in a time well after the construction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Solomon’s temple was magnificent in every way. Even if the final documents were put together during or after the Babylonian captivity all the Jews still remembered or know of the glory of Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple lasted for hundreds of years in Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem had been the center of Jewish life for hundreds of years by the time the purported documents were written. It’s hard to see why any group of writers would have thought that elaborately describing a tent that had no relevance to their readers would have inspired them or induced them to more holy living. But the descriptions of the portable tabernacle would have made perfect sense to a group of desert wanderers who would see that tabernacle as the center of their lives and worship for the next several decades. RD: So, again the view that was accepted in the church for nearly three-thousand years – that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible during the 40 year period while the Hebrews were wandering in the desert – makes sense of the reason so much attention was paid to the tabernacle. It makes no sense in the JEDP hypothesis. VK: And we should make one final point for today. At one time it was thought that one reason Moses couldn’t have written the Pentateuch was that 19th century scholars were dubious that writing was being widely used at the date of the Exodus in the 1400’s BC. But today we know that writing was commonplace in Palestine at this time, don’t we? RD: Yes. There have been numerous discoveries of clay tablets which show that even the common people in and around the Sinai were literate. There was a group of tablets discovered in Serabit-el-Khasim in the region where the Egyptians operated some turquoise mines during the 2nd millennium BC. The tablets contained records of mining quotas and some religious declarations. But the significant thing is that the writing was in an irregular style quite different than would have been done by a professional scribe. So, as Dr. Archer says, “Already back in the 17th or 18th centuries BC even the lowest social strata of Canaanite population, slave-miners who labored under Egyptian foremen, were well able to read and write.” Well, certainly if slave-miners could, Moses who had been educated in Pharaoh’s household would have been capable of preparing the books attributed to him. VK: When it comes down to it the reason the critics resist Moses’ authorship of the first five books of the Bible is because those books contain prophecies which we now know have been fulfilled. Fulfilled prophecy is strong evidence that those five books, as well as the rest of the Bible, were inspired by a supernatural God. Critics try to late-date books until after prophecies were fulfilled in the hopes that doing so makes it seem like the writer was writing history disguised as prophecy. Moses, among other things, prophesied that if the Hebrews didn’t remain faithful to their God they would wind up going into captivity. That happened when the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the Babylonians destroyed Judah in the early 6th century BC. RD: The point of this series and today’s discussion is to help Christians guard against the narratives that circulate so widely today. One of those narratives is that the Bible cannot be trusted. So, to push that narrative the critics must cast doubt on the reliability and authenticity of scripture. The bad news for the critics is that the Bible can withstand those attacks provided Christians arm themselves with relevant facts and knowledge. Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he uttered prophecies that would be fulfilled a thousand years later and others that would be fulfilled 500 years after that. Only an almighty, omniscient God could have enabled Moses to do that but by doing so He gave powerful evidence that those 5 books were only the beginning of long line of inspired revelation. VK: When we start taking a hard look at the available evidence our brains confirm what our hearts already know – there is no coherent explanation for the universe, the Bible, and the events of world history that doesn’t include God. This sounds like a great time to go to the Lord in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer that God would intervene to stop one of the most pernicious evils that has ever existed in our world: human trafficking. Sadly, this evil is not confined to far-away places but even occurs where we’d least hope – in our own community. ---- PRAYER FOR COMBATTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Opening Bible Quote from the Contemporary English Version) Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 45 and 46, Contemporary English Version Genesis in clay - creation.com New archaeological find affirms Old Testament historicity - creation.com Debunking the Documentary Hypothesis - creation.com Satan’s Strategy • Cast doubt on God’s goodness • Deny God’s truth • Elevate self-importance • Establish a replacement in the mind and heart for God’s truth Cultural Narratives One way to look at narratives is that there are primary and secondary narratives that circulate in our culture. The primary narratives are so embedded in our culture that they are not even noticed any more. They are like the framed prints on your wall. Initially you see them but as time goes by you notice them less and less. Eventually you only know they are there when a visitor comes in and remarks about them. Deep time, evolution, uniformitarianism, and the equality of all religious viewpoints are now primary narratives in our culture. Only fools and the suspect disagree with them. The narratives we notice (such as the prominent social and political narratives) are secondary ones - the acceptability of abortion, same sex marriage, the difference between "green" energy and fossil fuels, "public" education, increased government control and regulation, etc. The secondary ones emerge from and are dependent on the primary ones. • The Big Bang/deep time does away with the need for God as Creator. • Evolution does away with the need for God as the Author of life. • Uniformitarianism does away God as the Administrator of justice (become evil continually and God will wipe you off the face of the earth). Since we've done away with God we now create our own standards for what constitutes "personhood," family, man's dominion over the earth, etc. The problem is, of course, we didn't do away with God or His truth. And the house built on intellectual sand falls when the river of reality hits it. So, we will proclaim the truth to try to save some and maybe by God's grace many or most. People who doubt the inerrancy of scripture never think about any of this but they should. The line from that which they doubt the Word to a life they don't want to live is very straight. The line grows even more straight as it uncoils - just like the hangman's rope.

If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself? 

If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself? 

Episode 97: The Mystery of Dinosaurs Show Notes: Earth Era's: Paleozoic Era (ancient age), Mesozoic (middle age), Cenozoic (present age) Period Subdivisions:  Triassic: 245 mil years ago Jurassic: 208 mil years ago Cretaceous: 144 mil years ago Tertiary: 66.4 mil years ago Quaternary: 2 mil years ago Present Time The fossil record is replete with evidence of death and destruction. The planets of our solar system show evidence of chaos and waste: craters, asteroids Could there be a connection? Were the seeds for plants already in the earth from before and did not need to be re-created? If Moses mentioned ‘great whales,' why not large dinosaurs which were equally remarkable, both on land and sea? Why was man given dominion (a kingdom) if there had been no need or such a thing in the past? Scripture References: All Scripture references cited from the King James Version Bible.  Ecclesiastes 1:9-11, Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 45:18-19, Genesis 1:2, Job 38:4-7, Ezekiel 28:11-19, Isaiah 14:12-15, Revelation 12:7-8, Genesis 3:14-15, Genesis 3:14-15, Genesis 6:1-4, Genesis 6:5-8, Genesis 6:11-13, Genesis 1:11-13, Genesis 1:16, Genesis 1:20-23, Genesis 1:24-27, Romans 5:12, Genesis 1:29-31, Job 40:15-24 Takeaway: While it is possible dinosaurs walked with men up until the time of Noah, it is far more likely they lived in the ages of the past before man was created. It is our believe that dinosaurs are the genetic manipulation of animals God originally created to inhabit the earth with the angels before man. Satan and his rebellious faction of angels likely corrupted their physiology as they did during the days of Noah. New Subsplash Giving Donation link: https://secure.subsplash.com/ui/access/BDJH89 Links: Website: utbnow.com Podcast: https://bible-mysteries.captivate.fm Subscribe: https:/https://biblemysteries.supercast.com Email: unlockthebiblenow@gmail.com

This week we answer the following questions: Did God create mythical creatures like the mermaid? What is the sabbath day? If Moses was the author of Deuteronomy, how could he have recorded his own death? I have read of three suggestions made by scholars. 1st. It was Joshua who inserted this particular sentence for Moses. 2nd. It was God who completed the sentence on behalf of Moses. 3rd. It was Moses himself who was suddenly aware of his imminent death, and recorded it with tears in his eyes, then he went to die. Furthermore, It is also stated that God secretly buried Moses and the location of his grave is unknown to this day. Many people would have been present at the time of his death. Did God suddenly snatched him from their sight, and took him to heaven and restored his life? In the New Testament, we see Moses appearing on the mount of transfiguration in the company of Elijah who went to heaven without dying. So, does that explain that Moses was instantly taken to heaven and became alive again? Can demons follow a person to a certain location to torture another believer? (That she has been hurt by?) And/or can demons have a believer in a prison as Rev 2:10 tells us? (A strong Bible believing Christian was under a demonic possession & felt she could not feel any love of God. She was at her wits end to leave Christian's altogether.)" Do I have Freedom of religion in USA worship on Sunday?? In your answer about 666 you mentioned it's Pope but how do you know it hence there was no such title used in his crown and uriah Smith was wrong about this.

This morning I am going to piggy-back off of yesterday's message concerning Jesus as the Son of Man.  This morning I am going to answer the question, if God said no one shall see my face and live, then how then was Jesus God?  If you turn to Exodus 33:11 you will find this scripture tells us that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Seems a little contradictory doesn't it? How could Moses speak with God “face to face” if no one can see God's face and live? Well  the phrase “face to face” is a figure of speech indicating God and Moses were speaking to each having a  close and in depth conversation.  The reason we know that this was just a figure of speech is because if we backtrack a bit and start reading at  Exodus 33:19 the scripture reads:18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”So you see God was responding to Moses' request when he said “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live”, which confirms that the words, “face to face” was a figure of speech.IF Moses had actually been face to face with God and seen His face, his request of God would have been different and certainly God's response would have been different.Our humanity leads us to crave for the physical and the visual, as it is our nature to find ease in trusting what we can see, feel and touch. 2 Cor 4:16-18 gives us a perspective as to what our minds should be fixated on as it reads:Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.What the scripture is essentially telling us is don't be so consumed with what we see because all we can see, feel and touch is temporary, but it is the unseen, which is God that is eternal.  From the beginning of human existence, going back to the Garden of Eden, we have allowed what we can see to distract us from the very mandates of God.We take the words, “see and sight” to be strictly physical, but God Almighty does not look at our external but he looks inward.  His measure of seeing and sight goes beyond the physical.

Éxodo 17: ¡Uniendo talentos, se gana!Éxodo 17:6-16: He aquí, yo estaré delante de ti allí sobre la peña de Horeb. Tú golpearás la peña y saldrá de ella agua, y el pueblo beberá. Moisés lo hizo así en presencia de los ancianos de Israel. Y llamó el nombre de aquel lugar Masá y Meriba, por el altercado de los hijos de Israel y porque pusieron a prueba al SEÑOR, diciendo: “¿Está el SEÑOR entre nosotros, o no?”. Entonces vino Amalec y combatió contra Israel en Refidim. Y Moisés dijo a Josué: —Escoge algunos de nuestros hombres y sal a combatir contra Amalec. Mañana yo estaré sobre la cima de la colina con la vara de Dios en mi mano. Josué hizo como le dijo Moisés y combatió contra Amalec, mientras Moisés, Aarón y Hur subieron a la cumbre de la colina. Sucedió que cuando Moisés alzaba su mano, Israel prevalecía; pero cuando bajaba su mano, prevalecía Amalec. Ya las manos de Moisés estaban cansadas; por tanto, tomaron una piedra y la pusieron debajo de él, y él se sentó sobre ella. Aarón y Hur sostenían sus manos, el uno de un lado y el otro del otro lado. Así hubo firmeza en sus manos hasta que se puso el sol. Y así derrotó Josué a Amalec y a su pueblo, a filo de espada. Entonces el SEÑOR dijo a Moisés: —Escribe esto en un libro como recordatorio, y di claramente a Josué que yo borraré del todo la memoria de Amalec de debajo del cielo. Moisés edificó un altar y llamó su nombre “el SEÑOR es mi bandera”. Y dijo: —Por cuanto alzó la mano contra el trono del SEÑOR, el SEÑOR tendrá guerra contra Amalec de generación en generación.==========================En este capítulo veremos dos eventos importantes. El primero es el milagro que Dios hizo, dándole al pueblo agua que brotó de la roca. El segundo evento es igual de maravilloso; por primera vez el pueblo de Israel se iba a enfrentar a los amalecitas que se convirtieron en sus enemigos. Ellos quisieron abusar del pueblo pero Dios levantó a Josué como líder para que guiara al pueblo en el campo de batalla.Mientras tanto, Moisés con Aarón y otro anciano del pueblo, Hur, subieron a un lugar alto para ver la guerra, y Moisés levantó la vara en señal del poder de Dios en Israel. Cuando Moisés se cansaba y bajaba la vara por el cansancio en sus brazos, el pueblo perdía terreno durante el combate. Y aquí vemos una buena lección que debemos aprender: Es muy importante que trabajemos en equipo. Moisés era el escogido por Dios y tenía la vara milagrosa en su mano, pero en esta circunstancia él necesitaba ayuda para que el milagro de vencer a los amalecitas continuara. Vale la pena notar también la reacción de Aarón y Hur que vieron el efecto positivo y negativo que se producía, dependiendo si la vara era alzada o no. Ellos tomaron la iniciativa para buscar una solución ante el problema y ayudar para que el milagro pudiera continuar y el pueblo pudiera prevalecer en la guerra.En un hogar, cada miembro es un colaborador importante en el desarrollo de la familia. En los quehaceres del hogar, el mantenimiento de la casa, etc.; y también es importante que en el área espiritual se apoyen mutuamente. Cada miembro del hogar da un aporte vital en el núcleo familiar. No importa la edad ni las fuerzas, ni los años que lleve en el evangelio o la experiencia que tenga, cada uno conforme a su crecimiento espiritual puede aportar algo para que la familia sea exitosa. La buena perspectiva, opinión y ayuda de cada uno hará que puedan superar cualquier ataque del enemigo y puedan vencer.¡La valentía y la obediencia de Josué, la habilidad de los guerreros de Israel, la autoridad espiritual de Moisés, el apoyo incondicional, la iniciativa y creatividad de Aarón y Hur, se convirtieron en una combinación ganadora! Si Moisés hubiera confiado solo en sus capacidades y su autoridad, el pueblo no hubiera ganado. Si Josué hubiera creído que con sus fuerzas bastaba, hubiera fracasado. Así mismo, ninguno menosprecie a algún miembro del hogar. De esa manera, juntos vencerán todo ataque del enemigo y van a poder alcanzar las grandes obras que Dios tiene preparada para que ustedes hagan en esta tierra y sirvan al Señor de todo corazón, declarando que son más que vencedores por medio de Cristo Jesús.Por eso, sigamos el consejo del apóstol Pablo en Romanos 12:4-5: “Porque de la manera que en un solo cuerpo tenemos muchos miembros pero todos los miembros no tienen la misma función, así nosotros, siendo muchos, somos un solo cuerpo en Cristo pero todos somos miembros los unos de los otros.”Por último, recuerda el consejo del gran sabio Salomón en Eclesiastés 4:9: “Mejores son dos que uno; porque tienen mejor paga de su trabajo.” Soy tu amigo y hermano Eduardo Rodríguez. Que el Señor Jesús escuche tu oración y les dé sabiduría para que puedan valorar las virtudes de cada miembro de la familia.========Exodus 17: Uniting talents, you win!Exodus 17:6-16 NKJV: Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.”And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar and called its name, The-Lord-Is-My-Banner; for he said, “Because the Lord has sworn: the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”==========================In this chapter we will see two important events. The first is the miracle that God did, giving to the people water that flowed from the rock. The second event is just as wonderful; for the first time the people of Israel were going to face the Amalekites who became their enemies. They wanted to abuse the people but God raised up Joshua as a leader to lead the people on the battlefield.Meanwhile, Moses with Aaron and another elder of the people, Hur, went up to a high place to watch the war, and Moses raised the rod as a sign of God's power in Israel. When Moses got tired and lowered the rod due to fatigue in his arms, the people lost ground during the combat. And here we see a good lesson that we must learn: It is very important that we work as a team. Moses was the one chosen by God and had the miraculous rod in his hand, but in this circumstance he needed help so that the miracle of defeating the Amalekites would continue. It is also worth noting the reaction of Aaron and Hur who saw the positive and negative effect that was produced, depending on whether the rod was raised or not. They took the initiative to find a solution to the problem and help so that the miracle could continue and the people could prevail in the war.In a home, each member is an important partner in the development of the family. In household chores, home maintenance, etc.; and it is also important that in the spiritual area they support each other. Each member of the household gives a vital contribution to the family nucleus. It does not matter the age or the strength, or the years that they have been in the gospel or the experience that they have, each one according to their spiritual growth can contribute something so that the family is successful. The good perspective, opinion and help of each one will allow them to overcome any attack from the enemy and win.The courage and obedience of Joshua, the skill of the warriors of Israel, the spiritual authority of Moses, the unconditional support, initiative and creativity of Aaron and Hur, became a winning combination! If Moses had trusted only in his abilities and his authority, the people would not have won. If Joshua had believed that his strength was enough, he would have failed. Likewise, no one belittles any member of the household. In this way, together you will defeat every attack of the enemy and you will be able to achieve the great works that God has prepared for you to do on this earth and serve the Lord wholeheartedly, declaring that you are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.Therefore, let us follow the advice of the apostle Paul in Romans 12:4-5: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”Finally, remember the advice of the great wise Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:9: “Two are better than one,Because they have a good reward for their labor.”I am your friend and brother Eduardo Rodríguez. May the Lord Jesus hear your prayer and give you wisdom so that you can value the virtues of each member of the family.#Exodo #exodo17#IglesiaElReino #KingdomChurch #IPUH#HogaresDePacto #HogaresDePactoPodcast #PastorCarlos #CarlosRodriguez #EduardoRodriguez

Reading Numbers 20:1-13 (NLT) ~ Scripture reading followed by discussion. Moses & Aaron, grieving for Miriam, again deal with the people complaining against them, Moses and Aaron hear from God but  lose their faith as they speak deliver the message. They use words that are directed towards their actions and fail to point to God's Holiness. The good things in life can distract us from the goodness of God when we only focus on the blessings. We all fall short. If Moses faltered how much more likely are we to need to grow in our faith. Acting out of anger, frustration, or trying to force it to happen is a lack of faith that God will do what He said He will do.

If Moses already had a tent of meeting where God appeared to him and spoke to him face to face, for what did he need to spend forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the instructions for building a tent of meeting? If you've already got a tent of meeting, why build another one?

Series: Colossians: Supreme!Title: “How to live out your faith with confidence”Scripture: Colossians 2:6-7, 11-15(Commentary helps listed at the end)Bottom line: Walk boldly in the wake of Christ's victory.Opening story:In Exodus three and four Moses encounters got at the burning bush. After God tells him that he wants him to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt into freedom and the promised land, Moses comes up with several excuses for why he thinks someone else should do it. And even though God tells him he will be with him and give him all kinds of reasons to obey, Moses ends up just saying please send someone else.If Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, the most humble man ever to walk the planet, struggles to walk confidently in his faith with God, then it stands to reason that we might struggle with the same thing.Today we will revisit the question that is implied in Colossians 2:6–7 how do we walk confidently with God. How do we walk with confidence in our faith with the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a good question.This question is understandable as well in the face of being uncertain of who do we believe, who do we believe in, and what do we believe about them? These things are addressed in Exodus three and four with Moses and the burning bush. And these things are addressed by Paul in Colossians 2.Transition: Paul states his concern (shared with Epaphras) in 2:4. He then calls them to resist and gives them reasons to resist along with the power to resist. Spoiler alert: It centers on Jesus Christ.Outline: (based on Pace)Bottom line: Walk boldly in the wake of Christ's victory.How do we walk out our faith in God with confidence? We do so by remembering and believing that:I. He circumcised our hearts. (2:11)II. He conquered over death. (2:12-13)III. He canceled our debt. (2:13-14)IV. He condemned the enemy. (2:15)V. He confirmed our victory. (2:15)And that he called us to identify with him in these things. That's a Purpose in baptism.ConclusionBottom line: Walk boldly in the wake of Christ's victory.How do we walk boldly in our faith of God?We remember who it is we believe in.We remember what he did and continue to walk in those things.PrayLord's Supper, 1 Corinthians 11:17-32OtherPace Outline:Bottom line: We must define our identity in Christ so that our words, ways and works reflect who we are in Christ.I. He circumcised our hearts. (2:11)II. He conquered over death. (2:12-13)III. He canceled our debt. (2:13-14)IV. He condemned the enemy. (2:15)V. He confirmed our victory. (2:15)Hughes' outline:I. “In Christ”: His death, burial, and resurrection. (2:11-12)A. DeathB. BurialC. ResurrectionII. “In Christ”: Delivered from bondage. (2:13-15)W.W.II. Colossians 2:11–23 (WEONT): Beware of Religious Legalism (2:11–17)These false teachers had mixed oriental mysticism with Greek philosophy and Jewish legalism—what a mixture! But the flesh loves to be religious, so long as that religion does not have a cross to crucify the flesh. The Colossian believers were involved in Jewish legalism—rituals, diets, holidays, and so on. “You are going out of the sunlight into the shadows!” Paul cries (v. 17). “You are forsaking the reality (Christ's body) for the symbol!” Like the child who admires his father's photo while he ignores his father's presence, so these Christians had turned from the fullness of Christ to the ABCs (“elements”—2:8, 20) of the world.All that we need has been accomplished by Christ on the cross. The circumcision of v. 11 is not His physical circumcision as a child (Luke 2:21), but rather His death on the cross. Just as Christ's water baptism was a symbol of His baptism of suffering on the cross (Luke 12:50), so His circumcision as an infant prefigured His “putting off the body” when He took our sins on Calvary. “Your spiritual circumcision in Christ is far more wonderful than physical rituals!” Paul states. “Why replace Christ with Moses? Why have a physical cutting instead of a spiritual operation on your heart? Circumcision removes a fragment of the flesh from the body, but our identification with Christ puts off the whole fleshly nature.”All of this is made possible through our union with Christ, when the Spirit baptized us into His body. We died with Him, and we are risen with Him. The Old Covenant laws are now set aside; Satan has been completely defeated (v. 15); therefore enjoy the liberty you have in Christ. “Let no man judge you!” Paul urges (v. 16).OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS:As I reflect on Tim Keller's summary of Larry Hurtado's main points in his book, I see a lot of wisdom to help me lead our church going forward.I learned about this article while having lunch with Neal McGlohon. He summarized the o5 points in a slightly different order . Neal shared it this way:1. The early church was multi-racial and experienced a unity across ethnic boundaries that was startling. (Democrat, Progressive concerns)3. The early church was famous for its hospitality to the poor and the suffering. (Democrat, Progressive concerns)2. The early church was a community of forgiveness and reconciliation. (What both sides thinks it's doing when in fact what we see is fighting for power)4. It was a community committed to the sanctity of life. (Republican; conservative concerns)5. It was a sexual counterculture. (Republican; conservative concerns)MAIN COMMENTARY HELP:Exalting Jesus in Colossians by Scott PacePreaching the Word: Philippians, Colossians and Philemon commentary by R. Kent HughesESV Global Study BibleBible in One Year by Nicky GumbelBible Knowledge CommentaryThe Outline Bible, WilmingtonPaul for Everyone, The Prison Letters, NT Wright's commentary on Philippians and ColossiansGospel Transformation BibleNIV Study BibleThe Bible Exposition Commentary, Warren WiersbeBQ = Better Questions

Deuteronomy 31:30-32 We are in the World Stream reading from the Tree of Life Version. 7streamsmethod.com | @7streamsmethod | Donate Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis Lord, we have come to a great part in the Bible when the Law is complete and the now world has a guide for right living, economics, law, behavior, military, justice, agriculture, family, worship, scheduling, holidays and more. May we be grateful that you have come to guide, to restore and to save us.  In Jesus, we give thanks,  Amen. Moses had just finished writing the Law in the Book they are to embrace, study, and live by. This was the centerpiece of their culture.  To this day, the True Jewish Nation is called, "The People of the Book."  Moses completing this book was an occasion to be celebrated. And to memoralize this event through singing a song became the perfect benediction. It's like singing a song at the end of a worship service.  The nation sang a song of deliverance in Exodus 15 right after crossing the Red Sea.  We see Moses sharing his eloquence in Psalm 90, Deborah singing to celebrate the defeat of a scoundrel in Judges 5, and David breaking out in song numerous times.  This was a great way to instill this moment and the import of it all in the minds of the nation and its people of all ages.  Everyone knows that the lyrics of a song will go in to young mind perhaps decades before the words can be deciphered for what is being truly said.  So Moses has this song for the nation of Israel.  They are to sing it together and keep their mind on God's Word. 31:30 - the occasion is introduced 32  -  and the song commences.  The highlighted points are as such.  ~The Worship of God is to be heard throughout the earth.  ~He is true and right. The problems of earth is our flaw, not Him.  ~We, as a people, must remember our heritage.  ~God has been good to us from the start, calling us to Himself.  ~God is our guide and Provider, showering us with bounty.  ~Yet in their satisfaction, they became complacent with God.  ~and worse, they began sacrificing to idols and serving demons. ~So God turned His face away and left them to themselves, to suffer puzzlement and worse.  ~For their sins, God will heap calamity upon them.  ~He would have wiped them out, except they are supposed to stand for God - and what would the enemies of Israel say? [God was trying to reach them too eventually]  ~Realize, forever, that God is God.  ~He rides upon Heaven in all power and will avenge those who are against Him.  ~God will also avenge those who pester His Chosen Ones.         [end of song] Moses then presented this song to the people of Israel reminding them to sing it and use it to remember to "do the Law of God", for this Law is your life!   Yes, following this Law will have you living long in the land with the Lord. Moses is then told to go climb to the top of Mt. Nebo and view the land that he brought the people to - but would not enter himself. The one misdeed of Moses from Numbers 20:10-12 is what bars him from entering Canaan. In a larger sense, however, Moses had done his job.  He was to take them out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. Joshua was to take them in. Samson/Deborah/Barak was to help them through the "Centuries of the Judges", David was to expand the borders and the worship, Solomon is to build the glorious Temple, Elijah is to be a blazen torch amid the darkness, Josiah is to bring great reform, Nehemiah is to rebuild the Wall of Jerusalem ... each has their part. If Moses were to also take them in the land, conquer all the Canaanites, build the Temple, assume all territory between the Nile and the Euphrates - Moses would be a charactre that would loom so large that the matter risks eclipsing Jesus and the need for a permanent Savior.  So yes, it is sad to see him come to the edge of destiny, only to be blocked from crossing the Jordan and entering.  But in God's Providence, it is the way it had to happen.

This is truly an encouraging and inspiring episode where we go in more depth on the amazing relationship Moses had with God and what we can learn from His life to help us walk in our own amazing relationship with God! We read and discuss how Moses spoke to God face to face as a friend and how he still wanted to know God and see His glory.  If Moses still wanted to know God more and see His glory after all he had already seen, then so should we!Enjoy and be encouraged. We plan to post a new episode every other Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe or follow if you want to be notified when new episodes come out. :) You can also find LOVE'S FIRE on YouTube as a video podcast series.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2MD4sH-ICoWFBeGdYMynxwMusic: Jimmy Kotter    

This message, ‘On Deck' was preached by Pastor John L'hommedieu, in Allen, Texas. To allow ourselves to be used by God, we must first shake off our excuses and our regrets, and choose obedience. If Moses didn't choose to obey, there would be no Exodus. Who's waiting on your obedience? Message: On Deck Verse: Ephesians 4:11-12 (NIV) Join us live every Sunday at 8:30am 10am 11:30am 1 pm, 5 pm, and 7pm. (CT)    Follow Pastor John L'hommedieu on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnlhomm/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnLhomm   Keep up to date with everything at Church Eleven32:  http://www.churcheleven32.com  https://www.instagram.com/churcheleven32 https://www.facebook.com/churcheleven32   Looking for something new? Listen to the Backstage with JamieKBates podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YvzEFV...   Need more entertainment for your kids? Check out our 1132KIDS YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/1132KIDS

In this event entitled STARLINK VI an attempt was made to preach Numbers 24:17 of which as you listen a long pause was given and the plane was not proverbially landed. The need for conceptualization and a deeper contextually is granted in STARLINK VII. To understand both should be heard as one. Read the notes below to dive deeper into the understanding of the restoration up of Davids Fallen Booth. Amos 9:11…of which I didn't have time to get into for this STARLINK event: The key passage that sheds light on Num 24:14–19 is Amos 9:11–12. Amos's prophetic ministry took place in the middle of the eighth century BC. If Moses wrote the Torah about 1400 BC, then Amos wrote about six and a half centuries later. His perspective was decidedly post-Davidic and his message was essentially judgment. At the close of the book, however, despite its overall message of judgment, a prophecy of hope is added (9:11–12). This offer of consolation looks ahead to the eschatological period (bayyom hahu, “in that day”) when the Davidic dynasty would no longer be functioning. Amos promises that God will raise up the fallen booth of David. This is not just a promise of a restored dynasty but of the coming of the son of David, the messianic king. Kaiser correctly argues that the interpretation of this passage rests on the suffixes of three words in Amos 9:11, although they are not usually translated literally. The interpretation turns on the phrases “their broken places” (pirsehen) with its feminine plural suffix, “his ruins” (waharisotayw) with its masculine singular suffix, and “build it” (ubenuiha) with its feminine singular suffix. The feminine plural suffix (“their broken places”) refers to the two kingdoms that had been divided since the days of Rehoboam. God will unite the nation once again under their messianic king. The masculine singular suffix (“his ruins”) refers to David (not his booth, which is feminine). Since David is dead, Kaiser points out that this “must refer to that ‘second David,' mentioned in Hosea 3:5. “For the Israelites must live many days without a king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred fertility pillar, without ephod or idols. Afterward, the Israelites will turn and seek the Lord their God and their Davidic king. Then they will submit to the Lord in fear and receive his blessings in the future.” Hosea‬ ‭3:4-5‬ God will raise up from the ashes (Asheville) of ‘destruction' the new David, even Christ, the Messiah.” The feminine suffix (“build it“) refers to the fallen booth, the Davidic dynasty that will be restored (leading up to Messiah's second advent). Emphasis mine The messianic expectation of Amos 9:11 is clear. Amos also declares God's purpose in raising up David's dilapidated booth, “so that they may possess the remnant of Edom, even all the nations that bear my name” (9:12). Sailhamer notes that the mention of possessing the remnant of Edom is a transparent intertextual reference to Num 24:18. Kaiser concurs when he writes, “The verb ‘to possess' is deliberately chosen, for it preserves the prophecy made by Balaam in Numbers 24:17–18.” Keil also notes the intertextual reference when he writes, “yiresu, to take possession of, is chosen with reference to the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 18), that Edom (see Obadiah as it relates to the USA) should be the possession of Israel.” The point of this intertextual reference is plain. As Sailhamer states, “The eschatology of Amos is the same as that of the Pentateuch. The future Davidic king will rule victoriously over Israel's enemies and establish his eternal kingdom.” The reference by this later prophet to the very words found in the Mosaic Torah confirms that Amos read the fourth Balaam oracle as a messianic prophecy. https://biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/commentary-on-numbers-2414-19/ Amos said this would happen in the last days. See STARLINK VII for continuation. Decrease time over target: PayPal.me/mzhop or Venmo @clastronaut

The Mark of True Love Doing What's Best, Not What's Easiest With Rabbi Ari Sollish (Recorded live at the Intown Jewish Academy on July 14, 2021) A puzzling debate between an eminent Torah sage and a band of heretics leads to the former coming out with this bizarre statement, “If Moses loved the Jews so much, why did he keep them in the desert for forty years?” The answer: Because he truly loved them.

THIS WEEK'S TOPICS: What can you say to the families grieving the losses of their loved ones in the Surfside collapse? Chassidus applied to the Nine Days What lessons does this time period have for us? Why do we refer to this month as Menachem Av? Is there significance that the only death in the Torah where it notes the exact time and place is that of Aaron on Rosh Chodesh Av? What can we learn from the Arizal's yahrzeit being on the 5th of Av? Do we have to only focus on the negative during these sad days? What can we do prevent negative things from happening during these days? Should we keep a mezuzah in our cars? Is someone born during the nine days prohibited from making a birthday party? Lessons from Parshas Devarim and Shabbos Chazon Why is there the fifth book of Mishne Torah – why the need to repeat what was said earlier? Is Moshe's final address to the nation similar to the Rebbe's “do all that you can” 28th of Nissan address? Who wrote the five books of Chumash? If Moses wrote it, how can we explain the parts where it talks about Moses' death? What should I do with my angry feelings toward G-d for allowing such tragedy? Chassidus question: Why are they exactly nine days?

The Mercy and Justice of God Numbers 27 As we consider Numbers 27 today, it may seem puzzling that the story of Zelophehad's daughters is juxtaposed with the story of Moses not getting to enter the promised land. Why are these stories put together in the Bible? Moses' Lack of Gentleness Perhaps when dealing with Zelophehad's daughters, Moses made the same mistake he may have made when striking the rock for the second time: he did not honor the Lord God as holy. What does it truly mean to honor God? It means correctly representing God's kindness and compassion in front of the second generation of Israelites. Although the Bible does not say that Moses was impatient with Zelophehad's daughter, like he was when he struck the rock, we can surmise that he may have ignored the daughters of Zelophehad. Both stories reveal the compassion of God. Why do I say that? Let's look at the second section of this chapter. The Bible says that this decision took place “standing at the door of the tabernacle, in front of Moses, the priest Eleazar, the leaders and the whole congregation.” This is a very meaningful verse. Let me illustrate with a modern example. In the 2020 US election, the right-wing population in some states believed that the election was unfair. They began to bring charges in the district courts. State courts did not accept the cases, and the cases were brought before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court didn't take the case, either. Under normal circumstances, all complaints are brought first to the district courts, then gradually move up to the Supreme Court. If Moses truly cared about Zelophehad's needs, he should have been able to handle this matter before the daughters appealed to the Supreme Court. When Moses first heard that Zelophehad of the tribe of Manasseh did not get any land, he should have asked God how to deal with it at that time, but he did not. When he finally asked God what to do about it, God immediately raised the matter of Moses' disobedience to God after he clarified how to deal with the matter. Was this happening by chance? Moses also lacked compassion for the second generation of Israelis and said something impatient as he struck the rock. Perhaps his way of handling Zelophehad's daughters' needs was not gentle enough, either. Although the leadership responsibility of Moses was transferred to Joshua here, the actual authority was not immediately transferred to Joshua. Moses was still the leader who guided the people's itinerary. Numbers 27-36 speak of Moses leading the Israelites. The death of Moses is not recorded until Deuteronomy 34, at least 44 chapters later. If our speculation is correct, then this chapter is still related to Moses' failure. What was wrong with Moses when he smote the rock for the second time? He had no respect for God as holy. Moses knew the principle of God's character: not to get angry easily, to be full of kindness, to bless the generations of those who love him, to never regard those who hate him as innocent, but punish their sins down to the third and fourth generation. Earlier, when Moses told God about Korah's betrayal, God severely judged Korah. However, when Moses told God about the second generation's betrayal and complaints, God did not judge them as severely. This may have been one of the reasons for Moses' anger. Moses should have accepted the fact that the first generation of Israelites represent our old man, and the second generation represents the flesh of our new man after salvation. The nature of the two is different, so the way God treats them is also different. It can be said that the Bible record still got a lot of chances to mention Moses' disobedience to God, and it is not necessary to immediately raise the case of Moses' disobedience to God together with the judgment of not allowing him to enter the good land right after mentioning Zelophehad's daughters' request to claim the property. This matter must have something to do with the division of property between Zelophehad 's daughter. Where is this relationship? It is God's judgment on Moses. This is God's judgment on Moses regarding the issue of Zelophehad and the way Moses dealt with his matter. Although Moses might not be that impatient, he might have been negligent. What was the cause of Moses' negligence?   Pitfalls of Pride Many leaders start out with humility, but later in life fall into pride and sin. All leaders face difficulties and obstacles at the very beginning, and these difficulties and obstacles will make them humble. David's experience is a good example. When Saul was persecuting David, David submitted to God. Instead of killing Saul, David humbled himself before God, admitting that Saul was God's anointed one. At the end of his life, however, after he had conquered his enemies and made peace throughout the country, David committed sin with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. David sinned for a second time when he numbered the Israelites. Joab opposed David's unwise decision, and he would have stopped him if he could have. But the Bible clearly records that the King's words prevailed over Joab's words (1 Chronicles 21:4). Similarly, although Moses was one of God's greatest servants, he also needed to go through humbling experiences. His brother Aaron and sister Miriam gave him a lot of difficulties. These difficulties helped Moses grow in humility. When Aaron and Miriam attacked Moses, the Bible specifically called Moses the humblest person in the world (Numbers 12:3). The Lord himself came to Moses' defense and blamed Aaron and Miriam. However, by this chapter, both Miriam and Aaron were dead. Aaron's son, Eleazar, was priest. Except for Caleb and Joshua, most first-generation people had died. At this time, Moses became the absolute authority. In the eyes of the Israelites, he was like a god. The Israelites were slowly turning Moses into an idol. I believe that Moses knew God and did not agree with their idolatry. But the Israelis indeed elevated Moses to the position of deity. When the Lord Jesus came, many Israelites would not accept Jesus Christ. Instead, they said they would only accept Moses. Moses had gradually become the Israelites' idol. Even though Moses did not have the intention to exalt himself, his failure to honor God was a very serious matter in God's eyes. He reinforced the people's idolatry when he attributed the miracle to himself. Therefore, God must discipline Moses. When God uses a person greatly as his servant, he also disciplines that person severely. Because of the great revelation Paul got from God, he was also given a thorn from the enemy to bother him. He asked the Lord three times to take it away, but God did not do so. He said his grace was enough for him. The chapter demonstrates that as leaders, we must not mistakenly represent God and snatch away the glory that is rightfully God's. God's judgment is strict and there is no room for pride in His service. Even if you are someone as important as Moses or David, God will still discipline pride in his servants.   Inheritance Restored Zelophehad's daughters asked Moses for land, and he granted their request. This story teaches us that we can receive what we ask for in prayer and faith, as long as it is promised in Christ. The first section of this chapter specifically mentions the family tree of Zelophehad and his five daughters. The five daughters came to Moses and the crowd with a request. They were not only fighting for their inheritance, but also for their father's status. The five daughters made it clear to the congregation that their father died in sin, though it was not related to Korah's betrayal. In the Old Testament, the death of an Israeli man in sin would indeed bring danger to his inheritance. Therefore, this story is about God setting a precedent for similar cases in future generations. For example, Ruth's father-in-law, husband, and brother-in-law died in Moab. Naomi, her mother-in-law, took Ruth back to Judah. Not only did these women lose their husbands, but they also had no sons. Because of this, they lost their inheritance in Israel. However, since Zelophehad's daughters had already asked for protection of their father's status and inheritance, the precedent was set. This precedent helped Ruth and Naomi redeem their inheritance. In Ruth and Naomi's case, their relative Boaz was the one who helped them redeem their property. However, before Boaz could help redeem their land and marry Ruth, he had to give another relative who was closer to Ruth the opportunity to do so. The relative refused, because he knew that if he married Ruth, their son would not belong to him, but to Ruth's father-in-law and husband who had no descendants. He was worried that this would damage his own property. This story reminds us that as sinners, we have lost our inheritance: God himself. Christ came as our Kinsman Redeemer to redeem us, even though we could not redeem ourselves. Jesus came in the Year of Jubilee to give us back our inheritance. He is our elder brother and relative, so he can redeem us. He can return our inheritance (God himself) to us, and allow us to return to our inheritance (God himself). Zelophehad's daughters are from the tribe of Joseph, and Christ is from the tribe of Judah. The story may seem to have nothing to do with the birth of Christ, but it is indeed related. The precedent set in this chapter led to Ruth's redemption by Boaz, who later gave birth to Obed. Obed, in turn, was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David. David is the ancestor of Christ. Therefore, the main purpose of this story is to prepare for the appearance and salvation of Christ.   The Lord told Moses that if a person dies without sons, he must give the inheritance to his daughters. If there is no daughter, then he must give it to his brother. If there is no brother, then he must give it to the father's brother. If his father had no brothers, then he must give it to the closest relative in the family. This rule eventually paved the way for Ruth to be redeemed. What Zelophehad's daughters did was very commendable. Although their father committed sins and died, God's mercy was extremely generous. This is true in the Old Testament, and even more so in the New Testament. Christ is our Kinsman Redeemer, so we must come to Him without fear and ask for mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:16) Jesus said to his disciples, "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me something in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14) Jesus also said, "If you live in me, my words will live in you. Whatever you want, ask and it will be done for you." Mercy and Justice. The story of Zelophehad's daughters and the story of Moses' inability to enter the Promised Land are put together here so we can recognize the difference between God's mercy and God's justice. Zelophehad's death in sin and Naomi's husband and two sons' deaths in Moab were all due to God's righteous judgment. But God granted Zelophehad's daughters requests and established the principle that Kinsman Redeemers can redeem their relatives.  As a result, the salvation that Naomi and Ruth later obtained was due to God's mercy. The Lord told Moses about his mercy and justice in Exodus 34: "The Lord, the Lord, is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and rich in love and honesty. To save love for thousands of people, to forgive sins, transgressions, and evils, never regard the guilty as innocent. He must be punishable for his sins from his father and his son until three or four generations.” (Exodus 34:6-7) This is God's character and mode of operation. Moses knew this very well. Therefore, when dealing with the complaints of the second generation who wanted water to drink, he should have been full of compassion and grace for the Israelites, not impatience and anger. This is an extremely important principle. Although Moses failed, Paul set a good example in the New Testament. The people in the Corinthian church he established had many complaints and criticisms against him. They also committed many sins, including sins of immorality, such as marrying a stepmother. Paul was very angry with their sin. But when he handled this matter, he was very compassionate. He told the Corinthians to remove fornicators from among them--even handing them over to Satan so they would be physically corrupted, but their spirits would be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:1-5). However, after Paul heard that the disciples in Corinth had repented, he immediately changed his tone. He asked the disciples in Corinth to forgive the sinners, and Paul forgave them too. He urged for restoration for these people, lest they become too sorrowful and be swallowed up with grief. Paul did not want Satan to take advantage of them through the overly harsh treatment of sin (2 Corinthians 1:11). Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 4:18-21: “Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.  But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.  For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.  What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” ESV The people were arrogant because Paul was not there. Paul said that the kingdom of God lies not in words, but in power—and even in the rod of discipline. Paul had the authority and power from God to judge them, just as Moses had God's authority to judge Israel. But Paul's attitude here is very humble, giving the Corinthians choices and begging them to turn from sin. In fact, Paul kept himself under control and stayed humble, pleading with the Corinthians to repent in mercy. Just like Moses and Paul, spiritual leaders in the church today will face similar tests. People will complain or even misunderstand them. Our responses will reflect our knowledge of God's rules and the manifestation of God's life in us. We must remember that God is merciful and gracious. When we face complaints and opposition, we have an amazing opportunity to demonstrate the life of God in us. The more we have God's anointing and authority, the more we should have God's temperament of mercy and kindness. If we lose the mercy and kindness of God, we lose the authority God has given us. The level of our authority lies in the level of the mercy of God manifested in us. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, he had compassion on people who were like sheep without a shepherd. Whether he saw the blind people (Luke 18:35-43) or lepers (Mark 1:41), he had mercy on them. Jesus is the best manifestation of God's temperament. The story of Zelophehad's daughters reveals the compassionate heart of God. Luke 1:78-79 says, “Because of our God's compassionate heart, the morning sun comes to us from high to illuminate those who sit in the darkness and the shadow of death and lead our feet to the path of peace." The story of Moses shows that if believers cannot demonstrate a compassionate heart as we serve Him, then in God's eyes we "do not respect God as holy." We must be strictly disciplined. But God's strict discipline to Moses does not mean you cannot pray for God's mercy or that God won't answer your prayers. If you believe this, you are falling into the enemy's traps. Both stories not only speak of justice, but also of God's mercy. If you are in a similar situation to Zelophehad's daughters, come to God without fear and ask for His mercy. If you are a person who serves God like Moses, remember to show God's mercy in everything so as to honor God as holy. The more we show God's mercy in our service, the more we have God's authority. However, if we lose God's mercy, we will also lose God's authority. I hope that the relationship between these two stories will help you better understand God's mercy and how we can apply it in our lives. We welcome you to come to God's most holy place without fear, ask for grace and mercy, and get help in time of need.

Slideshow for this message is available We are in John chapter 8 this morning. And today is not your normal sermon and you’ll see why in just a second. Let’s begin in Samuel. When you read through the book of Samuel and Kings you very quickly pick up on a pattern. Here’s the pattern: when the author introduces us to a new king, he uses this formulaic introduction that looks like this: So hopefully you are seeing the idea. This formula is used at least 16 times that I could find. Now, there’s an interesting problem when you get to 1 Samuel 13:1. 1 Samuel 13:1 is another one of these formulas and it’s applied to Saul. But when you read it, you’ll see a problem. I’ll illustrate the problem by showing you three different translations: door 1, door 2, door 3, door 4. Now what’s going on here? The answer is the text is lost. Somewhere along the way, in the process of transmission, these numbers were either: intentionally left out, forgetfully left out or got destroyed so they could not be copied. Here’s the question. How does that make you feel to know there is a fallible human process that is associated with the English Bible you hold in your lap this morning? Does that destroy your confidence? Does that mean that the Bible contains errors? Don’t we teach biblical inerrancy (that the Bible is a book WITHOUT errors)? Yes we do, but it’s important to note that this doctrine applies to the original autographa, that’s a term that refers to the original documents, the actual scroll that the inspired writers wrote on, which of course we no longer have. We must acknowledge that errors have been introduced through the copying and transmission process. It’s called textual corruption. Now, the word corruption is a little unfortunate. It brings to mind corruption in politics. If we say the Bible is corrupt, that’s a pretty negative picture. But it’s a technical word that just means there is some change from the original. Imagine transferring a file from your phone to the computer. If the file makes it 99 percent of the way and just one bit changes then the file has been corrupted even though it still contains 99.999% of the original information. But it’s also the case that if 99.999% of the data is lost and only a fractional portion is preserved, that too is a corrupt file. So the real question is how corrupt is it? It all hinges on the answer to that question. Textual corruption can come in two different flavors. 1 Samuel 13:1 is corrupt in that something was taken away from the original text. But it is also possible to corrupt the text by adding to it. Today we come to John chapter 8:1-11. This is the story of the woman caught in adultery and all the Pharisees want to stone her and Jesus says, ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ He begins writing on the ground and one by one they walk away. And then Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Go and sin no more.” It’s a beloved text. But here’s the problem. This section of the Bible almost certainly was not part of the original text. John chapter 8.1-11 is an example of corruption through addition. This was a story that had circulated around and was likely even true, but was not part of the original text and was added much later. If you’ll notice in most English Bible’s they point this out at varying levels of specificity: have a note at this point: In my NAS you’ve got this tiny little footnote. In my Greek NT it sets it apart like this. The ESV does it like this. Maybe this is the first time you’ve heard something like this. And maybe it’s even disturbing to you. So here’s what I want to do today. The goal is to BOTH convince you that this text is not part of the Bible which means we are not going to preach it as Scripture AND to have you walk away with FULL confidence that this book can be absolutely trusted in all it’s parts even though this transmission error exists. The Transmission Process So I’m actually going to start with the second part of that. Knowing that transmission errors like this exist, how can we trust that any of it is reliable at all? It’s a very good question. It’s the same feeling of uncertainty that you get when you discover someone has lied to you. Well, if you just lied right there, what kind of assurance do I have that everything else you’ve told me isn’t a lie. Is this a fluke or a habit? Many liberal scholars will attempt to attack the Bible in this very same way. Bart Ehrman’s who is one of the world’s foremost scholars in this area in best-selling book, “Misquoting Jesus” focuses on this issue as it pertains to the New Testament text: So his point here is simple: There is no need to examine the content of the New Testament if we don’t even have the New Testament. Now it’s difficult to feel competent to address a conclusion like this from a scholar. So here’s the question, “Can we defend the claim that the actual TEXT of the BIBLE is trustworthy?” From a raw textual transmission point of view, how corrupt is the text we possess today? To answer the question of how reliable the text is, we have to develop some minimum criteria for determining if a document is reliable (this criteria is not be specific to the Bible. This could be any historical document). And there really are only about three tests that matter here. Let’s start with that first point. What we mean by this is how long of a gap exists between the original writing (the autographa) - the actual scroll that was originally penned, and the first extant copy (that is, the oldest copy we have discovered that is still in existence today). As you know the Bible is made up of two halves - the OT written in Hebrew and the NT written in Greek and they represent very different processes of formation and transmission. Just think in rough terms about the differences. If you think about the Hebrew OT it records thousands of years of history and was written over roughly a thousand year period of time. So let’s assume Moses wrote the Pentateuch - the first five books. He’s around 1400BC and the last book of the OT was written maybe around 400BC Compare that to the NT. The NT records roughly about 50 years of history and was written in that same amount of time. So they are quite different documents. So it makes sense to discuss the transmission process of these two portions individually. The OT Witness Let’s start with the OT. When it comes to the OT, by far, the most relevant and interesting discussion is the dead sea scrolls. Here’s why. If you were alive prior to 1947 and someone were to ask you, “What is the oldest complete copy of the OT you possess?” what would your answer be? Well you’d have to answer the Codex Leningrad B19A. Codex is the word for book and B19A is a cataloging identifier. It’s housed in the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. Here’s a picture of the inside of the book. It’s quite beautiful. Now there were other fragments and parts that were older. The other really famous manuscript is the Allepo Codex. It’s mostly complete but isn’t much older. So this is the oldest complete copy of the OT we possess. And when was this written? This was written in 1008AD. That’s a HUGE GAP between when the original author wrote the book and our oldest existing copy! Let’s just draw that gap on the timeline. How many hand copies are represented here? Answer: lots. How much confidence do you have that this book has not changed? It creates a lot of uncertainty. How much does a manuscript change in 1000 years? If a manuscript wears out every 100 years (best case) that means at least 10 copies and probably a lot more than that. There’s just no way to know. Well, in 1947 there was a massive discovery. In fact, it’s hard to argue against the fact that it’s the greatest discovery of the 20th century. It happened by accident. Some bedouines were throwing rocks and scrambling down into caves by the Dead Sea and found 7 scrolls housed in jars. These are tall jars designed to hold scrolls. Those jars were found in this cave which is now known as Cave 1. This is an extreme desert climate so the conditions were absolutely optimal for preservation. At first they had no idea what they were. They were hanging them on the post of their tent, selling them to antiquities dealers. But then they fell into the right hands and the search was on. The area was scoured and hundreds of more scrolls were discovered. There are were 972 manuscripts found and tens of thousands of fragments. 90 percent of the scrolls were found in cave 4 here. I had to laugh at one book I read. "In the fourth cave the fragments were torn into up to 15,000 pieces. These small fragments created somewhat of a problem for scholars." If any of you like putting together impossible puzzles without a picture on a box this might be a job for you. The main guy in charge of this died before it was complete. Even to this day the study of these scrolls continues. About 40 percent of the manuscripts are actually copies of OT books. All the OT is represented except for the book of Esther. There’s one scroll in particular that is especially impressive. It’s called the Great Isaiah Scroll. It’s the complete book of Isaiah in almost perfect readable condition. If you are curious you can go to this Digital Dead Sea Scroll website and interact with the text. Here’s the significance for our purposes. We are asking the question what is the gap between the writing of the original document and the oldest copy we possess today? Prior to 1947 and the discovery of the scrolls it was Codex Leningrad B19A at 1008AD. With the dead sea scrolls we can get to about 100 years BCE. That’s 1100 years earlier. That’s a GIANT leap. And of course the question is how much has the text changed in that 1000 year period? The answer is virtually none. It really is remarkable. Now to be sure, we still have a gap. If Moses wrote Genesis then we are still 1300 years away from the Pentateuch but only 250 years or less away from the last of the prophets. But it does give us tremendous confidence to say if the text didn’t change for 1100 years between dead sea scrolls and the Leningrad codex, it’s reasonable to assume that the text has been faithfully preserved despite the gap. So that’s the gap that exists in the OT. What about the NT? The NT Witness In the NT we have a much smaller gap. Let’s start with this quote. Now I don’t love the way that quote is worded and honestly a lot of the NT apologetic material because it is worded to make it sound like we have complete books. We don’t have complete books at these early stages. Here’s a list of some of the earliest manuscripts we have of just the gospels. These are all fragments but very, very early. So we have a very close gap in terms of fragmentary evidence. But what about larger sections and complete manuscripts? Every book of the NT is different in terms of it’s manuscript evidence. It would take a whole class to understand all this, but since we are in John, let’s just take John as an example. We could ask the question, "How many significant manuscripts of the book of John exist that were written before 300 AD. Circle that date 300 AD in your mind. Do we have 1? Do we have 2? The place to go to discover this is actually this website that is known as the K-List. Why is it called K list? Because it’s mercifully shortening this German phrase. (Short List of Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament) It’s funny that they call it a short list since it catalogs every NT Greek text or fragment ever discovered. You can filter by fragment size, date, location it was discovered and every other imaginable tag. So if you filter by date and the book of John you discover that there are 20 significant, existing manuscripts of the Gospel of John written before A.D. 300 and many manuscripts. One of the most famous is P66. Here’s a leaf. This is a nearly complete copy of the book of John and many date this around 200AD. The gospel of John was written maybe around 90AD so this is about 110 years after the fact. Now that’s not bad. But it’s still a bit of a gap. But here’s a really important question: If you were the scribe copying parchment 66 what would you be using as your master copy? You’d find the oldest possible manuscript available to you because that would be closer to the original. So the Scribe of P66 is writing around 200. How old of a manuscript do you think he could find? Let me show you some pretty interesting quotes from some church fathers who lived right around this time. This is from an early church father named Turtullean who lived AD 175. This is even more fascinating since it references the book of John - the book in question. Now keep in mind this is Peter of Alexandria who wrote this in 311AD. Here he is claiming that the original still existed in 311AD. If that is true, it’s possible that the P66 manuscript which predates this quote by 100 years was hand copied from the original. I told you to circle that year 300 in your mind. It would have been possible for any manuscript of John earlier than 300AD to have been copied from the original. We know that the manuscript existed in 311. But it’s not like it exploded right after that. We don’t know how much longer that survived. So it could have lasted another couple hundred years. We don’t know. So it’s possible that manuscripts much later than even 311 were copied from the original. We could strengthen the case further still by pointing out that in many cases there was not just one autographa. We know Paul used an scribe. And since many of his letter were sent out for circulation, almost certainly from day one there would have been multiple copies increasing the chance for the original to be preserved. Here’s the point: what is certainly, certainly not the case is that there were dozens and dozens and copies upon copies and massive errors crept into the copies we possess today. So we’ve discussed these first two criteria for reliabiliy - both the proximity to the original (the gap) and the number of copies. Now let’s jump forward two hundred years. The number of copies we have of biblical texts that have survived really begins to multiply. So if we go the 5th century which would be the 0-500AD, this is what the manuscript evidence looks like. This fragmentary and whole book evidence. 500 years sounds pretty far removed. So again, ask yourself the question. If you are copying a manuscript from this era, you’d get the oldest possible manuscript. You could probably reach back 200 years. At this point it’s easily conceivable that if someone was really trying to get to the original, this is only the second copy. Now after this point, in history the number of manuscripts just explodes. I think this is a helpful chart. “Many of these are fragmentary, of course, especially the older ones, but the average Greek New Testament manuscript is well over 400 pages long. Altogether, there are more than 2.5 million pages of texts.” So our total number of Greek manuscripts is around 5800 and if you include translations of the Greek manuscripts we are talking north of 23,000. And just to get a visual impression of the total number of manuscripts; it is really overwhelming. “If the average-sized manuscript were two and one half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high! - Dan Wallace” Again, keep in mind, most of this is later (Medieval). Most of this is fragmentary. Only about 8% of the manuscripts we have are complete. It’s sometimes helpful just to compare this to how well preserved other ancient documents are that have come down to us through the corridors of time. So if you compare the biblical manuscript evidence to some other classical literature you see just how well preserved the Bible is. Just to be clear, these are cherry picked examples in that they are the BEST preserved documents we have. Here’s another way of visualizing the data. Okay you have all these documents but how different are they from each other. That’s our third criteria for reliability. How much variation is there from one verse text to another across manuscripts? If you count literally every single possible type of variants. 62.9 percent of verses show no variants whatsoever. This means that if you examined all 5500 scripts they would be in 100% agreement on 62.9 percent of the verses in the Bible. That’s not that great. Does that mean you can only trust a little more than half. The picture changes drastically when you realize the nature of the variants. 75% of the variants are spelling errors. 19% don’t actually make sense. The scribe came along and a scribe is not supposed to correct. He’s just supposed to copy so he carries forward the mistake. 5% are meaningful but not viable. 1% less than one percent are both viable and meaningful. The two largest discrepancies by far in terms of meaning is John 8 and the end of Mark 16 (called the longer ending). If you exclude these (which is easy to do as you’ll see in a second) after these two, the longest discrepancy is two sentences and then quickly drops off to small phrases and single words. So hopefully this assures you that what we hold in our hands today is a very accurate edition of the NT and very, very closely reflects the original autographa Why is John 8 Suspect? So let’s come all the way back to it. So we have all this manuscript evidence that points to great preservation. Why are we saying with such certainty that John chapter 8 and this story of the woman caught in adultery is NOT part of the original text. What is the evidence for that? Well, I only need to spend 3 minutes on this point. Now that you understand how this process works it won’t be hard to convince you. Five points: These verses are present in most of the medieval Greek miniscule manuscripts, but they are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts that have come down to us, representing great diversity of textual traditions. Let me give you one more wrinkle of detail here. Manuscripts can easily be divided up into families. Once a certain error is introduced into the text that error gets copied and recopied and develops into a family. There are about five major families of manuscripts: In every major family of manuscript this is excluded until you get to the medieval era. There is one exception is the Western uncial D, but it is known for its independence in numerous other places. They are also missing from the earliest forms of the Syriac and Coptic Gospels, and from many Old Latin, Old Georgian and Armenian manuscripts. Moreover, a number of (later) manuscripts that include the narrative mark it off with asterisks, indicating hesitation as to its authenticity, while those that do include it display a relatively high frequency of textual variants. All the early church Fathers omit this narrative: in commenting on John, they pass immediately from 7:52 to 8:12. No Eastern Father cites the passage before the tenth century. Now that might not sound all that significant to you. But very few people realize how much material has been preserved from the church fathers. Do you realize that there are over a million NT quotations that have been preserved from the church fathers. If all we had was the church fathers we could piece together well over 95% of the NT. Although most of the manuscripts that include the story place it here (i.e. at 7:53–8:11), some place it instead after Luke 21:38, and other witnesses variously place it after John 7:44, John 7:36 or John 21:25. The fact that it is not consistently placed in the same location is pretty strong evidence that it was added later and not part of the original. Finally, even if someone should decide that the material is authentic, John almost certainly didn’t write it. The style is completely different. There are numerous expressions and constructions that are found nowhere else in John. Now that being said, it does appear to be a piece of oral tradition carried down. It most likely was true. It just doesn’t belong in the Scriptures and can’t be treated with the same sort of unquestioned authority. It would be foolish to make a theological point using this text or to preach it in the same way we preach the rest of the Bible. How Should we Respond? So we could have just skipped this section all together. But we talked about this as elders and decided it best to take this opportunity to demonstrate how we go our Bibles. Now, what I want to do now is just apply what we’ve learned today. There’s a few really important points to make here. Thank the Lord you have a Bible! We definitely take it for granted that we are able to read the Bible literally whenever we want to. It has most certainly not always been this way. The first reason that most of history has not been able to read the Bible in their language was because if you wanted your own volume you had to copy it by hand. Copying the Bible would have been a massive undertaking and took professional scribes close to a year. Contrast that to a modern printing press that can crank out 75 pages per minute. My Bible has 1106 pages for a total print time of 14 minutes. In quantity each page costs less than a penny and I can pick up this nice leather bound version for $18.95. If you want a paper Bible, grab one on the way out. They are free. You can take a whole case of them if you want. Nobody cares. They are so cheap. You can read it online, download an app and get 300 translations in a second. My friends, this has not always been so. Just try to hand copy the Bible. Long copy times means high cost. Gutenberg’s Bible which was the first printed Bible was significantly less expensive than handwritten copies and cost 30 florins in 1452. People were so incredibly excited at how drastically the prices had been slashed with the invention of the printing press. It was a moment of ecstasy. Now you could buy a Bible for 30 Florins. You want to know what that is in today’s dollars. At a very conservative exchange rate is about 100,000 dollars. How many of you could afford to purchase one? Churches might be able to purchase a single copy. And they would chain it to the pulpit. The second reason that many could not read the Bible is that it wasn’t in their language. We are so fortunate. All this careful compiling, comparing, studying the original manuscripts so that we could then have an accurate original to then translate. Our English translations are among the best in the world. We are so thankful. Read it. The claim is that this book is the Word of God. You need this. You need to be shaped by it in every way. What you love. What you do and don’t do. This is your food. It is bread to your soul. This connects you to Jesus Christ, the author of life. READ IT. It’s a treasure. It’s been passed down. Men have given their lives to preserve it. What a tragedy if we don’t read it. The great 18th-century evangelist John Wesley provides a good answer: I want to know one thing, the way to heaven. . . . He hath written it down in a book. Give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book]. In the beginning was the WORD. This is the WORD. Application: Read Psalm 119. Make a Bible Reading Plan. Download the Dwell App. Pray for the Spirit of God to use it in your life. Don’t trust in the labor saving deliverance of technology! IT’s not a life hack that is going to give you the next level of breakthrough. Let me make this point by way of 3 P’s. You have the Production of Scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We don’t believe this is any old book. We believe this to be the inspired words of God. Then there’s the preservation which we have talked about. But then there’s the perception. How do we perceive the words? How do we understand them? You see we ultimately need the Spirit of God to ascertain and discern spiritual things. Many will look at this book and write it off as foolishness. But ultimately it’s the Spirit of God working in us that is the true test. Ultimate test of authenticity. The holy Spirit. God gives us the Spirit of God which is the WORD in us. Now those are quick points, but do something about it right now. Next week, I want to have reports that Bible reading has increased in your life.

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss the inspiring story of Moses and how he used delegation to become a successful leader. The Story of Moses Moses was a prophet called of God to do His work. God spoke to Moses in a burning bush and called upon him to save the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. The Israelites had been slaves of Egypt for 430 years, and after much pain and sorrow, Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, told Moses he could take his people and go.  Exodus chapter 14 is one of the most known in the Bible. While Moses led the Israelites to freedom, Pharaoh took 600 chariots and pursued them, trapping them against the shores of the Red Sea.  As Pharaoh's chariots and horses marched towards the Israelites, they became afraid and cried out unto the Lord. In verses 13 and 14 Moses said, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you today . . . The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” The Lord commanded Moses to lift up his rod and stretch his hand over the sea to part the waters. As Moses followed the command, the Red Sea divided and the children of Israel walked upon dry ground to safety.  When we are told this story, it often comes to an end in Exodus chapter 14. Moses saved the Israelites from slavery and led them to God's promised land. The end. But it doesn't end there.  Moses just saved a lot of people. Exodus 12:37 says, “Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children.” If the 600,000 number is only the men, then including women and children, we can assume there were millions of Israelites with Moses.  Exodus 14:31, says the people “believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.” The millions of Israelites were all looking to Moses for guidance.  Leading the Israelites With the guidance and direction of the Lord, Moses became the leader of all the Israelites. Exodus chapter 18, explains that Moses went to judge the people and listen to them from the morning until evening.  When Jethro, Moses' father in law, saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.” (KJV Exodus 18:17-18) In other words, Moses was sitting in judgment alone and trying to do everything himself. He had not learned how to delegate. Jethro counseled Moses to teach the ordinances and laws of God and to show them the way, but to also provide able men to be rulers over them and help judge. He said, “But every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.” (KJV Exodus 18:22) Moses was an incredible leader, but in this situation, he was doing too much. He was taking on all of the burdens and doing everything alone. Not only is this exhausting, but also less effective and efficient. He listened to Jethro's advice and appointed other judges to help him. With that help, Moses could help many more Israelites. We can learn from Moses' leadership and example. Being a leader doesn't mean taking on every task ourselves. It also means delegating tasks to others. I like to tell my managers that their job is to get the job done, not to do the job themselves. The Art of Delegation  Entrepreneurs are leaders. Building a startup business often requires entrepreneurs to be involved with many different aspects of the business at the beginning: sales, finances, marketing, content creation, customer service, staffing and management, strategy, and more. Like Moses, we may take on too much, but we need to remember that we don't have to do it alone. In fact, we shouldn't. Learning and applying the art of delegation will make our work go along much more effectively and efficiently. Delegation is essential to success.  Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and philanthropist who led the expansion of the American steel industry and became one of the richest Americans in history said, “No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.” In order to grow our businesses, we need to hire team members to do certain tasks and take responsibility for us. By getting help with the day-to-day responsibilities, we will have more time to focus on our higher priorities. When Moses was judging the people by himself, he spent morning until the evening working. However, when he appointed other judges, he had a lot more time to work on more important things. Freeing up time will also reduce stress and exhaustion, thereby improving our workflow.  With more team members, we will also have more talent, creativity, hours, and ideas to work with.  Richard Branson, an author, investor, and business magnate said, “I learnt from an early age the need to delegate responsibility out to other team members as there is just too much for one person to do themselves. What is the point of hiring talented team members if you don't give them the freedom to make the most of the chance you have given them?” We may have a lot of great ideas. We may have many talents. But, we will never have as many ideas or as many talents as a group of 20 people, or even three.  In a study of 143 CEOs, it was found that those with a higher talent in the delegation had an average three-year growth rate of 112 percentage points higher than those with low delegator talent. Those with a high delegator talent also generated 33% greater revenue than those with a lower delegator talent (Source: Gallup).  When we delegate effectively, we actually increase our chances of success and monetization.  Delegation doesn't just mean handing off tasks to those around us while we watch them do it. We need to be a good delegator, something that requires us to help them be successful. This includes providing training and resources, authority, offering feedback, trusting, setting clear expectations, and ultimately, taking responsibility for the final results.  “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.” - John C. Maxwell, New York Times Best Selling Author  Moses and Delegation  Moses learned early on that he didn't have to do everything on his own. He was eventually able to use delegation to be a successful leader.  In Exodus 35 to 39, Moses used delegation to speed up God's work. God commanded Moses and his people to create a tabernacle, or place of worship, where the Israelites could make offerings unto the Lord. He also provided very specific instructions about how to do it. Moses gave these instructions to the people, and most people helped. Moses didn't try to do everything himself.  In chapter 35, all of the Israelites provided offerings of materials to help build the tabernacle. “And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments.” (KJV Exodus 35:21) The women spun fine linen, rulers brought onyx stones and spice, and others brought jewelry, gold, brass, and more.  Then God appointed through Moses, Bezaleel and Anoliab, and every wise-hearted man, to be put to work to help build the tabernacle and altar. “Thus was all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation finished: and the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did they.” (KJV Exodus 39:32) If Moses had tried to build the tabernacle himself, he could never have done it himself, even with a lifetime of work. However, because he effectively delegated the work to others, they were able to build the tabernacle in a much shorter period of time.  Just as Moses used delegation to speed up God's work, we can use delegation to help grow our businesses and become successful leaders.  Key Takeaways Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode: Moses was able to effectively and efficiently accomplish God's work when he delegated tasks out to others. Like Moses, we don't have to do everything by ourselves. A successful leader and entrepreneur need to be an effective delegator.  If we delegate day-to-day tasks, we will have more time to focus on higher priorities.  If we delegate tasks, we will have more talent and ideas to work with.  Delegating tasks helps our businesses grow faster and increases our chances for success and monetization. To be an effective delegator we need to be involved. We should be clear about our expectations, provide training and the resources our team members need and take responsibility for the final outcomes.  Join Entrepreneurs of Faith If this episode of Entrepreneurs of Faith resonated with you, please subscribe for FREE to Monetization Nation so you can receive Entrepreneurs of Faith each Sunday. Subscribe to the free Monetization Nation eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Share Your Story  How do you effectively delegate to your team? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/94-how-moses-used-delegation-to-become-a-more-successful-leader/ 

"If Moses were alive today he’d come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments and spend the next five years trying to get them published." - Anonymous. My interpretation of this week's #WriterWednesday quote and how it applies to authors making the traditional vs. self publishing decision. Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 Introduction 1. 0:53 Recently, I've seen several of your videos dealing with The Passion Translation, and the criticism seems very much on point. Clearly, Brian Simmons is a bit of a nut and I think you'd agree that religions can attract those types of people. So, why would you assume Paul, or the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John weren't also nutty? At the very least you should be skeptical of their writings. Further, there is no way to go back and do the sort of analysis of those authors, the way you can with Simmons. For example, the review you do of Simmons' lectures, as opposed to simply having his Passion Translation, is very effective in demonstrating just how nutty he is. Nothing even close to that is possible with the biblical authors. So why give them credence? 2. 9:05 If Moses was God's chosen one, why did God want to kill him in Exodus 4: 24? Also, what did Zipporah mean by "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me"? 3. 14:00 Can you help me understand the comparison/contrast between how the Holy Spirit comes upon vs. in someone? Is it correct that in the Old Testament, He came UPON someone (Exodus 29: 45 & Ezekiel 37: 27) but not IN, and in the New Testament, He indwells believers? 4. 19:08 What are your thoughts on Kenneth Hagin's "The Authority of the Believer" and other Christian spiritual authority concepts? If none, would you consider looking into it? 5. 21:27 Are angels immortal? if not, does that mean demons might have a chance to defeat them or some in a war? I ask because sometimes I see paintings of angels vs demons. 6. 23:03 I was wondering, why are there times where Jesus tells people not to talk about Him? Some Verses: Matt. 8:4, 9: 30, 12: 16) 7. 26:05 If God's will is always done in Heaven, was Satan's rebellion God's will? 8. 28:41 What are some ways God disciplines us as it's said in Hebrews? How do we know if He is disciplining? Can He discipline through physical or psychological ailments? 9. 32:34 What does someone need to believe for you to consider them your brother or sister in Christ? 10. 35:13 Could you comment on Matthew 13: 44-45? Most people seem to feel that the merchant is a man and the pearl/treasure is Christ, but in context I seem to see the opposite. 11. 40:27 You were in American Gospel 2. What do you think of the final 10 minutes teaching God's whole purpose for everything is His own glory, and we're "merely" incidental to that? 12. 44:17 Does the integrity of our faith need Adam and Eve to be literal historical people? Some people say the account of Adam and Eve is a myth, or a story to teach us theological and moral truth. 13. 47:01 If God is good and perfect, how can He ever be jealous (Exodus 20:6) or angry (Exodus 34:6) since both jealousy and anger are sins of the flesh (Galatians 5: 20)? More Cat Cam! 14. 51:48 Can you explain how you understand John 20: 23? I've read several commentaries on this verse and still have difficulty rightly understanding it. 15. 55:02 How can I learn to see God as a loving Father? I'm afraid and sometimes I feel that God is indifferent and impatient with me. Am I gonna make it to heaven? 16. 59:40 Any books you recommend for those courting and preparing for marriage? If not, any advice? 17. 1:02:00 If someone passes away, is it wrong to pray for their salvation? This would not be “get them out of purgatory,” this would just be in a “God, you knew back then that I would pray this” sort of way. 18. 1:03:20 In your opinion, who are the “gods of Egypt” in Exodus 12? The options seem to be rulers, idols, demons, or actual gods. 19. 1:07:59 I shared your Passion Project with the Elders of my church. They thought it was nitpicking. How do I decide to leave? Long history with these people. Seem to be becoming hyper-charismatic. 20. 1:09:52 What boundaries (biblical separation) should a Christian establish with a professed believer who is now in a gay marriage? BONUS Q: 1:12:11 I am a new cat owne

Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 Introduction 1. 0:53 Recently, I've seen several of your videos dealing with The Passion Translation, and the criticism seems very much on point. Clearly, Brian Simmons is a bit of a nut and I think you'd agree that religions can attract those types of people. So, why would you assume Paul, or the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John weren't also nutty? At the very least you should be skeptical of their writings. Further, there is no way to go back and do the sort of analysis of those authors, the way you can with Simmons. For example, the review you do of Simmons' lectures, as opposed to simply having his Passion Translation, is very effective in demonstrating just how nutty he is. Nothing even close to that is possible with the biblical authors. So why give them credence? 2. 9:05 If Moses was God's chosen one, why did God want to kill him in Exodus 4: 24? Also, what did Zipporah mean by "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me"? 3. 14:00 Can you help me understand the comparison/contrast between how the Holy Spirit comes upon vs. in someone? Is it correct that in the Old Testament, He came UPON someone (Exodus 29: 45 & Ezekiel 37: 27) but not IN, and in the New Testament, He indwells believers? 4. 19:08 What are your thoughts on Kenneth Hagin's "The Authority of the Believer" and other Christian spiritual authority concepts? If none, would you consider looking into it? 5. 21:27 Are angels immortal? if not, does that mean demons might have a chance to defeat them or some in a war? I ask because sometimes I see paintings of angels vs demons. 6. 23:03 I was wondering, why are there times where Jesus tells people not to talk about Him? Some Verses: Matt. 8:4, 9: 30, 12: 16) 7. 26:05 If God’s will is always done in Heaven, was Satan’s rebellion God’s will? 8. 28:41 What are some ways God disciplines us as it’s said in Hebrews? How do we know if He is disciplining? Can He discipline through physical or psychological ailments? 9. 32:34 What does someone need to believe for you to consider them your brother or sister in Christ? 10. 35:13 Could you comment on Matthew 13: 44-45? Most people seem to feel that the merchant is a man and the pearl/treasure is Christ, but in context I seem to see the opposite. 11. 40:27 You were in American Gospel 2. What do you think of the final 10 minutes teaching God's whole purpose for everything is His own glory, and we're "merely" incidental to that? 12. 44:17 Does the integrity of our faith need Adam and Eve to be literal historical people? Some people say the account of Adam and Eve is a myth, or a story to teach us theological and moral truth. 13. 47:01 If God is good and perfect, how can He ever be jealous (Exodus 20:6) or angry (Exodus 34:6) since both jealousy and anger are sins of the flesh (Galatians 5: 20)? More Cat Cam! 14. 51:48 Can you explain how you understand John 20: 23? I’ve read several commentaries on this verse and still have difficulty rightly understanding it. 15. 55:02 How can I learn to see God as a loving Father? I’m afraid and sometimes I feel that God is indifferent and impatient with me. Am I gonna make it to heaven? 16. 59:40 Any books you recommend for those courting and preparing for marriage? If not, any advice? 17. 1:02:00 If someone passes away, is it wrong to pray for their salvation? This would not be “get them out of purgatory,” this would just be in a “God, you knew back then that I would pray this” sort of way. 18. 1:03:20 In your opinion, who are the “gods of Egypt” in Exodus 12? The options seem to be rulers, idols, demons, or actual gods. 19. 1:07:59 I shared your Passion Project with the Elders of my church. They thought it was nitpicking. How do I decide to leave? Long history with these people. Seem to be becoming hyper-charismatic. 20. 1:09:52 What boundaries (biblical separation) should a Christian establish with a professed believer who is now in a gay marriage? BONUS Q: 1:12:11 I am a new cat owne

Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 Introduction 1. 0:53 Recently, I've seen several of your videos dealing with The Passion Translation, and the criticism seems very much on point. Clearly, Brian Simmons is a bit of a nut and I think you'd agree that religions can attract those types of people. So, why would you assume Paul, or the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John weren't also nutty? At the very least you should be skeptical of their writings. Further, there is no way to go back and do the sort of analysis of those authors, the way you can with Simmons. For example, the review you do of Simmons' lectures, as opposed to simply having his Passion Translation, is very effective in demonstrating just how nutty he is. Nothing even close to that is possible with the biblical authors. So why give them credence? 2. 9:05 If Moses was God's chosen one, why did God want to kill him in Exodus 4: 24? Also, what did Zipporah mean by "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me"? 3. 14:00 Can you help me understand the comparison/contrast between how the Holy Spirit comes upon vs. in someone? Is it correct that in the Old Testament, He came UPON someone (Exodus 29: 45 & Ezekiel 37: 27) but not IN, and in the New Testament, He indwells believers? 4. 19:08 What are your thoughts on Kenneth Hagin's "The Authority of the Believer" and other Christian spiritual authority concepts? If none, would you consider looking into it? 5. 21:27 Are angels immortal? if not, does that mean demons might have a chance to defeat them or some in a war? I ask because sometimes I see paintings of angels vs demons. 6. 23:03 I was wondering, why are there times where Jesus tells people not to talk about Him? Some Verses: Matt. 8:4, 9: 30, 12: 16) 7. 26:05 If God’s will is always done in Heaven, was Satan’s rebellion God’s will? 8. 28:41 What are some ways God disciplines us as it’s said in Hebrews? How do we know if He is disciplining? Can He discipline through physical or psychological ailments? 9. 32:34 What does someone need to believe for you to consider them your brother or sister in Christ? 10. 35:13 Could you comment on Matthew 13: 44-45? Most people seem to feel that the merchant is a man and the pearl/treasure is Christ, but in context I seem to see the opposite. 11. 40:27 You were in American Gospel 2. What do you think of the final 10 minutes teaching God's whole purpose for everything is His own glory, and we're "merely" incidental to that? 12. 44:17 Does the integrity of our faith need Adam and Eve to be literal historical people? Some people say the account of Adam and Eve is a myth, or a story to teach us theological and moral truth. 13. 47:01 If God is good and perfect, how can He ever be jealous (Exodus 20:6) or angry (Exodus 34:6) since both jealousy and anger are sins of the flesh (Galatians 5: 20)? More Cat Cam! 14. 51:48 Can you explain how you understand John 20: 23? I’ve read several commentaries on this verse and still have difficulty rightly understanding it. 15. 55:02 How can I learn to see God as a loving Father? I’m afraid and sometimes I feel that God is indifferent and impatient with me. Am I gonna make it to heaven? 16. 59:40 Any books you recommend for those courting and preparing for marriage? If not, any advice? 17. 1:02:00 If someone passes away, is it wrong to pray for their salvation? This would not be “get them out of purgatory,” this would just be in a “God, you knew back then that I would pray this” sort of way. 18. 1:03:20 In your opinion, who are the “gods of Egypt” in Exodus 12? The options seem to be rulers, idols, demons, or actual gods. 19. 1:07:59 I shared your Passion Project with the Elders of my church. They thought it was nitpicking. How do I decide to leave? Long history with these people. Seem to be becoming hyper-charismatic. 20. 1:09:52 What boundaries (biblical separation) should a Christian establish with a professed believer who is now in a gay marriage? BONUS Q: 1:12:11 I am a new cat owner. What are your cats’ favorite kind of toys? Every Friday at 1pm PT Here’s how you get your questions answered in the Q&A 1) Please reread your question before you ask to ensure that it will make sense to me. Clarity is paramount. 2) Wait till we go live before asking. We don’t take questions until then. 3) Put a “Q” at the beginning of your question. 4) Please only ask once, our mods are checking the chat continually. 5) I’m truly sorry if I’m unable to get to your question. I know its a bummer, but I am doing my best. 6) If you arrive late we may have already gathered 20 questions. Please check the live chat to see if we are full on Qs. Thanks! Helping you learn to think biblically about everything, because the Bible is more brilliant, beautiful and life-changing than most of us have realized.

Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 Introduction 1. 0:53 Recently, I've seen several of your videos dealing with The Passion Translation, and the criticism seems very much on point. Clearly, Brian Simmons is a bit of a nut and I think you'd agree that religions can attract those types of people. So, why would you assume Paul, or the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John weren't also nutty? At the very least you should be skeptical of their writings. Further, there is no way to go back and do the sort of analysis of those authors, the way you can with Simmons. For example, the review you do of Simmons' lectures, as opposed to simply having his Passion Translation, is very effective in demonstrating just how nutty he is. Nothing even close to that is possible with the biblical authors. So why give them credence? 2. 9:05 If Moses was God's chosen one, why did God want to kill him in Exodus 4: 24? Also, what did Zipporah mean by "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me"? 3. 14:00 Can you help me understand the comparison/contrast between how the Holy Spirit comes upon vs. in someone? Is it correct that in the Old Testament, He came UPON someone (Exodus 29: 45 & Ezekiel 37: 27) but not IN, and in the New Testament, He indwells believers? 4. 19:08 What are your thoughts on Kenneth Hagin's "The Authority of the Believer" and other Christian spiritual authority concepts? If none, would you consider looking into it? 5. 21:27 Are angels immortal? if not, does that mean demons might have a chance to defeat them or some in a war? I ask because sometimes I see paintings of angels vs demons. 6. 23:03 I was wondering, why are there times where Jesus tells people not to talk about Him? Some Verses: Matt. 8:4, 9: 30, 12: 16) 7. 26:05 If God’s will is always done in Heaven, was Satan’s rebellion God’s will? 8. 28:41 What are some ways God disciplines us as it’s said in Hebrews? How do we know if He is disciplining? Can He discipline through physical or psychological ailments? 9. 32:34 What does someone need to believe for you to consider them your brother or sister in Christ? 10. 35:13 Could you comment on Matthew 13: 44-45? Most people seem to feel that the merchant is a man and the pearl/treasure is Christ, but in context I seem to see the opposite. 11. 40:27 You were in American Gospel 2. What do you think of the final 10 minutes teaching God's whole purpose for everything is His own glory, and we're "merely" incidental to that? 12. 44:17 Does the integrity of our faith need Adam and Eve to be literal historical people? Some people say the account of Adam and Eve is a myth, or a story to teach us theological and moral truth. 13. 47:01 If God is good and perfect, how can He ever be jealous (Exodus 20:6) or angry (Exodus 34:6) since both jealousy and anger are sins of the flesh (Galatians 5: 20)? More Cat Cam! 14. 51:48 Can you explain how you understand John 20: 23? I’ve read several commentaries on this verse and still have difficulty rightly understanding it. 15. 55:02 How can I learn to see God as a loving Father? I’m afraid and sometimes I feel that God is indifferent and impatient with me. Am I gonna make it to heaven? 16. 59:40 Any books you recommend for those courting and preparing for marriage? If not, any advice? 17. 1:02:00 If someone passes away, is it wrong to pray for their salvation? This would not be “get them out of purgatory,” this would just be in a “God, you knew back then that I would pray this” sort of way. 18. 1:03:20 In your opinion, who are the “gods of Egypt” in Exodus 12? The options seem to be rulers, idols, demons, or actual gods. 19. 1:07:59 I shared your Passion Project with the Elders of my church. They thought it was nitpicking. How do I decide to leave? Long history with these people. Seem to be becoming hyper-charismatic. 20. 1:09:52 What boundaries (biblical separation) should a Christian establish with a professed believer who is now in a gay marriage? BONUS Q: 1:12:11 I am a new cat owner. What are your cats’ favorite kind of toys? Every Friday at 1pm PT Here’s how you get your questions answered in the Q&A 1) Please reread your question before you ask to ensure that it will make sense to me. Clarity is paramount. 2) Wait till we go live before asking. We don’t take questions until then. 3) Put a “Q” at the beginning of your question. 4) Please only ask once, our mods are checking the chat continually. 5) I’m truly sorry if I’m unable to get to your question. I know its a bummer, but I am doing my best. 6) If you arrive late we may have already gathered 20 questions. Please check the live chat to see if we are full on Qs. Thanks! Helping you learn to think biblically about everything, because the Bible is more brilliant, beautiful and life-changing than most of us have realized.

Key word: Christ's superiority Aside from Romans there is no more theologically heavy, and I would add, rich book than Hebrews. We do not know who wrote it, although there have been many theories. His immediate audience was Jewish Christians in the mid A.D. 60s, and thus were second generation believers. As a result, some had lost the passion for the church and New Testament living and were drifting away – some apparently into Judaism – from which their parents had emerged. Rather than drifting back into an inferior religion, the author encouraged them to press on to maturity – to grow up. But their foundational problem was they had lost the vision of the superiority of Christ. They had not, a least for the most part, abandoned Christ, or ceased to believe in Him. But they had removed Him as central to their lives, and replaced Him with inferior things. So, what they desperately needed was to once again understand the superiority of Christ and embrace it with all their hearts. Thus, the book outlines itself around five ways that Christ is superior to all things: 3. He is superior to Moses (3:1-4:13). Humans tend to become heroworshippers of other people. We make idols of people we respect. But the Lord will not share His glory with another. When we elevate sinful creatures to forbidden levels, we depreciate Christ and are, at best, distracted from Him. This is what the Jews did with Moses, and the Christian Jews addressed in Hebrews had carried this idolization into their Christian life. Our author's task was to demonstrate that no matter how great a man Moses was, compared to Christ he was vastly inferior. 1) If Moses was the house, Christ was the builder (3:3). 2) If Moses was a faithful servant, Christ is the Son (3:5-6a). 3) If Moses, and Joshua, led the people to the rest of a promised land (4:8), only Christ can lead us to the full, complete eternal rest (4:9). We enter the door of this rest at salvation, but complete our journey when we enter glory. 4) If Moses was a great leader, Jesus is our great high priest (3:1; 4:14- 16). Moses could physically guide the people to the land of promise, and he could teach them the Lord's commandments, and set an example of faithfulness. But he could not forgive their sins, and he was not sinless – Christ was. Therefore, we can draw near to God to receive mercy and grace because Christ is our great high priest. Key verse: Hebrews 4:16 – Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

If Moses were alive today, who in the church would he look like? The person sitting next to you without a leadership bone in his body? Or maybe even...you?

Episode 599 | Adriel Sanchez and Bill Maier answer caller questions. CoreChristianity.com   Show Notes   1. Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? 2. Since Islam is an Abrahamic religion, does that mean that it is really a false religion? 3. Is the 3rd-use of the law legitimate? It seems that if people have a good sense of justification by faith alone that the 3rd use of the law is not necessary. 4. If Moses’s sister Miriam received leprosy from God in the Old Testament, does that mean God can punish people with sickness today?   Today's Offer Inner Core Request our latest special offers here or call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone. Want to partner with us in our work here at Core Christianity? Consider becoming a member of the Inner Core. Resources Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate by Jerry Bridges

Episode 553 | Adriel Sanchez and Bill Maier answer caller questions. Show Notes CoreChristianity.com 1. Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? 2. Is Islam a false religion? 3. Is the 3rd-use of the law legitimate? It seems that if people have a good sense of justification by faith alone that the 3rd use of the law is not necessary. 4. If Moses’s sister Miriam received leprosy from God in the Old Testament, does that mean God can punish people with sicknesses today?   Resources Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Gregory Koukl Devoted to God: Blueprints for Sanctification by Sinclair B. Ferguson Offers Request our latest special offers here or call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone. Want to partner with us in our work here at Core Christianity? Consider becoming a member of the Inner Core.

Mark is delighted to welcome Jewish public intellectual, attorney and author, Jonathan Neumann, to the podcast today. A graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, Jonathan has been a fellow at Commentary magazine and has served as assistant editor at Jewish Ideas Daily. He is also the author of To Heal the World? How the Jewish Left Corrupts Judaism and Endangers Israel, and he discusses this book along with his selected passage of Numbers 14:22 with Mark here today. Jonathan begins the conversation with his summary of the passage, its meaning for him, and his perspective on the ten tests mentioned within it. He and Mark also discuss the most important event from the passage, the consequences for slandering the land of Israel, women as the great Zionists, and the choice between serving Pharaoh or serving God. Jonathan also offers a glimpse into his new book and its exploration of the concept of ‘tikkun olam’, and he draws the conversation to a close with the lessons he has learned about mankind which hold particular relevance for the world today. This is a discussion which touches upon the very nature of the Torah and Judaism. Episode Highlights: Jonathan’s summary of the passage and what it means to him His perspective on the ten tests The most important event Slandering the land of Israel and the punishment for it Women as the great Zionists The choice between serving Pharaoh or serving God Jonathan’s new book and its exploration of ‘tikkun olam’ The lessons about mankind that Jonathan has learned Finding the truth in what others are saying Quotes: “Clearly, at a basic level, the test of the spies is somehow the culmination.” “The entire point of this whole exercise, from Exodus on, was to create a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation in the Promised Land. And God said, ‘Now, go do it’, and they totally blow it.” “If you don’t have the courage and the strength to follow God’s directive…how are you going to do in the Promised Land? Not very well, so therefore God says, ‘It’s the next generation’.” “If Moses had sent women, there would have been a different result…the great Zionists are usually the women.” “Judaism makes no sense without Israel.” “I’m going to make my relationship with the next generation.” “You have a choice basically, you can be servants to Pharaoh and to the hubris of man, and a life with no meaning, or you can, in the Jewish world view, or the biblical world view, you can serve God instead and have a life with meaning, and that service…has to take place in the land of Israel. That is the whole point.” “There is no basis for that contention that this understanding of tikkun olam as social justice has no basis in traditional Judaism.” “Tikkun olam doesn’t appear a single time in the Bible, which is extraordinary.” “Theologically, ultimately in the world view of Judaism, Judaism is meant to be done in the land of Israel.” “I think it’s important that we all try to get out of our rigidity a bit and try to learn what there is to learn from the ‘others’.” Numbers 14:22 none of the men who have seen My Presence and the signs that I have performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tried Me these many times and have disobeyed Me, https://www.sefaria.org/Numbers.14.22?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en Links: The Rabbi’s Husband homepage: http://therabbishusband.com/ Mark’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/markgerson?lang=en

1. God Had a Purpose in Mind When He Called YouPhil 3:12 that I may lay hold of the reason that Jesus laid hold of meJn 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last2. Don't Allow Satan and the Flesh to Separate You From God's PurposesActs 26:18-19 (tpt) And you will open their eyes to their true condition, so that they may turn from darkness to the Light and from the power of Satan to the power of God. By placing their faith in me they will receive the total forgiveness of sins and be made holy, taking hold of the inheritance that I give to my children!' “So you see, King Agrippa, I have not been disobedient to what was revealed to me from heavenSatan wants to separate us from our purpose through fear, the flesh, sins, insecurity, distraction, but stay focused on God's will Js 4:13-17 you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sinEx 3:9-11 their cry has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the them out of Egypt ?If Moses doesn't conquer his excuses the people don't get free Ex 9:1 Tell Pharaoh to Let my people go, so they can worship me3. There are Benefits of Serving God's Plan Now and Forever Is 51:1-2 Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance, all who seek the Lord! Consider the rock from which you were cut, the hole from which you were mined. Yes, think about Abraham, your father, and Sarah, your mother. Abraham was only one man when I called him. But when I blessed him, he became a great nation Heb 6:10 God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help God will never be owed or out given, you will reap what you sow Mk 10:29-30 “Anyone who leaves his home behind and chooses me over children, parents, family, and possessions, all for the sake of the gospel, it will come back to him a hundred times as much in this lifetime homes, family, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, possessions along with persecutions. And in the age to come, he will inherit eternal life. Our motives are pure on why we obey God, but He blesses obedience 2 Cor 5:6,9-10 We live with a joyful confidence, yet at the same time we take delight in the thought of leaving our bodies behind to be at home with the Lord. So whether we live or die we make it our life's passion to live our lives pleasing to him. For one day we will all be openly revealed before Christ on his throne so that each of us will be duly rewarded for our actions done in life, whether good or worthlessRom 8:28,31 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?WebsiteFreedom FacebookFreedom InstagramFreedom SoundcloudP. Jason Lozano FacebookP. Jason Lozano Instagram

Moses wanted one thing that God would not give him: the privilege of entering the Promised Land (Nim.20). He brought the nation right up to the border and then had to go up on the mountain and die. The Israelites where partly to blame for Moses‘ sin (vv.32,33). Moses and Aaron asked God for water for the thirsty people, and He said, “Speak to the rock, and the water will come out.” But Moses lost his temper—the people provoked him—And he struck the rock. God gave them the water, but He said to Moses, “You have not sanctified me before the people in what you said or in what you did.” Leaders sin, and sometime God’s people encourage them to send. If only the Israelites had gone to Moses and said, “Moses, we are praying for you,” “Moses, we love you,” or, “Thank you, Moses, for interceding for us. Thank you for all that you have done for us.” But instead they complaint and criticized. My heart goes out to Pastor and Christian workers who are surrounded by people who cannot say “Thank you” but constantly criticize and complain. Many people don’t realize the costs of being a spiritual leader. The higher we are in leadership, the greater our discipline. If Moses had been an ordinary citizen of Israel, God might not help stopped him from going into the Promised Land. But Moses was a leader. When leaders sin, they pay dearly for it. Let’s not cause anyone else to sin today. Be an encouragement to the people of God. *******^******* If you are a leader in your church or group, you have an awesome responsibility to God and to those under your direction. The sin of a leader can cause widespread damage. Take special measures to avoid compromising situations and don’t let others cause you to take your eyes of the Lord. Also, always pray for, encourage and support your leaders.

In Hebrews 3 we see the faithfulness of both Moses and Jesus. If Moses was such a great and faithful servant, then how much more...

In Hebrews 3 we see the faithfulness of both Moses and Jesus. If Moses was such a great and faithful servant, then how much more...

1. How does God save sinners- We have to answer that question in the way that God has answered it, not how our church would like to answer it.--2. God has asked the question and has given the answer in the affirmative and said-Christ is the VICTORY. To preach God's answer to His question is to preach the gospel and to believe it-is to be saved.--3. The victory of the cross is not for sinners to tame the demons of life-it is much bigger than that. It is victory over sin, death and condemnation accomplished for the sinner by the blood of Christ.- -4. The faith of the gospel is about victory, the complete justification of the sinner-as an accomplished reality.--5. Faith that does not behold the invisible Christ as sufficient and complete is not faith. Yes, it may be dressed in religious garb, but it does not bring one into the blessedness of God in Christ.--6. So, how was Moses saved- How did Moses-the mediator of the Law enter into God's salvation. Not by Law keeping.. If Moses could be sanctified and justified by the Law then Christ died in vain.--7. We expound a lot of wonderful things and this is also a wonderful gospel message and it is free.

Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism Episode 2 If Moses was an Egyptian? Please Support Us Through the Links Bellow: https://www.paypal.me/SohelBahjat https://www.patreon.com/RealSohelBahjat https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-to-buy-a-computer-that-fits-my-disability https://anchor.fm/sohel-bahjat #Freud #Psychology #Psychoanalysis #Moses #Monotheism --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sohel-bahjat/support

If Moses hadn't bought into God's dream, we might still be on the other side of the sea.

If Moses hadn't bought into God's dream, we might still be on the other side of the sea.

On today’s Back to the WORD Reverend Philip Chemel dives into the topic “Show me thy Glory”. He talks about the importance of having a place in our home/lives for prayer. As believers we must daily find ourselves in a place of prayer to win the many battles of this life. Great people this side of heaven are those who engage in prayer not the ones who talks about prayer. He mentions that God is not looking for people who casually pray but those who have a genuine relationship and a lifestyle of talking to God. It’s essential for believers to know the ways of the Lord. So that they can give glory to God and his character. Finally, nothing in this life can be exchanged for the presence of the Almighty God. If Moses encountered the presence of God so can we. Let’s get back to the WORD!

In Exodus 4 PT 2, God is on the move to fulfill His plans and purposes. Moses is in dialogue with the Lord, which is prayer. Moses is in the process of rejecting God's word, and the Lord gets angry. Why? This is because of unbelief. Not trusting all of our future outcomes on God Almighty. Unbelief is the opposite of faith, which is obedience to God's word. Unbelief is rejecting God's words, and thus the great things He has for our lives. "Wait," you say: "Podcast for Pewsitters, Moses was being asked to take on the most powerful person and nation on the planet." Yep, this is the same as Christ asking us to take up our cross daily (well sort of but not as dramatic) and put our will and desires aside. Can we? No. Not unless we get help from God, Who, by the way, is the Creator of the Universe (let that sink in). So will we ask Him for His power? Will we respond? If we are being honest with God, we could pray, "Lord, I am so scared, and I think I will fail you." We believe God loves those kinds of sincere dialogue. We even had one ourselves. "Lord, I can't follow you...I tried and failed..." Good, that you failed in your own strength. Now try using His power! Grace is the saving power of Christ, and the Holy Spirit will teach us away from everything ungodly. Titus 2:11-12 When we are moving away from ungodliness and being obedient to God's word we are in grace. What is our willingness to obey God, and be in honest prayer? If Moses struggled with obedience, you will too. Be encouraged. He will help us!For Search Engines: There are many bible verses about love, and there are many bible verse of the day programs. The holy bible provides these remarkable bible commentary. Bible Study and online bible study are available at biblestudycompany.com. Bible verses of faith are of interest as well. Even bible verses about hope are helpful. Bible verses about women are encouraging. Read the Bible online with biblestudycompany.com. We will all do better when love is patient love is kind. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me in times of trouble. With daily bible devotions, I grow. The gifts of the holy spirit are for every day. Online bible study is so helpful. biblestudycompany is a free online bible. With so many books of the bible, I can grow. We love inspirational bible verses in daily Bible reading.  

Hello, you amazing women of God! In this podcast we’re diving into Joshua 1:1-9. These verses are so important to us, especially as business owners, and especially from a business perspective. So many of us think that we need to do everything on our own in our business in order to get where we need to go. Then once we get there, and we're financially security, then we can invest in support, right? But we learn something really interesting about Moses and his calling. If Moses hadn’t listened to the Lord he couldn’t have fulfilled his calling. If Moses had thought like a lot of us think (myself included) and believed he needed to do it all on his own without support, then Joshua would not have been able to fulfill the calling that God had for him. Joshua needed Moses. Not only do the people that you're serving need you, but in order for them to get what they need from you, you probably need something from somebody else. We are here to serve and have the impact that God has called us to have and make the influence on people's lives that He has called us to make. Business growth and reaching that next level in your business is about understanding that we cannot get there alone. And God knows that this is a scary thing to do - so scary that He repeats Himself THREE TIMES in this passage. Be Strong and of Good Courage But we have nothing to fear, as long as you are spending time in His Word, you're getting His word in your heart and you're speaking His truth. You're not speaking lies from the enemy. You're not speaking the limiting beliefs or the fears. You're speaking His truth and only His truth. Want more personalized support in letting go of some of these fears? Then head on over to https://godlygirlboss.com/free-challenge-1 and register today for the Stalled to Unstoppable! Free Challenge! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/heather-dollar/message

If an unjust judge will render a just decision when a widow bugs him enough... If Moses's intercession is powerful enough to conquer an entire nation... How much more powerful is the intercession of Jesus Christ? But to "unlock" this power there are 3 things you need to do. Do it and VICTORY will be yours. If your faith is fed by these homilies, would you kindly consider helping support the Basilica? We have big goals and little in the way of resources. Your support would mean a lot.  https://www.americasfirstcathedral.org/the-source-of-all-hope/

First love Winning The Game of Life - By Returning to Or First Love Life of purpose vs. life of mediocrity. John 10 - Abundant life Not just breath and survive - achieve my desires and goals. Abundant Life = Fulfilled Life _________________________________________ GETTING OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT Revelation 2:5 New Living Translation (NLT) 5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. _________________________________________ In Revelation 2:5, the word first means “foremost (in time, place, order or importance),” and the word works is defined as “toil (as an effort or occupation).” In other words, if you find that you have left your first love for the Lord, get your priorities back in order and do the most important things. _______________________________________________ We don’t find that purpose and momentum on our own: PSA 37:4 Take delight in the Lord,     and he will give you your heart’s desires. __________________________________________________ MOSES STORY MISDIRECTED PASSION Ex 2:11-12 11 Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. 12 After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. __________________________________________________ THAT PASSION HAD A GOD THOUGHT BEHIND IT Ex 2:23-25 23 Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God.24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.[c [1]] 40 YEARS OF REFINING AND ALIGNING Spent time in Mideon being refined and aligned… Refined - the gifts needed to be matured. His response had to be negotiate and reliant on Gods strength not his own (Murder). Refine them from a pride into an ability and a humility that would fulfill Moses’s desires in a divine way. Aligned - he needed to come to a realization that the reason he ran was he did not know that the history, position and personality he had been given was not his burden but his purpose. Becomes a divine purpose when we can align who are to Jesus so that he can use us for good. Not a pain but a promoter Aligning and refining is not wasted time. Desert time - Jesus conquered Satan Public Speaking - trouble Preaching - good. HOLY GROUND MOMENT - BURNING BUSH 10 Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.” How that must have done something on the inside of him. But how inferior it must have made him feel. Moses was content with having the gifts and using them in a way that he could control and understand… __________________________________________________ Genesis 3:15b-17 When Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well. 16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came as usual to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father’s flocks. 17 But some other shepherds came and chased them away. So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds. Then he drew water for their flocks. But now he had been shown and felt that what he had always desired, what had cause him to step out of his protected palace world into irrational defense of his people, what he had that would protect some women at a well, could be used to liberate an entire nation. Aligning what little you think you have to the greater good that God has in mind = faith - He can see it but we can’t. Realizing there is a God given purpose to your personality and talents = passion… (ongoing - not grow weary kind of life) Mediocrity comes from weariness… __________________________________________________ Isaiah 40:31 New Living Translation (NLT) 31  But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. __________________________________________________ The weight of your problem becomes then fuel of your purpose. __________________________________________________ A Holy Ground Moment With God 1. Submission and Worship - Aligns your life with His will (“Holy Ground” - Moses was anti-oppression - So was God) 2. Eliminates excuses and replaces them with supernatural gifts for the tasks at hand (I can not speak - What do you have in your hand?) He gave Moses things he never knew he could do to replace the things he knew he couldn’t do. 3. Is always for others (liberation of the people) Aligning our desires with His will He will never force our will… We just need to love Him in our day to day lives. Romans 8:28 So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose. __________________________________________________ He wants to use every moment of the life that you call boring, the life that you feel lacks purpose, he wants to use every moment, if you will let him, to work his will. When we can give him those moments (love him) he will use them for good. __________________________________________________ We can’t camp on Holy Ground… We need to create an environment in our lives of having Holy Ground moments. But we can not camp in the anointing. If Moses had stayed at the burning bush all he would have been able to do is have a good bbq. If David had not responded to the anointing as king he would have just been a greasy shepherd. There are major Holy Ground moments places where we need to get our priorities right. The first one = called by Jesus (Love God - Love others) From palace to people Holy Ground moment 2 = baptism of the Holy Spirit. When you can no longer handle… In a moment of desperation, fear, hopelessness whatever it is, you strike out against your current circumstances and a desire, a dream, is revealed… Marriage is a major holy ground moment. Communion is another major Holy Ground moment. __________________________________________________ All of these Holy Ground Moments (some call them sacraments) are moments of worship where we align our lives to the purpose of God. __________________________________________________ But there are also Holy Ground moments that we can have every day… Reading the Word Being with other believers Spending time reasoning with the Holy Spirit (meditation) __________________________________________________ All the Holy Ground moments are day to day sandal removing activities we can do to ensure we are aligning our desires and our lives, our talents histories and pasts with Gods desire. Despite your excuses, your life has something in it that you know God can use but you are afraid. Let him in supernaturally to link your dream to his and watch the purpose you so desire to walk out become reality… Take delight in the Lord,     and he will give you your heart’s desires. [1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+2&version=NLT#fen-NLT-1580c

It is not easy at times, but God wants us to move forward.  If Moses would have been standing in front of the Red sea telling the greatness of God and what God had done in Egypt without taking a step of faith they would have been completely destroyed.  That was the reason God was telling them to move forward.  Today I am sure God has spoken to you, it may be prophetic even to some of you who are listening to this message, God is not asking you to stand at the crossroads and wonder forever.  God is asking you to move forward. As we stand at the crossroads of our lives, God is asking us to do four things. Consult, Listen, Examine and Walk.   

Bible Study #42: The Rise of David the Christ (1 Kingdom/Samuel 11-15) St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Allentown PA Fr. Anthony Perkins, 25 October 2018 Opening Prayer: Make the pure light of Your divine knowledge shine in our hearts, Loving Master, and open the eyes of our minds that we may understand the message of Your Gospel. Instill also in us reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that overcoming all worldly desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all things pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the Light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give the glory, together with Your Father, without beginning, and Your All Holy, Good, and Life- Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. (From the Prayer before the Gospel in the Divine Liturgy; see 2 Corinthians 6:6; Ephesians 1:18; 2 Peter 2:11) 1 Kingdoms (Samuel) 16. The Spirit of God enters David and leaves Saul. Questions: What do we learn about the Way of God from His selection of David? How can we put that lesson to good use in our own lives? David the Christ prefigures Jesus the Christ. How do we fit into this model? Saul was also a Christ. But God took His Spirit from Him and an evil spirit of the Lord tormented him. What are we to make of this? Does God cause this? One of the signs that Jesus is the Christ is His power over demons. David the Christ was given some of that power to assist King Saul. Patristic Answers: On the selection of David. St. Clement of Alexandria. People have gone beyond the limits of impropriety. They have invented mirrors to reflect all this artificial beautification of theirs, as if it were nobility of character or self-improvement. They should, rather, conceal such deception with a veil. It did the handsome Narcissus no good to gaze on his own image, as the Greek myth tells us. If Moses forbade his people to fashion any image to take the place of God, is it right for these women to study their reflected images for no other reason that to distort the natural features of their faces? In much the same way, when Samuel the prophet was sent to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as king, and when he brought out his chrism as soon as he saw the oldest son, admiring his handsomeness and height, Scripture tells us, “The Lord said to him: ‘Look not on his countenance, nor on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For man sees those things that appear, but the Lord beholds the heart.’” He finally anointed not the one who was fair in body but the one who was fair of soul. If the Lord places more importance on beauty of soul than on that of the body, what must he think of artificial beautification when he abhors so thoroughly every sort of lie? “We walk by faith, not by sight.” On the evil spirit. St. Athanasius. Therefore, when a person falls from the Spirit for any wickedness, if he repents after his fall, the grace remains irrevocably to the one who is willing; otherwise he who has fallen is no longer in God (because that Holy Spirit and Paraclete which is in God has deserted him), but this sinner shall be in him to whom he has subjected himself, as took place in Saul’s instance; for the Spirit of God departed from him and an evil spirit was afflicting him. St. Jerome. Again, that you may be sure that God curbs the spirit of pride, recall how the good spirit of God departed from Saul and an evil spirit troubled him. Holy Writ says, “And an evil spirit of God troubled him,” a spirit from God. Does God, then, have an evil spirit? Not at all. God had withdrawn so that afterwards an evil spirit might trouble Saul. In that sense, the spirit of God is called evil. Finally, holy David, knowing that God could take away the spirit of princes, entreats him, “And do not take your holy spirit from me.” Psalm 90; A help in times of trouble (to include exorcisms and spiritual warfare). Michael Heiser. The Naked Bible Podcast, episode 87.  https://www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Transcript-87-Exorcism.pdf K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed., p. 854). Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans. Franke, J. R. (Ed.). (2005). Old Testament IV: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel (p. 264). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

This episode continues our series on the development of the character of God in the Bible. In this episode, the guys discuss one of the strangest stories in the Bible: Israel and the golden calf in Exodus 32. In part one (00:00-09:45), the guys review the idea that God primarily interacts with the world through a human mediator. Understanding how God interacted with Israel through Moses is key to understanding this important theme in the Bible. Tim points out that in the Old Testament, the two most important personal portraits to understand are David and Moses. They are the two people who get the most page length in the Old Testament. Tim says that Moses' story should be creating a role, an expectation that the world would be a better place if there were more Moses-like characters who are intimately tied with Yahweh. In part two (09:45-21:20), the guys talk about the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32. Moses represents Israel to God and he represents God to Israel. Tim points out a strange detail of the story. God says he wants to destroy Israel, but then it seems as though God changes his mind after Moses implored him to reconsider. Tim says this story has puzzled all Bible readers over thousands of years. Does God change his mind based on human input? Tim quotes from biblical scholar Christopher Wright's commentary on Deuteronomy: “This story explores the mystery about prayer in general and intercession in particular, and raises questions: Was God really serious in this declared threat? If Moses had not interceded, would God have carried out the destruction of Israel? If God was not really planning to destroy the people (10:10b), did God only “pretend” to listen to Moses’ prayer? Did Moses actually change God’s mind? It seems important first of all to say that there is not much point in wrestling with alternative hypothetical scenarios posed by such questions. Asking “what if” serves little theological purpose. Both God and Moses appear to be behaving straightforwardly. There is nothing in the text to suggest that God’s anger was overdone for mere effect; no suggestion that God’s threat was a bluff intended to secure a hasty repentance. The threat of destruction was real. Likewise, Moses’ reaction to the divine wrath was not a patronizing dismissal of authority, like saying, “You can’t be serious!” Rather, Moses recognized that this was a sincere threat that could be countered only with appeal to prior words and actions of the same God. The paradox is that in appealing to God to change, he was actually appealing to God to be consistent —which may be a significant clue to the dynamic of all genuine intercessory prayer. Yet perhaps there is a hint of the divine intention in God’s fascinating words, Leave me alone… (v. 14). The discussion of this line in Jewish scholarship has sensed deep meaning here. After all, God need not have spoken such words, or indeed any words at all, to Moses. In wrath God could have acted “immediately” without informing or consulting Moses in any way. God pauses and makes the divine will “vulnerable” to human challenge. The fact is that, far from human intercession being an irritating but occasionally successful intrusion upon divinely prefabricated blueprints for history, Moses’ prayer becomes an integral part of the way God’s sovereignty in history is exercised. That does not totally solve the mystery, but it puts it in its proper biblical perspective. God not only allows human intercession, God invites it and builds it into the decision-making processes of the heavenly council in ways we can never fathom. “God takes Moses’ contribution with utmost seriousness; God’s acquiescence to the arguments indicates that God treats the conversation with Moses with integrity and honors the human insight as an important ingredient for the shaping of the future” Intercessory prayer, then, flows primarily not from human anxiety about God but from God’s commitment to covenant relationship with human beings…. Moses was not so much arguing against God, as participating in an argument within God. Such prayer, therefore, not only participates in the pain of God in history, but is actually invited to do so for God’s sake as well as ours. This is a measure of the infinite value to God of commitment to persons in covenant relationship. The Point: The figure of Moses in the Torah creates a portrait of the kind of figure necessary for God and humanity to exist together in successful covenant relationship. Moses’ eventual failure in the wilderness (Numbers ch. 21) disqualifies him for the role he filled. His story creates a “Help Wanted” sign in the biblical narrative.” In part three (21:20-33:30), the guys continue to discuss the story of the golden calf. Jon summarizes Tim’s position. Tim draws another parallel to the story of the great flood in Genesis. God destroys all of humanity except for Noah and his family. Then God says that “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil, from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). This is a paradox; God has just pronounced mankind as evil, but he refuses to destroy them or break relationship with them. Tim says that the Hebrew Bible is pointing forward to a person who they want to be a “better Moses.” In part four (33:30-39:50), Tim shares a quote from The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. “One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food. He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.” In part five (39:50-end), Tim shares the evolution of the portrait of Moses in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah says that the hoped for figure who can save Israel is a mashup between the best characteristics of David and Moses. Israel needs a priest and a king; this person is Jesus. But Jon makes a point that if the idea is that Israel only needs an “exalted human” to save them, then theology like a Jehovah’s Witness that claims that Jesus was only an exalted human begins to form. Tim sees this point. Many people throughout history have thought that Jesus was only an “exalted human,” but the apostles and authors of the New Testament believed that Jesus was also divine. For example in 2 Corinthians 3-4 and the book of Hebrews, the claim is that Jesus was not just “another Moses,” he was greater than Moses. Tim says that the New Testament author's claims that Jesus is divine can sometimes be hard to see to modern readers because they make the claims in very Jewish ways. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that Jesus is “the wisdom of God.” This sounds nice to modern readers, but to an ancient Hebrew rabbi, it would be blasphemous because claiming to be his wisdom is equivalent to claiming to be one with God. Ancient Jews would have no problem claiming that Jesus was a mediator “like” Moses, but saying he was greater eventually leads to the split between the Messianic Jews and other Jewish communities. Thank you to all of our supporters! Next week is a big episode for us. It’s our 100th episode!!!! To celebrate, we’re going to do a live Q+R at our studio in Portland. Want to participate? Send us your question and it might be read during the show. The show will stream live on our YouTube channel starting at 7pm (PST) on Thursday September 6th. You can watch it live by going to youtube.com/thebibleproject/live We’ll release the show right here on our podcast feed the following week. We want to say thank you to all our listeners of the past 99 episodes. Thank you for your wonderful questions, support, and encouraging words. We love reading the reviews and hearing your thoughts. It has been such a wonderful ride, and we’re looking forward to the next 100 episodes. Thanks for being a part of this with us. Send your questions to: info@jointhebibleproject.com Show Resources: The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis Deuteronomy (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series), Christopher J. H. Wright Check out all our resources for free at www.thebibleproject.com. Show Music: Defender Instrumental, Tents Another Chance, Tae the Producer Faith, Tae the Producer In the Distance, Tae the Producer Show Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins, Matthew Halbert-Howen

If Moses and Paul wished to be personally damned so others could be saved, didn't they prioritize mission for others over joy in God?

Jonah 3:1 – Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. The first time the word of the Lord came to Jonah, he wasn’t receptive. By running away from God, he brought many into danger, and caused massive financial loss. Jonah may’ve thought God would never use him again. But God still had big plans for Jonah. God doesn’t dwell on our failures; neither should we. If Moses dwelt on his failure after murdering the Egyptian, who would’ve delivered the Israelites from slavery? If Peter dwelt on his failure after disowning Jesus, who would’ve preached on Pentecost when three thousand were saved? And if Paul dwelt on his failure after approving the stoning of Stephen, who would’ve evangelized the Gentiles, and written so much of the New Testament? Two things are necessary to succeed as a Christian: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. An electrician flipped the wrong switch at a power plant and caused a million dollars-worth of damage. To no one’s surprise, he was promptly fired. But when a similar thing happened at another company and the worker turned in his resignation, his boss said, “I just spent a million dollars training you. Why would I let you go now?” That’s God’s method. He doesn’t fire us when we make a mistake; he uses our mistake to make us better.

The fact that the character of Aaron exists in the Bible is fairly confusing to me. If Moses had a speech impediment why not just heal him instead of roping one more guy into the whole plot? How do Christians handle the holy pregnancy? The celebratory date of the conception is in early December and the birth in the end of the same month. Was it a super quick or really long pregnancy?   What does the word "begotten" as in "only begotten son" mean? Why do you think the doctrine of the Trinity is such a cornerstone doctrine even among Protestants and Evangelicals? It seems like it should have been a doctrine they might have wanted to jettison after breaking with the Catholic Church. Do you think the crucifixion story might have been invented as a away to console early Christians over the persecutions and martyrdoms they experienced? Watching a commentary on the Jack Chick tract "Earthman," I noticed that Chick specifically used the term "little animals" to describe God giving Adam and Eve skins to wear. Could he have been thinking of foreskins? Can you talk about the history of literal interpretation of scripture in Christianity and Judaism? Have there always been strains of it, or is it more--as I initially suspected--more of a Protestant development? What does Paul mean by â??braggingâ?? or â??boastingâ?? which he sometimes condemns, other times approves? Did the Book of Tobiut influence the NT? And might the gospels be other examples of overt edifying fictions? Theme music provided by: Peter Benjamin - composer for media www.peterbenjaminmusic.org peterbenjaminmusic@gmail.com

Don't drown in shallow waters! There are things that God will ask you to do that look different or peculiar.  When Moses mom put him in a basket that looked strange and in our natural mind that would be crazy. If Moses mom was not radical what would Moses destiny have been and even the destiny of us! Don't be afraid to launch out to the deep!

Rabbi Knopf’s teaching for the second day of Passover (April 12, 2017), focusing on the questions “Why isn’t Moses in the haggadah” and, “If Moses isn’t important enough for the haggadah, why is he in the Torah?”

As we continue our study in the book of Exodus, Josh describes the "deep social conflict and violence" and the character of Moses in 2:11-22. What we find is an escalating struggle between the Hebrews and the Egyptians, and a "home-less" or "identity-less" Moses, who consistently (if not impetuously) advocates for the "weak." We are also provided a snapshot of the plight of the "Israelites," and the beginning of God's response. the restoration project. Joshua James. 12 February 2017 Small Group Study Questions: (1a) Walter Brueggemann claims, "This material in vv. 11-22 ... forces the narrative of Moses into the arena of deep social conflict, and of violence and brutality that are inescapable in an unjust society.” Have you considered the violence involved in the early chapters of Exodus (particularly in the reign of the king(s) of Egypt)? Would you ever teach your kids (or someone else's kids) about these stories? How? (1b)Can you describe the "deep social conflict" that occurs in Exodus between the Hebrew people and the Egyptians? Are there resonances with some of the deep social conflicts in our context? (2)Have you thought about the age of Moses at various points in his life? Do you think it is "too convenient" that Stephen says he is 40 during this narrative, and Exodus claims he is 80 when he goes to meet Pharaoh, and then later, he is 120 at the time of his death? Does your view of the Bible necessitate that these numbers are "accurate"? (3)Does it trouble you that Moses kills the Egyptian slave master? What do you do with it? (4)Moses and Zipporah name their son, "Gershom." What does this mean and why is it significant? (5) Have you noticed that the cries of the Israelites in vv. 23 are not directed to anyone in particular? If Moses is 40 years old when he goes out to his people and 80 when he finally appears before Pharaoh ... why has God waited so long to "hear, remember, look, and know"? (What does Genesis 15:13-16 have to do with anything?)

Just how old is the Old Testament? If Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, who did? For millennia, people have thought the Hebrew Bible was as old as many of the events it depicts. In recent generations, scholars have thought it was created over a long period of time, with various authors and editors. But the writings in the Hebrew Bible may not be as ancient as we've been led to believe. On this episode of the Truth Perspective, we'll be interviewing Russell Gmirkin, independent researcher,...

Sermon on Deuteronomy 18:15-20, for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany on Moses' prophecy of a greater prophet like him who would come after. How the Israelites (and us) encounter God, and what it means to have Jesus as our mediator between God and man. Sermon Talking Points Read past sermons at:   http://thejoshuavictortheory.blogspot.com Listen to audio at:   http://thejoshuavictortheory.podbean.com 1. The Israelites had been terrified at their direct encounter with God at Mount Horeb (Sinai), and wanted no more. Read about their experience  and reaction: Exodus 19:1-20:21; Deuteronomy 5. What was their request instead? Ex. 20:19; Deut. 5:24-27; 18:16 2. Does it surprise you that God commended their request? Why was there a need for a mediator between God and man? John 1:18; Exodus 33:17-23, esp. vs. 20. 1 Tim. 6:16; Heb. 12:14; 12:18-24. Why would it be dangerous for us to seek an “unmediated encounter” with God? Who is the One and Only Mediator that God has now appointed between Himself and mankind? 1 Timothy 2:4; Heb. 12:24; 8:6; 9:15 3. What was the purpose of Moses' ministry as mediator to the Israelites, and what did his prophetic message do/accomplish? How does the work of the Law continue in our lives (and consciences)? Heb. 3:1-6; 2 Cor. 3:7-18; Rom. 7:7-14; Gal. 3:19-29 4. If Moses' ministry (of the Law) brought knowledge of sin and death, what was Jesus' prophetic ministry to bring? John 1:17; Heb. 12:22-24; Gal. 3:25-26; 2 Cor. 3:17-18 5. How does the Gospel of Jesus Christ give answer to the deepest accusation of the Law against us? Why is the Spirit's work of breaking our sinfulness (turning us to Him) the necessary precursor to faith in Christ and receiving that blessed forgiveness? What happens when we oppose or resist the power of God's Word working in us? 6. What is the OT warning against false prophets? Deut. 18:20-22; 13:1-5; Jer. 23:9-40. What is the NT warning? 1 John 4:1ff; Matt. 24:11, 23-27; 7:15-16; 2 Tim. 3:5-9; 1 Tim. 6; Acts. 17:11.