Podcasts about in genesis

In Genesis 45, Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers—but beneath the emotion lies a powerful truth: God was working all along. From betrayal to slavery to leadership in Egypt, what seemed like chaos was actually part of a divine plan to preserve life and fulfill God's purpose. -Do you want to be an active member of 21c Moses? Then, consider becoming a 21c Moses Patreon! Click the link for more info: https://patreon.com/user?u=45306220&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link -If you want to donate to 21c Moses Ministry, please click the link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=P4LC3BE2S3JGA -Please check our website: https://21cmoses.com ©2026 21c Moses #21cMoses #BibleTeaching #DailyBibleStudy

Audio Transcript How are we this morning? Excellent. All right. It's my privilege to bring the word to you this morning, so let's get into it. Recently I read a story about a young man who never wanted to be a soldier. He had no visions of fame or ambitions of glory. When his father announced that he'd secured him an appointment to West Point, the boy protested. He wanted to be a farmer or perhaps work the river trade. But his father was not a man to be argued with, and so the 17 year old boarded a coach east. Sick with dread, he got off to a rough start. Through a clerical error, his name was copied incorrectly and it would stick permanently. He hated the academy. He finished 21st of 39 cadets, distinguished only in horsemanship and mathematics. The Mexican War found him a reluctant quartermaster, competent, but unnoticed afterward posted to lonely garrisons on the Pacific coast. Far from his wife Julia and the children he barely knew, he began to drink. In 1854, facing either court martial or resignation over his drinking, he resigned his commission in disgrace and went home with empty pockets. What followed were the worst years of his life. He tried farming on land his father in law gave him outside St. Louis, and the crops failed. He hauled firewood through the city streets in a worn army overcoat, occasionally passing former West Point classmates who looked away embarrassment. He pawned his gold watch one Christmas to buy presents for his children. He tried bill collecting and was terrible at it. He tried real estate and failed at that, too. By 1860, at 38 years old, he was working at a clerk in his younger brother's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois, earning $800 a year. He was a man whose life, by every visible measure, had failed. Then Fort Sumter fell. The quiet clerk who couldn't sell harnesses turned out to understand something that most West Point polished generals did not. The war was not about elegant maneuvers or reputation, but about pressing forward relentlessly, accepting losses and refusing to stop. Donaldson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, Appomattox. The failures had taught him things that successful men never learned. What it was to be underestimated, to be written off, to keep moving even when the odds looked long. The boy who didn't want to be a soldier, the the lieutenant who resigned in shame, the farmer who failed, and his brother's store. Hiram Ulysses Grant, or as the West Point Clerk mistakenly wrote, U.S. grant, ended the war as General of the armies, the man who had saved the Union and later President of the United States. It turned out that the long road had been the training. Weeks before his death, Grant wrote the preface to his personal memoirs, saying, man proposes and God disposes. There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. Most of us at some point will know what it is to be in our own wilderness. We will know what it is to wait, to wait through years that seem to lead nowhere, to feel forgotten by God, to look out at a landscape that gives no sign that he is at work. And we will be tempted in those years to conclude that nothing is happening, that God has misplaced us, that our life is being spent in vain. This morning, as we come to a passage in the Book of Exodus that speaks directly into that experience. It is the story of 40 silent years in the life of Moses and 400 silent years in the life of Israel. It is the story of a God who appears to all human eyes to be doing nothing. And it is the story of how, beneath that silence, he was doing everything. So if you would with me open your Bibles, please, to the Book of Exodus. And this morning we're going to finish chapter two, verses 11 to 25. One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion? He answered, who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. Now, the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away. But Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. When he came home to their father, Reuel, he said, how is it that you have come home so soon today? They said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock. He said to his daughters, then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man. And he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he Said I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. During those many days. The king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew. Let's pray. Father. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning be acceptable in your presence. Lord, I pray, after my words are long forgotten, that your word would be remembered. Jesus name. Amen. Exodus is an epic of God's love and redemption of his people. Every scene reads like an action novel. The baby in the basket, the burning bush, the plagues, the angel of death. The parting of the Red Sea, the thunder and lightning around Mount Sinai, the covenant with the Almighty. Before we dive into our text, we must read Exodus rightly. We have to read it Christologically, that is, in relation to Jesus Christ, who is our perfect sacrifice, who saved us out of our bondage to sin and delivered us into a right relationship with God. When Jesus appeared to his disciples on the road to emmaus in Luke 24:27 Records beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. If Jesus started with Moses when describing himself, perhaps we can also we also read it historically. Scholars debate whether the Exodus took place around 1446 BC or around 1260. Good evidence exists for both dates and ancient Israel did not work with an absolute calendar the way we do. But what matters for us this morning is not the precise year, but the fact that it is history, not myth. The renowned Old Testament scholar Nahum Sarna observed that no nation would invent for itself and then faithfully transmit for thousands of years an inglorious origin story of slavery, grumbling and and idolatry. Israel did not flatter itself into existence. This happened. Exodus 2:11 to 25 sits at 1 of the great hinge moments of redemptive history. The book opens with the sons of Jacob settling in Egypt under the protection of Joseph. But there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. What begins as refuge becomes bonding. Hebrews multiplied, and Pharaoh, fearing them, enslaved them and decreed that every male child be cast into the Nile. Into that decree Moses is born. Wes laid out for us last week that Moses mother hides him, his sister watches over him, and then Pharaoh's daughter draws him out of the water. He grows up in the palace, Stephen tells us in Acts 7:22 that he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in his words and deeds. And that is where our passage begins. The structure that we will use this morning breaks down into four movements. Verses 11 to 14 Moses takes matters into his own hands. Verses 15 to 17 Moses flees and is shaped at a well. 18:22 Moses is welcomed and becomes a sojourner. 23 To 25 While Moses tends sheep, Israel groans and God acts. Start with 11 to 14. Moses has grown. Now the infant in the basket has become a man in Pharaoh's court, raised as Egyptian royalty. How much did he know about his true background growing up? Wes mentioned last week that Moses mother was allowed to nurse him. So did they still have a relationship? Certainly possible. There are so many unanswered questions. Did he live with a divided heart for years? Did he spend endless nights pleading with Pharaoh? Was he embarrassed by his background and didn't want to believe it? We have no idea. What we do know is that he was raised to be a prince of Egypt. But by the time he was 40, he knew exactly who he was and who his brothers and sisters truly were. Were. One day he goes out to his brothers, the Hebrews, and he looks on their burdens. And what he sees he cannot unsee. An Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own. He looks this way and that, and when he sees no one watching, he strikes. Strikes the Egyptian down and buries him in the sand. Now this raises a nagging question for me. If Moses was a member of Pharaoh's household in the royal family, so to speak, why would he have feared killing someone? Wouldn't a royal be able to kill a lowly Egyptian taskmaster with little to no reprisal? This goes into the historical context at the time. Exodus 1:8 says, now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Commentators note that this likely indicates a dynastic change. A new royal house with no political or familial loyalty to the previous regime. In fact, during either time period, you believe royal houses at that time were very politically unstable, with different factions having different claims to the crown. The princess who had adopted him was almost certainly aging or dead. And the reigning pharaoh would have viewed an adopted Hebrew with suspicion, not affection. And the man Moses killed was not a slave. He was an Egyptian official, a representative of Pharaoh's economic and political authority. This is crucial. In ancient Egypt, killing a Hebrew slave was something an Egyptian could do with little consequence. But a member of the royal household killing one of Pharaoh's taskmasters. This probably would not have looked so much like murder. It would have looked like the potential beginning of an insurrection. The next day, Moses goes out and this time he finds two Hebrews fighting each other. He steps in to make peace, and the man in the wrong rounds on him with words that must have cut deeply. Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill us as you killed the Egyptian? And Moses is afraid. The secret is out. Beneath these interactions is something deeper that the New Testament helps us understand. The writer of Hebrews tells us this whole episode began in faith. By faith. Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the Reward. That's Hebrews 11:24-26. When Moses walked out of the palace, he was not slumming, he was choosing. He looked at the gold of Egypt on the one hand and the suffering of God's people in the other. And he chose the suffering. That is faith. So what went wrong? Well, it can be summed up in the next phrase. He looked this way. That a long line of preachers have lingered over those words and noticed what was missing. As Chuck Swindoll says, he looked east, he looked west, he looked over his shoulder, but he didn't look up, did he? He looked in both directions horizontally, but he left the vertical completely out of it. Moses was a man with a true call, but a glance still fixed on the ground. Here is the heart of the problem. Moses tried to bring about by his own hand what God had promised to bring about by his covenant. The deliverer was right, the cause was right, the method was wrong, and the time was not yet. And the proof is what he is in what he does next. He hides the body in the sand, as if sand could keep a secret from God. Within a day, the rumor was loose. Within a week, Pharaoh wants him dead. Three things to take from these opening verses. First, a true call from God does not exempt a man from from the discipline of God's timing. Moses had the right cause and the right collar. But he ran ahead. And it will take 40 years in the desert to refine him. Second, hidden sin is a poor investment. Sand is a thin grave. What God means to expose, no man can keep buried. Third, there is mercy for those with juvenile or immature faith. John Calvin's pastoral word on this passage is really helpful. Even the obedience of the saints, stained as it is by sin, is still sometimes acceptable to God through his mercy. So Moses runs, but God was not finished with him. He was only beginning verses 15 through 17. Verse 15 begins with collapse. However noble Moses motives may have been, when he took matters into his own hands, he was outside the will of God. And yet God still had a plan for him. This is one of the great promises of Scripture. God uses sinners for his glory. It's the only kind he has to work with. When you read the heroes of the faith, they read a lot more like a Alcoholics Anonymous meeting than a catalog of superheroes. I can almost see them in a church basement, sitting in a circle on folding chairs, sipping bad coffee, introducing themselves. Hi, I'm Abraham and I'm a liar who pimped out my wife. Hi, I'm Jacob. I'm a deceiver and I'm a thief. How? Hi, I'm Samson and I'm a lust addicted vow breaker. Hi, I'm David. I'm an adulterer and a murderer. Hi, I'm Jonah and I'm a racist runaway. Hi, I'm Peter and I'm a coward who denied my Savior. Hi, I'm Moses and I'm a murderer. When Janet and I lived in Atlanta, we had a pastor who was fond of saying that God doesn't look for ability, he looks for availability. God uses broken people because it's his strength, it's his wisdom, it's his power, and it's for his glory. God would be using Moses, but he had some seasoning yet to experience. Verse 15. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. There's no firm consensus on where exactly Midian was, but the traditional and most widely accepted location is in northwest Arabia, east of the Gulf of Agapa, in what is now northwestern Saudi Arabia. The Midianites appear to have been a semi nomadic people, so Midian may refer to an area where the tribe ranged rather than a specific location. Calvin, commenting here, sees in Moses flight not cowardice, but the sovereign hand of God, breaking a man down before he builds him up. Calvin's instinct is that the Lord put his servant through a long banishment precisely so that he would learn humility and dependence, because the work for which he was designed was greater than human strength could compass. 40 Years of palace training had to be matched by 40 years of desert undoing. Augustine, in a different connection, spoke of being in the region of unlikeness that far country, where the soul learns who it is by losing what it had. Moses, sitting by that well is in the region of unlikeness. Verse 15 ends noting that Moses, obviously exhausted, sat down by a well. One of the beauties of Scripture is the inclusion of what so often to us seems like pointless details. But wells, as it turns out, is an important location in the Bible, specifically, if you are looking for a wife. In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant meets Rebekah, Isaac's future wife, at a well. In Genesis 29, Jacob meets Rachel at a well. This time, who is Moses going to meet? Verses 16 and 17. Now, the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up to save them and watered their flock. Moses is once again faced with injustice. Has he learned anything? A group of young women have come to the well to draw water, and a group of shepherds is going to give them a hard time. Moses, again courageously rises to their defense. Already we see clues that he is learning from his past mistakes. The text does not record that he killed the shepherds, and not only that he served the young women by watering their flock. For the first time, he was learning what it was to be a deliverer. He stands firm for what is just and begins to practice true leadership, which is born out of service. It would have been unthinkable at the time for a man to perform a menial task for women. But Moses stooped to serve. And by learning to serve, he was learning to lead. For all God's leaders are servants. He, in time, the one who is the true and better. Moses would himself kneel and wash 12 pairs of dirty feet and tell his disciples that whoever wants to be great must be a servant of all. Service is always one of the first courses in God's leadership training. Anyone who aspires to spiritual leadership, especially in the church, should begin by finding a place of humble service. If you travel to my alma mater, Wheaton College, one of the most striking little buildings on campus is the Marion E. Wade center, which houses the largest collection of C.S. Lewis writings in the world. Its namesake, Marian Wade, was an American businessman and founder of the large company Servicemaster. Wade was a man of deep faith who established a tradition called six weeks on the front lines. Every future executive at the company would spend six weeks scrubbing floors on hands and knees, doing the work of those they would later lead. Wade believed that those who refused to serve had no business leading. One of the other blessings of servant leadership is that when kids watch authentic service from their parents, it has a tendency to be passed down through the generations. The other founder of Service Master was a gentleman by the name of Ken Hanson. Ken's son, Walter Hanson, when he grew up, would move to Cleveland. He started a little church in his living room. And it grew, and it grew to about a thousand. In 10 years, the church would grow into what is now called Parkside Church. And if that name rings a bell, it would be because it's the church that Alistair Begg just retired from. It's amazing how these things pass down. Moses is being molded. Though he must feel lost and alone, God is right there, directing the most salient detail, refining his champion. God creates this dress rehearsal. The stage is a backwater. Well, the cast is seven anonymous girls, but the script is the same script that would one day be played out at the Red Sea. This is how God so often works. CS Lewis, in his collected letters, wrote that the great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own or real life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life, the life God is sending one day by day, Moses thought his real life had ended at the border of Egypt. In fact, his real life was just beginning in Midian. There are seasons of our lives where it seems to have been derailed, where the calling we thought we had has collapsed and we find ourselves sitting by a well in some unfamiliar place. The temptation is to read those seasons as God's absence. But this text invites us to read them as God's curriculum. The God who is going to deliver Israel is at this very moment teaching his deliverer how to stand up for seven helpless women at a watering trough. Nothing in your wilderness is wasted. Turn to verses 18 to 22. The daughters return home and their father called Ruel here or Jethro elsewhere, most likely the same man. So don't get confused. Very common at the time for there to be multiple names for somebody. And he asked why they're early, and they say, an Egyptian delivered us. It's a quietly ironic line. Moses has gone out to deliver Hebrews and was rejected as a meddling Egyptian. He flees to Midian and is received as a generous Egyptian. The man cannot escape his identity, and yet his identity is not what God will make of it. Ruel rebukes his daughters for leaving the man unhosted. Call him that. He may eat bread and Moses is brought in. Verse 21 simply says Moses was content to dwell with the man. The Hebrew verb here ya all carries the sense of consenting, of being willing, even of resigning oneself. Moses is not striving anymore. He has come to the end of his striving. He sits down and he stays. The Book of Acts tells us that 40 years passed between Moses flight to Midian and his encounter with God at the burning bush. D.L. Moody is often quoted as saying Moses spent 40 years in Egypt learning to be something. 40 Years in the desert learning to be nothing. And 40 years in the wilderness proving God to be everything. Philip Reichen notes that whenever we are tempted to grow impatient with God's timetable for our lives, we should remember Moses, who spent two years of preparation for every year of ministry. Zipporah is given to Moses as a wife and a son is born. Moses names him Gershom new meaning I have become an alien in a foreign land. The name comes from the Hebrew verb garash, which means to drive out or expel. It may refer to Moses own experience of being driven out of Egypt. It also sounds like the Hebrew words ger and sham, which is a pun that means an alien there. Every time Moses speaks his son's name, he confesses that he does not belong. Midian is not home. Egypt is not home. He is a man between worlds. The Puritans loved this theme of sojourning. John Owen described the believer as a stranger and a pilgrim traveling through a country not his own, with his heart fixed on a city whose builder and maker is God. Jonathan Edwards preached a famous sermon called the Christian Pilgrim, in which he said that the true Christian travels on through this world as a wayfaring man and looks not upon any of the enjoyments of this world as his own. GK Chesterton, with his usual paradox, put it this way. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and and yet at home in it? The answer of Scripture is that we cannot. Not fully, not yet. We are pilgrims. Gershom is the name of every saint. But notice Moses, sojourning is not a punishment, it is a preparation. RC Sproul emphasized that the entire 40 year sojourn in Midian was God's way of thinking. Moses for leadership, a man trained only in Pharaoh's court could not lead Israel through Pharaoh's wilderness. But a man who had himself become a shepherd of sheep in that very wilderness could one day shepherd God's people through it. The geography of Midian is the geography of the Exodus. Route. The skills Moses learned watering Reuel's flock are the skills he would use leading Israel's flock. God was not killing time. God was forging an instrument. And Moses doesn't know he names his son after his displacement. He doesn't name him soon to be deliverer or heir of promise. He names him Sojourner. The man cannot see what God is doing. Alistair Begg has spoken movingly of how God's people are very often in the dark about the brightness of God's plan for them. Moses is in the dark, but the brightness is gathering. If you are a Christian, you are a Gershom. You are a sojourner in a foreign land. The disquiet you feel, the restlessness, the sense that this world is not home is not a defect of your discipleship. It is a feature of it. CS Lewis spoke of this often when he talked about the pilgrim longing in Mere Christianity. He wrote, if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. The long ordinary years in which it seems nothing of eternal weight is happening to you are very likely the years in which God is doing his deepest work. Verses 23 and 20 through 25. And now the camera pulls back, just like in a movie. We get a break from the action in Midian and the screen flashes. Meanwhile, back in Egypt. Verse 23. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. 40 Years have passed. A Pharaoh has died, another has come. Nothing has changed for Israel. They are still in chains. Bricks still must be made, whips still fall. And from those brick fields raises a sound. The text uses the strongest words in Hebrew for it. A groaning, a crying, a shrieking that goes up out of the dust. Where does the cry go? To all human eyes, the cry goes nowhere. Pharaoh doesn't hear it. The Egyptians don't hear it. Moses doesn't hear it. And then come four of the most precious verbs in the Old Testament. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. God heard. God remembered. God saw. God knew. John Piper has called these four verbs the Gospel before the Gospel, the announcement hundreds of years before Bethlehem that the God of heaven is not a deistic clock maker, but a covenant father who hears the groaning of his enslaved children. Each verb carries a war world. God heard, not merely overheard, the Hebrew implies attentive, responsive, hearing the cry that no human ear answered, the cry that seemed to die in the air over the Egyptian sky. The cry arrived at the throne of heaven. The silence of God is never the deafness of God. When his people cry, he hears with the ears of a father. God remembered. This does not mean that God had forgotten and now recalled. To remember in the covenantal sense is to act upon a prior commitment. When Scripture says God remembered Noah, the next thing is that the waters subside. When it says he remembered Hannah, the next thing is that she conceives. When it says he remembered his covenant with Abraham, the next thing is the Exodus. God's remembrance is the prelude to his deliverance, the covenant he made 400 years before. I will be a God to you and to your offspring after you has not faded. He was about to honor it. God saw. The verb is the same verb used in Genesis 1. And God saw that it was good. It is the verb of attentive, evaluating, sight. He saw the bruises, he saw the broken backs. He saw the widows, the unburied babies. There is no suffering of his people that is hidden from him. The Scottish divine Samuel Rutherford, writing from his imprisonment in Aberdeen, often returned to the image of God as the watchman over Israel, who never slumbers, whose people's tears are gathered in heaven long before they fall to the ground. God sees and God knew. Interestingly, the verb stands alone in the Hebrew. There is no object God knew. Some translations may supply one. God knew their condition, but the Hebrew leaves it bare. Why? Perhaps because what God knows here is larger than any object can contain. He knows their pain, he knows their bondage, he knows their names, and he knows what he is about to do. Jonathan Edwards taught that every act of God in history is the unfolding of a purpose conceived before time began. God knew. While Moses sits in Midian thinking he had been forgotten, and while Israel cries in Egypt, thinking that they have been forgotten, neither has been forgotten. God is doing two things at once. In Midian, he is shaping his deliverer. In Egypt, he is hearing their cries. The two threads are converging towards a burning bush in the next chapter. But neither Moses nor Israel can see it. Yet Augustine in his Confessions, wrote this sentence. Thou, O Lord, wert more inward to me than my most inward part and higher than my highest. That is the God of Exodus 2. He is closer to Israel's groaning than the chains on their wrists. He is closer to Moses weariness than the dust on his sandals. He is not far off. He is not distracted, he is at work. Four thoughts to close. First, be still and know that he is God. What we are very often is people who run ahead of God. Moses is not alone in this. Abraham had the promise of a son and and couldn't wait until he took Hagar. And the household of faith has lived with the consequences ever since. Jacob had the blessing already promised to him, but couldn't wait, and so he stole it with a goatskin and a lie. Peter had a lord he loved and couldn't bear to see him arrested. So he drew a sword in Gethsemane and cut off a man's ear. The pattern is older than Moses, and it is as new as this morning. The right cause can be pursued in the wrong way and the wrong time. Bradley Gray puts it bluntly. Nothing good happens when you get ahead of God and take matters into your own hands. Second, the silence of God is not the absence of God. 40 Years passed in Midian and 400 years in Egypt before God spoke from the bush. But not one of those years was empty. God was hearing, he was remembering. He was seeing, he was knowing. If your life feels like a wilderness right now, if you have been sitting by your own well in Midian waiting for a word from heaven that just doesn't come, take this passage and press it to your heart. The silence is not absence. The God who shaped Moses in obscurity is shaping you now. In his 1967 book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders quoted this anonymous poem. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man, and skill a man. When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed. Watch his methods, watch his ways, how he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects. How his hammer he hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands. While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands, how he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes, how he uses whom he chooses and with every purpose him by every act induces him to try his splendor out. God knows what he's about. Third, your sojourning has a destination. Moses named his son Gershom because he felt the foreignness of his life. But the foreignness was not the end of the story. It was the prelude to a calling. The writer of Hebrews tells us that all the saints acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. They desired a better country. That is a heavenly one. Your pilgrimage is not a pointless one wandering. It is a movement towards a country God has prepared for you. Fourth, and most importantly, the God who heard Israel has heard you in a fuller way still. The end of Exodus 2 is a foreshadowing. The four verbs heard, remembered, saw new, find their final fulfillment not at Sinai, but at Calvary. There the Father heard the cries of his people. There he remembered the covenant he had made before the foundations of the world. There he saw his Son lifted up between heaven and earth, bearing the groaning of every enslaved soul in his own body. And there he knew in a way only the triune God could know the cost of redeeming a people for himself. If God heard Israel groaning under Pharaoh and he sent Moses, how much more has he heard your groaning and sent his son? The exodus from Egypt is the shadow. The exodus from sin and death is the substance. And the same four verbs hover over the cross. Today God hears your cries that come up from the dust of this fallen world. God remembers his covenant with you. God sees you right now in this room, in your struggle, in your brokenness. And God knows exactly what he's doing. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this text. Father, thank you for your covenant with us. That you know us, that you love us, that you see us, that no prayer goes unheard, no silence is a waste. And that wherever we are in our life, whatever burdens we are carrying, that you're right here. That you are molding us and you are creating us in just the way that you had planned for us before the creation of the world. Thank you for who you are. In Jesus name, amen. The post Moses Flees to Midian – Exodus 2: 11-25 appeared first on Red Village Church.

In Genesis 37, Moses begins to show how God sovereignly works through the painful dysfunction of Jacob's family to preserve the promised seed.

In Genesis 44, Joseph tests his brothers by placing a silver cup in Benjamin's sack—but what unfolds is much deeper than a simple test. This chapter reveals a powerful truth: we may hide our sins from people, but never from God. -Do you want to be an active member of 21c Moses? Then, consider becoming a 21c Moses Patreon! Click the link for more info: https://patreon.com/user?u=45306220&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link -If you want to donate to 21c Moses Ministry, please click the link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=P4LC3BE2S3JGA -Please check our website: https://21cmoses.com ©2026 21c Moses #21cMoses #BibleTeaching #DailyBibleStudy

Our journey through the sweeping narrative of Scripture brings us to a moment where everything seems to have gone completely sideways. Humanity is scattered, language is divided, and the divine image in us appears deeply bent. God responds to this global chaos not by choosing an obvious, powerful empire, but by calling a seventy-five-year-old pagan moon-worshiper named Abraham from the middle of nowhere. This establishes a comforting pattern that repeats across the entire Bible. God consistently chooses the unlikely vessel so that the ultimate rescue cannot be credited to human strength.In Genesis 12, Abraham receives a massive invitation to leave his country, his people, and his inheritance. He is asked to walk away from his entire identity and move toward an unknown destination. God attaches five beautiful promises to this single act of movement, anchoring a covenant that vows to restore the original blessing to every family of the ground. When we take matters into our own hands because the divine timeline feels too slow, we create relational wreckage. Yet, even in our failures, God pursues the vulnerable. The very first appearance of the angel of the Lord occurs in the wilderness to Hagar, a pregnant runaway with no power. She gives God the name El Roi, the God who sees me.This story carries us through generations of waiting, laughing at the impossible, and enduring extreme testing on a mountain peak where God dismantles the violent expectations of ancient religion. The gods of the nations consume, but our God provides a substitute. The promise survives a brutal four-hundred-year furnace of Egyptian slavery where a community identity is forged in the mud and bricks. From the courageous civil disobedience of two midwives to a baby floating in a basket down a dangerous river, God protects the deliverer. We are the current links in this ancient chain. We are uniquely crafted works of art, carrying the blessing forward to a world waiting to be seen.URF WEBSITE: ➤ http://www.urfellowship.comSOCIALS: ➤ Instagram:   / urfellowship  ➤ Facebook:   / urfellowship  

In Genesis 23, Abraham faces the death of Sarah with real hurt, real hope, and real righteousness. He mourns honestly, trusts God's promises, and acts with integrity as he secures a burial place in the land God promised. This passage shows that faith doesn't erase grief—it shapes how we respond to it.

The studies and articles aren't new. In fact, the first workplace gender research started in the 1960s and 1970s. Men and Women in the Corporation by Rosabeth Moss Kanter was considered one of the first academic studies on gender differences in work behavior and opportunity, and this was in 1977. This conversation is as old as me, but I would like to remind you that women at work is not a construct of the early world wars and industrial revolutions as you may have been taught. Women and men working together started with creation in Genesis 1. Men and women were created to work together. In Genesis 1:26-27, we see the beautiful work of unity in creation. Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every other creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. When we read the verses about creating man, he created both male and female in his own image. Not men exalted above women or women above men, but creation in his image, in unity. If we don't look to the beginning, it is easy to look at the ways that culture and society have created norms about work. The reality is these are not God's norms for men and women. The next verses in Genesis 1: 28-29 further frame God's plans for man and woman: And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' God gave man and woman an equal command to work in unity. You already know that once sin crept in, this unity was forever broken. Sin impacts this sacred creation in every way, and our cultural norms which have been forming since the 70s continue to impact how men and women work together. What does this sin look like within the context of work? What is causing the continued gender bias issues for women? The answer doesn't start with work; it really begins outside of the office and is part of the cultural and societal brokenness between men and women that has systematically and year after year found its way into our work. With my aim being unity between men and women as advocates to solve this issue, I wondered, who were the leading male voices for gender equality at work. One name that came up was Tony Porter. Tony is the founder and CEO of A Call to Men. He seeks to teach systemic change for between men and women in society. In an article published on his website, “Is your Organization Unintentionally Reinforcing Gender Bias at Work,” Tony states this, “…the workplace is a microcosm of society—a society where men and boys are collectively socialized to view women as objects, as property and as having less value than men.”[1] This blanket statement is not felt by all women, of course, but as a whole, it sums up that sin and the brokenness of not seeing men and women created equally in the image of God is at the root of the issues still facing women today. Fortunately and unfortunately, the Bible is full of cultural examples of both unity and brokenness between men and women. If we look at the Word of God, we will all struggle to understand some of the terrible injustices women faced including being taken by force into marriage, raped, and being cast out of society. Again, at the moment of the fall, the unity and sacred relationship between men and women fell, and it fell hard. But, for every hard-to-read passage of Scripture about injustices for women, there are beautiful examples of how God used women and work for the glory of his kingdom. Women played an important role in the formation of the early church where they not only served the disciples with hospitality but also provided money for the ministry and teaching of the good news to their families. The grandmother and mother of the disciple, Timothy, are mentioned by Paul. 2 Timothy 1:5 reads, I am reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives in you also. Today we live in a culture not so different than biblical times. Women around the world still face terrible injustices, not only at work, but in society. Harassment, gender pay gaps, interviews and promotion biases all still exist, but there are people trying to drive change. Another name that came up as an advocate for women at work is the former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman. He spoke about visiting a tea plantation where female workers were being abused or sexually harassed. When policies failed, he put female supervisors in place so that the women no longer needed to go to an unsafe work environment. This was within the last 5 years. What are some of the more nuanced impacts women face at work? In a Forbes Women article from May 15, 2025, by Eva Epker the continued gaps between men and women at work are highlighted. With parenting and caregiving still being a primary responsibility of the mother, a study found that three years after childbirth, 90% of fathers were in full-time work, versus only 27.8% of new moms. Another study noted 41% of female participants experience discrimination in a hiring process including gender-biased and inappropriate questions. Mental health and the lack of mentorship opportunities for women, continue to be part of this conversation.[2] These examples remind me of some data from the 2023 McKinsey study on “Women in the Workplace” that discussed the large impact microaggressions can have on women at work.[3] Microaggressions are defined as demeaning or dismissing comments or actions rooted in bias, directed at a person because of their gender, race, or other aspects of their identity. Women experience these more than men. For example, a woman is two times more likely to be interrupted in a meeting and spoken over than a male counterpart. We keep having the same conversations, and the results of the studies improve but not in a significant enough way to truly make change. One of my observations is that both secular and faith-based organizations often take a one-gender approach to gender biases. More specifically, women are talking to women about the lasting issues and implications about gender bias at work, and men are rarely part of this conversation. Working women, and more narrowly, Christian working women aren't having the conversations needed to redeem this sacred unity at work, and they aren't having them at church either. I have been to women's leadership conferences, both secular and faith based, and at only one was there a focus on women in the workplace where men were part of the discussion and workshops. This was a faith-based conference. I was able to find one opinion article in Time from July 18, 2023, titled “Modern Gender Equality Must Include Men.” The lead heading “Gender equality can only happen when women and men are advancing toward that goal together.”[4] Shelley Zalis conducted online research about men's attitudes and the results showed that 53% of men believe that workplaces in the US should be doing more to eliminate bias in the workplace. I agree that we need unity between men and women that lead to solutions. As Christian leaders, how do we work on this unity while at the same time navigate the current brokenness in the workplace for women, Christian or not? First, we need to remember we are called to address the issues of the poor and oppressed; we should not turn a blind eye to this matter. Isaiah 58:6-7 exhorts: Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Are you hiding yourself by simply being unaware? We are called to care. What are some of the ways we can continue this conversation? Perhaps shining a light on the benefits of women at work can be a start. Companies with gender-diverse leadership show an increase in average revenue. The McKinsey study notes that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are 25 percent more likely to have above average profitability. Women have always been wise, and, as Christian leaders, we should tell these Bible stories about the working women God used for his kingdom. Perhaps these examples can inspire and show God's plans for women and work to others. And we can see how women and men worked together through their examples. Deborah was a judge and a leader. She worked in unity with Barak to go into war for Israel (Judges 4 & 5). Miriam was a leader of worship and worked in unity with Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel during the Exodus (Exodus 15). The Proverbs 31 woman embodies a long list of attributes that benefit her husband including: rising while it is still night to provide for her family, investing wisely, dressing well, being confident in her merchandise, caring for the poor, and being strong and wise. Mary was the first to see the resurrected Jesus and bring word to the male disciples (John 20). Lydia, in Acts chapter 16, was a seller of purple cloth and worked in unity with Paul to help the early church. This is not an exhaustive list! Women have always worked, and they have done so alongside men. I know most of you may not be in a place to share these examples of Bible stories as inspiration at work, but you can start this change within Christian spaces. Men and women can lead by sharing these examples of unity in God's plan with other Christians. We need to start having more conversations about how God used men and women in our faith-based spaces. We can explore these issues together to find ways to lean into and lead the change in our workplaces. Even if we cannot share the stories, we can share facts, and choose to engage: First, pay attention to the data and actually care about the data! All these studies include a what can we do about it section, and the advice centers around providing women resources to engage with including development, mentoring, counseling for stress, benefits that support caregiving, and more. Next, think about how you may be contributing to this issue as a man or a woman. Are you engaging in behavior that may be considered microaggression? Did you know that simply commenting on what another woman is wearing to work can impact her? Or assuming a female colleague's mental state or home situation? If we are honest, as women, we have absolutely contributed to our own issues with gender equality at work simply by tearing each other down. Most importantly, lead with love! As a believer in Jesus Christ, we are called to love our neighbors, and an easy love checklist is found in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Both women and men can act on this! For the women, engage in a conversation with men about this topic. For men, engage in a conversation with a woman on this topic. Let's lead by the biblical examples of unity! — [1] Kay, M. (2020, August 17). Is Your Organization Unintentionally Reinforcing Gender Bias at Work? A Call to Men. https://www.acalltomen.org/is-your-organization-unintentionally-reinforcing-gender-bias-at-work/ [2] Epker, E. (2025, May 14). What's Holding Back Working Women In 2025? Same Obstacles, More Anxiety. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/evaepker/2025/05/14/whats-holding-back-working-women-same-obstacles-more-anxiety/ [3] Mckinsey & Company. (2024). Women in the Workplace. McKinsey; McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace [4] Zalis, S. (2023, July 18). Modern Gender Equality Must Include Men. Time. https://time.com/6295453/modern-gender-equality-must-include-men/

Thursday, 21 May 2026   Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. Matthew 20:2   “Having also harmonized with the toilers from ‘denarius, the day,' he sent them into the ‘vineyard, his'.” (CG)   In the previous verse, Jesus began the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. He continues that now, saying, “And having harmonized with the toilers.”   An amount was agreed on (harmonized) between him and those who will be in his employ. This is what will happen with any day laborer, and it is what happens with any hired staff in any job. Even military service sets the terms of payment, regardless of if it is compulsory or voluntary enlistment.   People want to know what to expect for their labor before entering into it. This goes back to the earliest records of the Bible. In Genesis 29, it says –   “And he said, Laban, to Jacob, ‘(Indeed) not my brother, you. And you served me gratuitously? You must (surely) cause to declare to me what your wages!' 16And to Laban, two daughters. ‘Name, the whopping' Leah, and ‘name, the diminutive' Rachel. 17And ‘eyes, Leah' tender. And Rachel, she was ‘beautiful, form' and ‘beautiful, appearance.   18And he cherished, Jacob, Rachel. And he said, ‘I will serve you seven years in Rachel, your daughter, the diminutive.'   19And he said, Laban, ‘Good I giving her to you from my giving her to ‘man, another'. You must (surely) sit with me!' 20And he served, Jacob, in Rachel seven years. And they were, in his eyes, according to ‘days, ones' in his ‘cherish, her'.” Genesis 29:15-20 (CG).   Such arrangements are wholly appropriate, and they are considered binding. If either side defaults on the agreement, it is considered theft. If the owner doesn't pay, he has stolen the time and effort of the laborer. If the laborer refuses to work according to whatever standard was set forth, he is considered to have stolen the property of the owner. Understanding this, Jesus notes that the agreement was “from ‘denarius, the day,'.”   The denarius was introduced in Matthew 18:28. It was a small silver coin used in Roman currency. It was approximately 53 grams of silver. Its value changed according to the strength of the Roman currency system, as any nation's currency does. But for this parable, it is accepted as a day's labor by both parties. With that agreed on, “he sent them into the ‘vineyard, his'.”   It is his property. The vineyard was either planted by him or tended to since he acquired the property. His time, money, and resources have been used to keep the vineyard in proper shape. On the other side, the laborer has needs and desires that he anticipates based on what he will earn. His abilities have been evaluated, and he is to perform according to what the owner expects from those abilities.   Life application: In the story of Jacob and Laban, Laban cheated Jacob. Instead of giving him Rachel for seven years of labor, he gave him Leah. Only after the marriage was consummated did Jacob realize what had happened. He had his years of labor essentially stolen from him.   Laban then offered Rachel for another seven years of labor. Jacob agreed to this, but it was not the original agreement. Laban had seven years to marry off Leah, and he didn't do it, connivingly setting Jacob up to serve him longer so that Laban could unjustly benefit from him.   Understanding this, be sure to count your pay before you take it for a deposit. And for sure, gents, be sure to lift the veil on the woman you are about to marry. Under it, she might not be who you think.   Lord God, what a wonderful story is found in Jacob's two wives and two concubines. There is law, and there is grace. And there are two exiles during those periods for the nation of Israel. And yet, You have brought them back again to fulfill the final promises in Your word to this unruly people. May that day be soon. Amen.

What if the discomfort you're trying to avoid is actually the place where God wants to transform you most? In Genesis 12, Abraham is called to leave behind comfort, familiarity, and security—all because God had a greater purpose on the other side of obedience. But what happens when God calls you to move? To trust? To leave behind what feels safe? This message will challenge you to wrestle with one question: Are you choosing comfort…or calling?

I have been in the workplace for longer than I want to admit and one thing I can say is I hear more about the differences between men and women at work than what unifies us. Although I don't want to overlook the different realities men and women face in the workforce, I also don't think we talk enough about God's point of view on men and women when it comes to work. So, let's examine some of the women in the Bible and the true definition of unity, or the state of being united or joined as a whole, when it comes to men and women at work. In Genesis 1:26-27 we see the beautiful work of unity in creation. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27). We first see unity in the trinity before God even created man and woman. Our image and our likeness—not my image and my likeness—our. God embodies the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the image of God, working together to form creation. And, when we read the verse about creating man, he created both male and female in his own image. Not men exalted above women or women above men but creation in his image, in unity. If we don't look to the beginning, it is easy to look at the ways culture and society have created norms about work. The reality is, these are not God's norms for men and women. The next verses in Genesis 1:28-29 further frame God's plans for man and woman. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food” (Genesis 1:28-29). God gave man and woman an equal command to work—in unity. So, why do we have so much trouble with unity of men and women at work today? Sin. Your sin and mine. Men sin and women sin. We break unity. But awareness of how it should be—this is the best start. And we can look at how God used men and women together in scripture to accomplish his plans.

In Genesis 43, we witness a powerful moment where sacrifice opens the door for grace. As famine presses harder, Judah offers himself as a guarantee for Benjamin's safety—an act of willingness, responsibility, and love. It's in this costly decision that the path forward is revealed. Joseph, still hidden in authority, responds not with punishment, but with unexpected kindness. Despite past betrayal, grace begins to unfold in ways the brothers never expected. -Do you want to be an active member of 21c Moses? Then, consider becoming a 21c Moses Patreon! Click the link for more info: https://patreon.com/user?u=45306220&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link -If you want to donate to 21c Moses Ministry, please click the link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=P4LC3BE2S3JGA -Please check our website: https://21cmoses.com ©2026 21c Moses #21cMoses #BibleTeaching #DailyBibleStudy

God's ways are not our ways, and this is clearly evident at the end of Genesis. In Genesis 48, we find Jacob at the end of his life giving a blessing to Joseph's sons. In this chapter, we see the first mention of God as a shepherd. Pastor Dan explains how this blessing reveals Jacob's view of God and his obedience to Him. It also shows Joseph's immense faith in choosing to align his family with Israel instead of Egypt.

You didn't choose the table you grew up at — but it shaped you more than you know. The conversations, the silence, the tension, the warmth — all of it discipled you before you even knew what discipleship was.In Genesis 50, Joseph stands face to face with the brothers who betrayed him. Sold. Lied about. Forgotten. He had every reason to let his past define his future. Instead, he gives us one of the most powerful redemption statements in all of Scripture: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good."Pain may shape you — but it does not have to define you.In this message, we explore how to stop letting the table you came from control the table you're building, through three moves Joseph modeled: refusing to let pain become his identity, interpreting his life through God's providence, and choosing forgiveness over revenge.Your history explains you. It does not own you.

Sunday, 17 May 2026   And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29   “And all, whoever he left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields because of My name, a hundredfold he will receive, and life perpetual he will inherit.” (CG)   In the previous verse, Jesus noted that those of the disciples who follow Him would sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Next, He continues, saying, “And all, whoever he left.”   Jesus is about to give a list of things people may give up for the sake of the gospel. In these words, He is referring to priorities toward God above all else. The word “all” extends the meaning to anyone, not merely those just given the promise in the previous verse. As for the list, He says, “houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields.”   Some transcripts omit the words “or wife.” That was clearly based on the thought that a husband and wife should never be separated. However, it is rather certain that the words are original. When reading this, we can get mentally stuck on what Jesus is saying. However, to leave something does not necessarily mean forsaking it.   When a person leaves his mother, she is still his mother. In Genesis 2, it says –   “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24   Mom and Dad are still Mom and Dad. The man, however, has made a new allegiance that takes first priority. People leave families all the time for whatever amount of time is necessary to accomplish a job. While writing this commentary, the USS Gerald R. Ford is deployed in the Middle East. So far, they have been at sea for 294 days. It is the longest deployment in over 50 years.   Each sailor with a family still has that family, but the navy is the sailor's current priority. A missionary called to serve in Uganda for a year will have his wife waiting for him. If it is a long-term mission, families usually go together.   There is no reason to get mentally stuck on Jesus' words, or to take them to unintended extremes. Jesus is referring to placing Him as the highest priority in whatever manner that entails for the situation. He confirms this, saying, “because of the ‘My name'.”   Whatever is done for Jesus in His name, obviously with the right heart attitude, is what He is referring to. If so, Jesus says that the effort will not be without its reward, noting that “a hundredfold he will receive.”   A new word is seen here, hekatontaplasión, a hundredfold. Some manuscripts say pollaplasiona, manifold. However, many translations that use those manuscripts still render the word as hundredfold.   Jesus' words should not be considered as quantity but quality. In other words, if someone left one wife to serve the Lord, he should not expect a hundred wives. Rather, he should expect the blessing to be a hundredfold in results and in internal satisfaction. Understanding this, Jesus finishes with, “and ‘life, perpetual' he will inherit.”   These words do not indicate merit for eternal life. Rather, Jesus has already said that what is done is for His name's sake. The person referred to is a believer. All true believers receive eternal life. As such, Jesus includes this thought as an assurance of that, not as a grant based on performance.   Read the slight differences in Luke and Mark concerning Jesus' words to get a better understanding of the overall intent of what He says –   “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, 30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mark 18:29, 30   “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.” Luke 18:29, 30   Life application: True story – A person in a church said he was called to be a missionary. Using this verse as a pretext to go forward, he notified the church and his wife that he was divorcing her to proceed with his calling.   This is a complete abuse of what Jesus is saying. The directives for marriage are laid out by both Jesus in the gospels and Paul in the epistles. If a person thinks he can get away with divorcing his wife to honor Jesus, he is severely deluded. Everything has a context. As noted above, a person does not stop being a son just because he unites with his wife.   Likewise, a person does not stop being a husband if he goes to serve the Lord (or the US Navy). Never attempt to use Scripture to justify the unjustifiable. The Lord will not be mocked, and judgment awaits all such disobedience.   Lord God, may our lives be an acceptable offering to You. Our lives are often filled with difficulties and trials, but help us to persevere and bring glory to You as we continue down the path You have set for us. During our walk, may we do our best to hold fast to Scripture, honoring You through faithful obedience. Amen.

In Genesis 15, Abram finds himself in the difficult "waiting room" of life, questioning a divine promise that seems biologically impossible. This week we explore the profound moment when God responds not with more words, but by taking the full weight of a sacred covenant upon Himself to guarantee your future.

Series: Walking WiselyTitle: "How to Walk God's Way in God's World"Scripture: Proverbs 3:1-12 NIV James 1:5-6Hebrews 11:6 "Without faith [trust] it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." NIVishBottom line: Wisdom is learning to walk in God's way (aka wisely) in God's world. INTRODUCTIONCONTEXTOUTLINECONCLUSIONDISCUSSION QUESTIONSNOTESYOUTUBE DESCRIPTIONMAIN REFERENCES USEDMy opening prayer: Lord God, help us grow to be and do like Jesus, while abiding in him and leading others to do the same. Bottom line: Wisdom is learning to walk in God's way (aka wisely) in God's world. OPENING STORYA few years ago, our youth group had Pastor Ed Newton speak to them at camp. They loved him! Well, I at some point started following him on Twitter (back then) but X and had saved this tweet/post in my files. This was his quote:"God's will? Find where you have been given favor, then follow favor, then be faithful to the place that God gave you favor!"So this resonated with me. So I posted a question asking him the source of that inspiration. He replied Proverbs 3. "Over the past several months, we walked through Book of Genesis in our series God's Promises, Our Journey.In Genesis, we watched God call imperfect people to trust Him with their future:Abraham leaving home not knowing where he was goingIsaac learning to trust God's covenant promisesBut that raises an important question:How do we actually walk that journey day by day?That is where Book of Proverbs comes in.If Genesis teaches us to trust God with the big story of our lives, Proverbs teaches us how to walk wisely with God in everyday life.Proverbs is not primarily a book of random sayings or good advice. It is a father teaching his children how to live skillfully in God's world.Wisdom in Proverbs is not merely intelligence, information, or success. Wisdom is learning to see life from God's perspective and walk in God's ways.At the center of Proverbs is this foundational truth:“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1:7)In other words: true wisdom begins with a right relationship with God.That is why Proverbs 3:5–6 is one of the most loved and well-known passages in the Bible. It speaks directly into moments of uncertainty, transition, decision-making, and future direction.And that makes this passage especially fitting today as we celebrate our graduates.Many of them are standing at a major crossroads:decisions about schoolworkrelationshipscallingidentityfuture directionAnd Proverbs reminds all of us — graduates and non-graduates alike — that our greatest need is not simply a good plan, but wholehearted trust in God." -ChatGPTWe just spend 9 weeks learning that our journey is shaped by our belief/unbelief in God's promises. We said that God's promises (rightly believed) shape our journey for good.Proverbs 3 seems like the next right step. Why? Because it tells us how to walk God's way in God's world. Our journey.“Wisdom is where knowledge and love kiss each other.”“Power is simply operating in Christ's authority with his resources.”Father (King Solomon) is discipling his Prince son. Parents, are you paying attention here?“Genesis showed us God's promises in the journey. Proverbs teaches us how to walk wisely in that journey.” -ChatGPTOrBottom line: Wisdom is learning to walk in God's way (aka wisely) in God's world. CONTEXTWhat are the key traits of the book of Proverbs?"Proverbs as wisdom literature" #wisdom #promises"Solomon/father-to-son framework" #relationships #discipleship"Fear of the Lord theme""Connection to Jesus as wisdom incarnate" #incarnation-ChatGPT"We're in Proverbs and that means wisdom literature. Why does that matter? Well, we read wisdom literature differently from other types of literature like narrative or didactic. Wisdom literature often communicates general patterns.Gospel and covenant texts often communicate definitive redemptive promises.In other words, Proverbs teaches us the normal pathways of wisdom. Jesus announces the guaranteed promises of the kingdom."-ChatGPTGenesis showed us Abraham learning to trust God's audible voice with the big story of their lives. Proverbs teaches us how to walk wisely with God's written word in everyday decisions.“This is generally true now and will always prove true later.” -Daniel Akin"Proverbs describes the normal moral order of God's world,but the fullness of these blessings is ultimately eschatological." -ChatGPTBottom line: Wisdom is learning to walk in God's way (aka wisely) in God's world. OUTLINE (influenced by Danny Akin)In the early 90s, Anita and I lived in Tampa Florida. Our time included joining Bell Shoals Baptist Church, where I was baptized. This is where I responded to Ministry. This is where I heard the preaching of Danny Akin for the first. I had never heard preaching like this before. It so impressed and influenced me that summer, that I went to the seminar where he was Dean of students. (SEBTS) He's now the president of the seminary. Today's outline is influenced by him and his son's efforts in a commentary I read this past week.I. We Should Keep the Covenant PROVERBS 3:1,3,5,7,9The odd verses give the obligations that we are called to live up to if weare in a covenant relationship with the Lord. II. God Blesses Covenant-Keepers PROVERBS 3:2,4,6,8,10The even verses give the divine partner's obligations. III. This Is Generally True Now and Will Always Prove True LaterProverbs 3:11-12The proverbs are generally true now, but they are always ultimately true.IV. Jesus Kept the Covenant for You"The good news is that he represents us before the Father in this covenant relationship. He lived up to our obligations for us, and thenhe took the curses of covenant breaking in our place." -Daniel AkinCONCLUSIONBottom line: Wisdom is learning to walk in God's way (aka wisely) in God's world. From ChatGPT:The Pilot Through the Clouds (Excellent for “straight paths”)One of the most dangerous moments for a pilot is flying through thick clouds without visual reference points.Everything in the body starts lying:up feels down,left feels right,motion feels still.Pilots are trained not to trust their feelings in that moment. They must trust the instruments.Some pilots have crashed perfectly good airplanes because they trusted their instincts more than the guidance system.Proverbs 3 says: “Lean not on your own understanding.”There will be seasons where:your emotions will mislead you,your instincts will fail you,your understanding will be incomplete.In those moments, wisdom means trusting the Lord more than yourself.I found the incident you're referring to, though the pilot's name appears to have been spelled Vinson Kyle Perdue in newspaper reporting, not “Purdue.” The crash occurred in August 1981 near Dorchester Road in the Summerville area. What I could verify:He was a young Air Force pilot from Summerville.The jet crashed during a routine training mission near Dorchester Road.The crash happened close to the Kings Grant area you mentioned. I could not verify from available sources that vertigo/disorientation was officially determined as the cause, though your memory of local reporting may absolutely be correct. Spatial disorientation/vertigo is a well-known factor in military aviation crashes, especially during instrument conditions.For sermon purposes, I would be careful not to state definitively:“The crash was officially caused by vertigo…”unless you locate a direct source confirming that.But you can still use the illustration powerfully and honestly by framing it like this:When I was growing up in Summerville, there was a military jet crash near Dorchester Road across from Kings Grant where we lived.I still remember how sobering that was as a kid.And one of the things pilots are trained to understand is that when visibility disappears and disorientation sets in, your senses can begin lying to you.Up can feel down. Motion can feel still. Your instincts can become dangerous.That's why pilots are trained to trust their instruments more than their feelings.Proverbs 3 says something very similar spiritually:“Lean not on your own understanding.”There are moments in life where:your emotions will mislead you,your instincts will fail you,your understanding will be incomplete.Wisdom means learning to trust God more than yourself.That keeps:the local authenticity,the emotional weight,the aviation imagery,and the pastoral application—without overstating what can be historically verified.And honestly, because this is tied to your own childhood memory in Summerville, it will likely land much harder emotionally than a generic illustration ever could.From Claude.aiWhat Was Found on Vinson Kyle PerdueThe primary verified source is a newspaper clipping from The Greenville News, dated August 26, 1981 — a clipping published in The Greenville News on August 26, 1981, mentioning Vinson Kyle Perdue in Greenville, South Carolina. That confirms the name spelling (Perdue, not Purdue) and the August 1981 date align with newspaper reporting. The Newspapers.com record exists but sits behind a paywall, so the full text of the article wasn't accessible — which means we can confirm existence of reporting but not the article's specific content on cause of death.No publicly accessible official USAF accident investigation report for this specific crash surfaced. The Aviation Archaeological Investigation & Research database (which houses USAF accident reports from that era) exists but didn't return this specific crash in searches.Bottom line on the Perdue crash: Name, date, and general location are confirmed by newspaper record. Cause of death (vertigo/spatial disorientation) remains your childhood memory of local reporting — plausible and consistent with the era, but not independently verifiable from open sources right now.What Was Found on Spatial Disorientation — and Why It Strengthens Your IllustrationThis is where the research gets genuinely useful for your sermon. The data on spatial disorientation (SD) as a cause of military aviation fatalities is extensive and striking:• Spatial disorientation accounted for 11% of all USAF crashes, with a crash fatality rate of 69% — and the SD rate was significantly higher in fighter/attack aircraft and helicopters than in training and transport aircraft. At night, 23% of all crashes were SD-caused. • Even as overall military aviation accidents per flight hour decreased dramatically from 1958–1992, the rate of SD-caused crashes remained nearly constant — actually increasing as a percentage of all crashes, from 6% in 1958–1971 to 16% in 1972–1992. Technology didn't solve it. The problem is human physiology.• Over a 21-year period (FY1993–2013), there were 72 spatial disorientation mishaps in the USAF, resulting in the loss of 101 lives, 65 aircraft, and $2.32 billion.Spatial disorientation occurs when a pilot's response to false sensations — of attitude, motion, velocity, acceleration, or position — causes the pilot to misinterpret his or her position in flight relative to the earth or other aircraft. The instruments tell the truth. The pilot's body lies to him.How This Serves the SermonYou don't need the Perdue crash to be officially documented as an SD case to use SD as the theological hinge of your illustration. Here's why: the statistics above are so overwhelming that you can say with complete accuracy:“Spatial disorientation — where a pilot's senses tell him up is down and motion is stillness — is one of the leading causes of military aviation fatalities. The pilot feels completely confident. His body is lying to him. That's why pilots are trained to trust their instruments over their instincts.”Then the transition to Proverbs 3 is natural and devastating: “Lean not on your own understanding” isn't just piety — it's survival logic. The human perceptual system is not reliable in conditions of low visibility and high stress. Neither is the unregenerate heart.The local crash becomes the emotional anchor. The SD research data gives it theological weight that doesn't depend on what you can or can't verify about that specific August morning in 1981.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​PrayQuestions (Write this down) - grab an index card and penWhat is God saying to you right now? What are you going to do about it?Write this down on the index card in the seat pockets.DISCUSSION QUESTIONSDiscovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/Read the passage together.Retell the story in your own words.Discovery the storyWhat does this story tell me about God?What does this story tell me about people?If this is really true, what should I do?What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)Who am I going to tell about this?Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcastNOTESProverbs 3:5-6 outline by Stephen Olford, Windows of Wisdom, pp. 17-19

In Genesis 22:19, we see God testing Abraham, asking him to give up arguably his greatest blessing, Issac. Abraham trusted God fully, even when he didn't understand. In the end, God provided and affirmed Abraham's faith, showing that trust in Him is never misplaced.

Daily Dose of Hope May 14, 2026   Name of God:  Adonai – The Lord and Master Scripture:  Genesis 15:2, Exodus 4:10-12, Psalm 8:9, Isaiah 6:1, Daniel 9:3, Joshua 5:14   Prayer:  Adonai, Lord of my life, I turn to You before the demands of the day take over. Guide my steps, break the chains of anxiety, and lead me in Your truth. Shelter me in the shadow of Your wings and be my strength when I am weak. You are my faithful King and Keeper of my soul.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Church daily Bible reading plan.  We are currently walking through the names of God in the Old Testament.  Remember, names in the ancient world held much significance, indicating both character traits and purpose.  The same was true for God's names.  Each divine name gives us a glimpse at an aspect of God's character.   Today, we are focusing on El Adonai.  Adonai is a Hebrew word that translates into English as Lord or Master or Owner.  The term was actually used in the Old Testament when addressing humans who were master or lord over them.  David calls Saul "my lord the king" in 1 Samuel, referring to King Saul there as his adonai. The Philistines are said to have five lords (adonai) in Judges 3. And Sarah refers to her husband Abraham as her adonai in Genesis 18.     But God is also called Adonai.  It is considered the highest title used by God's people in the Old Testament. Devout Jews would often use Adonai instead of YHWH as a sign of respect and reverence. Adonai is used more than four hundred times in the Old Testament.   God is our Lord and Master.  He has all power and authority.  He rules and has absolute sovereignty over creation.    In Genesis 15, Abram refers to God as Adonai, Master and Lord, when he states that he has no heir.  Moses calls God Adonai, Master and Lord, when he complains that he wasn't eloquent enough to address the people.  God's response is actually somewhat humorous.  He basically says, "But I'm the creator.  I'm the one who created the mouths on human beings.  I will give you what you need to say."  Adonai illustrates God's absolute sovereignty over everything and everyone.   How might this name be meaningful for us?  ·      God is our Master.  God created us so that we will need him as Lord and Master.  There is a God-sized hole in each of us.  We will keep seeking purpose until we find our purpose in Him. ·      God is a good Master.  Unlike some of the things we serve in this world, God is a good, kind, loving Master.  ·      Jesus served God as Master.  Jesus acknowledged God as Adonai.  It is because Jesus knew God as Lord and Master that he submitted to death on a cross.  He yielded His will to the Father.  He also showed his disciples what it looks like to be totally surrendered to God as Adonai.    We don't like to think of having a Master.  It might feel restrictive.  It would be if our Master were anyone else but God.  But Adonai is the one we can trust.  It's into His hands that we place our lives.  In fact, there are no better hands in which to place our lives.  He is Lord over everything and over us.  That brings me a great deal of comfort.  What about you?   Blessings, Pastor Vicki    

Could it be that God has both a masculine side and a feminine side? Have we effectively put God in a box by only using masculine titles? But I believe that Father God also has a mother's heart. In Genesis 1:27, it says that “God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them.” In other words, both male and female are created in the image of God, not just the male. To learn more about the ministry of Restoring the Foundations International, please visit www.restoringthefoundations.org.

Daily Dose of Hope May 12, 2026   Name of God: El Olam – The Everlasting God Scripture: Genesis 21:33: Isaiah 40:28, 26:4, Jeremiah 10:10, Psalm 90:1-2   Prayer:  El Olam, Thank You that You are the God of eternity. When my heart fears change, remind me that Your love never ends. When I grow tired, lift me into Your everlasting strength. Anchor my life in Your promises and help me live today in light of eternity. Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Church daily Bible reading plan.  We are currently in a study on the names of God in the Old Testament.  Names in ancient times were very significant and the various names of God are incredibly significant.  Each divine name illustrates a particular aspect of God's character and being.  The more we learn about God's names, the more we learn about God's character.   The name of God that we are focusing on today is El Olam.  The Hebrew word Olam means eternity, forever, everlasting, unending. Thus, when the Scripture speaks of God as El Olam, it is referring to him as the Everlasting God.  It is reminding us that God stands outside of time. He is not bound by beginnings or endings, by clocks or calendars. He is the God who was, who is, and who is to come.  For us, who live in a world where things are temporary with many changes, El Olam is like an anchor.  He is the one who never changes, whose promises are sure and strong throughout all time, and whose love is eternal.   In Genesis 21:33, Abraham called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God (El Olam), after planting a tree in Beersheba as a reminder of God's enduring covenant.  In Isaiah 40, some of my very favorite Scripture, the prophet calls God the everlasting one.  He is the one who does not grow tired and weary, and He is the one who no one can comprehend. In Psalm 90, we read that God was everlasting to everlasting before even the earth was created.  When Scripture uses Olam, it's not just talking about "a very long time." It is talking about foreverness — there is absolutely no end.  That is hard for us to wrap our brains around! What does that mean for us? Olam means God's mercy never runs out. Olam means His Word is eternally true. Olam means His kingdom cannot be shaken. For believers, Olam is not just about God's eternal nature. It is also about the eternal life He offers us in Jesus. Our lives don't end when our earthly bodies die.  Our life is woven into God's eternal plan. His promises don't have an expiration date and  His love never grows old.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki  

Psalm 104 Day 2 — God Hasn't Forgotten Your Dreams Psalm 104:5-9 “You fixed the earth on its foundation, so it can never be shaken. The deeps covered it like a garment; Above the mountains stood the waters. At your rebuke, they took flight; at the sound of your thunder, they fled. They rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them. You set a limit they cannot pass; never again will they cover the earth.” Today, we pick up where we left off with Psalm 104. The verse starts by reminding us that the Lord fixed the Earth. He created all things, and He created the Earth on its foundation so it can never be shaken. That can be pretty reassuring if we let it. If we really let that sink in, the Lord has fixed the earth on its foundation so it can never be shaken. Some days, the earth seems like it is falling apart. It is good to be reassured that God is in control and that He won't allow the world to be shaken. Next, it says, “The deep covered it like a garment; Above the mountains stood the water. This sounds like it refers to the flood. When Noah was living, the people of God had turned away from Him. Genesis 6:5-8 says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Next, it says, “At your rebuke, they took flight; at the sound of your thunder, they fled. They rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them. This narrative of the Lord's control over the water can invoke a sense of awe in us, reminding us of His power and sovereignty. The Lord created the whole universe with his words. When we stop to think about that, it is amazing. The waters fled at the Lord's rebuke. How many of us can say that we speak to nature, and it listens to us? Today's verse ends with, “You set a limit they cannot pass; never again will they cover the earth.” Today's verse shows us how powerful God is and that He controls all nature. God decides where the water will go and where it will not go. It is amazing how He made the oceans, rivers, and lakes. He contained the water where He wanted it. At one point, there was water everywhere. In Genesis 1:9-10, God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” The last line of this verse also reminds us of God's promise to us: “Never again will they cover the earth.” God made this covenant with us after He flooded the Earth. He promised He would not do that again, and He gave us a rainbow as a sign of that covenant. Rainbows are still a sign of that covenant. Sometimes, God will give us a rainbow when we are struggling to believe something will really happen. I remember being in a car with some of my girlfriends once, and we were talking about how one of them really wanted to get married and have children, but it hadn't happened yet. We talked about how hard it is to keep hoping for something when you have waited too long and still don't see any signs of it on the horizon. All of a sudden, there was a beautifully full rainbow right ahead of us in the sky. We know that was God reassuring her that He knows her hopes and dreams and He will fulfill them. My friend is getting married in four days! God is so good! God can do the same for your hopes and dreams. I know hope is hard, especially if you have been waiting a long time. I know it can feel like it will never happen. I can feel like He has forgotten about you. You can be tempted to give up, hoping for what you want, and figure it just wasn't God's plan for you. I want to encourage you not to give up. I want to encourage you to keep hoping, even when it is hard and even when you feel like there is no point. God rewards persistence. He tells us this through several stories in the Bible. God wants us to keep asking. I am not sure why some things take a long time, and others happen right away. I am not sure why it seems like God is ignoring us at times. I do know that is not true. God is never ignoring us. He is always right there by our side. His attention is always aimed directly at us. The problem is that His timing is not our timing, and that sucks! We feel we know what we want, and we even are pretty sure our timing is great. However, the Lord can see things we can't see, and if we get what we want before we are ready, it won't be as good. My friend waited on God's timing and has now found the man of her dreams. God brought her a guy who gets her. They have a similar sense of humor, they both love dogs, and they are so cute together. Does it stink that she had to wait this long to meet him? Yes. Does God have a plan that is bigger than our plan? Yes. My friend did not give up on her hopes and dreams, and I hope you won't either, even if it seems impossible. Even if it seems like you missed your chance or you missed your window, if you want it, keep praying for it. God is a way maker. He can find a way where there is no way. As Matthew West would say in his new song, “Don't Stop Praying!” Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode. Lord, we are in awe of your majesty. We are in awe of how you speak commands over the earth, and it listens. We are in awe of keeping the water contained where you want it. Lord, you are incredible. I love looking at this Psalm to see your majesty on display. Thank you for your covenant with us, Lord. Thank you for reminding us of that covenant when we need it. Lord, we ask that you help us not to give up hope on our hopes and dreams. We ask that you help fortify us in faith that hope in you will not disappoint. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting some of you on Zoom this evening. It is not too late to join the mentoring, and you can be on live tonight as well. We are in week #2 of our new series. This month in mentoring, we'll explore what it means to stay connected to God amid exhaustion, disappointment, and unanswered questions. Together, we'll learn how to bring our real thoughts and emotions to Him honestly, discover His presence in the hard places, and begin finding hope again—even when life doesn't change right away. If this sounds like something you could use, there is a link to sign up at the bottom of the show notes. Mentoring is $30 a month, and you get live mentoring on Zoom Tuesday nights at 8 ET.  You will also get a recording of the session in case you weren't able to come live or you just want to watch it again. I hope you will join us! Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in October 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, don't doubt that I don't hear your prayer. Even if it's not spoken, I hear it in your sighs. I hear it in your tears. I hear it in the beat of your heart. I am always listening to you, my beloved children.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

May 12, 2026Today's Reading: 1 Timothy 2:1-6 or James 1:22-27Daily Lectionary: Numbers 9:1-23; Luke 16:1-18“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.In Genesis 18, Abraham made intercession to Yahweh. He petitioned God for the sake of the righteous (that is, believing in Yahweh's promises) people in Sodom. Abraham pleaded God down from fifty to ten. Only Abraham and his family, Lot and his family (well, minus his salty-pillared wife) made it out of Sodom before its destruction. Another mediator was needed.In Exodus and Leviticus, Yahweh instructed Moses and Aaron to consecrate a priesthood and construct the tabernacle. The priests and the place they served in were to be a place of intercession, redemption, atonement, and mediation. Sins were confessed. Sacrifices were slain. Blood was poured out. Day after day. Holy feast after holy feast. Year after year. These servants and the sacrifices were good. They did what God gave them to do. But the priests were far from perfect. And the sacrificial system was one of wash, rinse, and repeat. Another mediator was needed.In Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Moses pleaded and interceded on behalf of Israel numerous times when they failed, faltered, and were faithless in the wilderness. But so did Moses. He failed, faltered, and was faithless, too. He fell into the same infidelities of faith that Israel did. Moses, like so many of his generation, died in the wilderness before crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. Once again, another mediator was needed. So, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son. Jesus is the One Mediator who redeems them all. Abraham, Aaron, and Moses were all small “m” mediators, each pointing the way to and paving the way for the capital “M” Mediator, Jesus. God's final mediator is God himself. Jesus is the best of both worlds. True God. True Man. Bearing Adam's humanity, yet without Adam's sin. Jesus is the go-between, reconciling us to God the Father. Jesus is our mediator bearing mercy and steadfast love. Jesus is our redeemer who pays our ransom with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. And Jesus did this for Abraham, Aaron, Moses, and for you.In Jesus, you have the One Mediator who is perfect, eternal, everlasting, never-ending, always present, ever-gracious, and abounding in steadfast love for you.For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.Since Christ has full atonement made And brought to us salvation, Each Christian therefore may be glad And build on this foundation. Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead, Your death is now my life indeed, for You have paid my ransom. (LSB 555:6)Rev. Samuel Schuldheisz, pastor of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Milton, WA.

From the very beginning, the authority of God's Word has been under attack. God gave clear instruction in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis 2:16 and following: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'" In Genesis chapter 3, the serpent spoke to Eve, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The serpent put this question in her mind to cause doubt and later countered what God said, "Ye shall not surely die." Tragically, Eve took of the fruit and ate it. She gave it to Adam, who also ate it, and thus sin entered into the world. We often look back and ask how could they do such a thing. Yet, in our secular world and in pulpits across the country, the same challenge is happening day after day, questioning the authority of the Scriptures. Returning to Crosstalk to answer this concern was Ken Ham. Ken is founder of Answers in Genesis and its life-changing attractions: the highly acclaimed Creation Museum and the world-renowned Ark Encounter. Ken is a biblical apologist and author of multiple books, including Divine Dilemma (understanding death, disease, and suffering); Divided Nation (about today's culture wars); Creation to Babel (a devotional commentary); The Lie: Unraveling the Myth: Evolution/Millions of Years and Miraculous: The Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis Story.

In Genesis 27, we walk through one of the most dysfunctional moments in Isaac's family and yet still witness the unstoppable sovereignty of God. From Isaac's spiritual blindness and Esau's cravings, to Rebekah and Jacob's manipulation and deception, every person in the story attempts to seize control rather than trust the Lord. But despite their sin, God's decrees cannot be frustrated. His promises stand firm, not because of human faithfulness, but because of His sovereign grace. Listen as we explore how striving to accomplish God's promises through our own wisdom and power only brings greater pain, while true blessing is found in faithfully obeying His Word and trusting His purposes.

From the very beginning, the authority of God's Word has been under attack. God gave clear instruction in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis 2:16 and following: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'" In Genesis chapter 3, the serpent spoke to Eve, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The serpent put this question in her mind to cause doubt and later countered what God said, "Ye shall not surely die." Tragically, Eve took of the fruit and ate it. She gave it to Adam, who also ate it, and thus sin entered into the world. We often look back and ask how could they do such a thing. Yet, in our secular world and in pulpits across the country, the same challenge is happening day after day, questioning the authority of the Scriptures. Returning to Crosstalk to answer this concern was Ken Ham. Ken is founder of Answers in Genesis and its life-changing attractions: the highly acclaimed Creation Museum and the world-renowned Ark Encounter. Ken is a biblical apologist and author of multiple books, including Divine Dilemma (understanding death, disease, and suffering); Divided Nation (about today's culture wars); Creation to Babel (a devotional commentary); The Lie: Unraveling the Myth: Evolution/Millions of Years and Miraculous: The Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis Story.

In Genesis 42, Joseph's brothers stand face-to-face with the very man they betrayed—yet they cannot recognize him. Why? This powerful moment reveals more than a hidden identity— it exposes a deeper kind of blindness. Burdened by guilt and haunted by past decisions, the brothers struggle to see clearly. Their sorrow clouds their perception, their fear distorts reality, and their unresolved guilt keeps them spiritually and emotionally blind. -Do you want to be an active member of 21c Moses? Then, consider becoming a 21c Moses Patreon! Click the link for more info: https://patreon.com/user?u=45306220&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link -If you want to donate to 21c Moses Ministry, please click the link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=P4LC3BE2S3JGA -Please check our website: https://21cmoses.com ©2026 21c Moses #21cMoses #BibleTeaching #DailyBibleStudy

About the same time the book of Revelation was written, a Jewish historian named Josephus, who was not a Christian, wrote about Jesus. Though the wording of the full passage has been debated, the basic testimony is striking: Jesus was known as a wise man, a worker of remarkable deeds, a teacher, one who gained followers, was crucified under Pilate, and whose followers did not disappear: Around this time there lived Jesus, a wise manif it is right to call him merely a man. He performed remarkable works and was a teacher of people who gladly received the truth. He attracted many Jews and many Gentiles. He was the Christ. When Pilate, at the urging of our leading men, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him from the beginning did not abandon him. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, just as the divine prophets had foretold this and many other wonderful things about him. And the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not disappeared to this day. It is possible to know many true things about Jesus and still miss the weight of His worth. Josephus could describe Him as a wise man, a worker of remarkable deeds, a teacher, and one condemned to the cross. But Revelation 5 pulls back the curtain of heaven and shows us what all creation will one day confess: Jesus is not merely remarkable. He is worthy. The following is a list of twelve windows into the glory of the Lamb and why it is that He is worthy. Jesus is worthy because He is Judahs Lion (v. 5) Judah was a deeply flawed man who sold his younger brother Joseph into slavery, deceived his father, abandoned his daughter-in-law, and hid behind hypocrisy. But God changed Judahs heart, and by Genesis 44, Judah was willing to sacrifice himself to save Benjamin, the youngest son who was dearly loved by their father. Later, Jacob blessed Judah with a promise that the promised serpent-stomping King would come through him: Judah is a lions cub... The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to Him; and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples (Gen. 49:910). That promise finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus is more than Judahs descendant; He is Judahs promised Lionthe true and better Judah who offered Himself as the sinless Substitute for His people. He is the One to whom the scepter belongs, the One before whom the obedience of the peoples will one day be gathered. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and He has conquered sin, death, and the dragon. Jesus is worthy because He is Gods Lamb (v. 6) We cannot have the Lion as our friend unless we first have Him as our Lamb, for Scripture declares, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22; see Lev. 17:11). This theme runs throughout the Bible. In Genesis 22, Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice and asked, Where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham answered, God will provide for Himself a lamb (Gen. 22:78). In Exodus 12, Israel was sheltered from wrath by the blood of the spotless lamb, and in Isaiah 53, the suffering Servant is portrayed as the Lamb pierced, crushed, and slaughtered for the iniquities of guilty sinners. So when John the Baptist cried out, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), he summed up the promises and the point of the Old Testament. Jesus is the Lamb God provided, the Passover Lamb whose blood shelters His people from judgment, the sacrificial Lamb whose blood makes atonement, and the suffering Lamb who bears our sins. Apart from the blood of the Lamb, the Lion is not our comfort but our Judge. But for those covered by His blood, there is no condemnation. Those of us who have the Lamb know that the Lion is not against us but for us. Jesus is worthy because He can take the scroll (v. 7) He alone has the right to receive and enact Gods plan to judge evil, redeem His people, and restore creation. The scroll contains the sovereign plan of the Lord God Almightythe One who says in Isaiah 46: I am God, and there is no other declaring the end from the beginning saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose (Isa. 46:910). The scroll is in the right hand of this God, and when no one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth was found worthy to open it or even look into it, John wept bitterly. If the scroll remains sealed, Gods promises remain unfulfilled, sin and death are not finally defeated, the saints are not vindicated, and creation is not restored. But the Lion who is the Lamb came forth because He alone is worthy to open the scroll. He took it from the right hand of the Father. This was not theft but triumph. This was not presumption but due to the worthiness of the Preeminent Lamb. Jesus alone has the right to open the scroll because He alone has conquered by His blood. The destiny of creation is in the nail-scarred hand of the Lamb who is the Kinsman-Redeemer. Jesus is worthy because He is the unconquerable King (v. 6) When John turns to see the Lion worthy to open the scroll, he sees a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain. The One who knew no sin and became sin for us bears every scar from the cross as a reminder that His sacrifice was once for all: the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Pet. 3:18)! The Lamb stands because death could not keep Him. The Lamb stands because the grave could not hold Him! The Lamb stands even though He was rejected by men, condemned by rulers, mocked by the religious leaders, and nailed to the cross... He stands at the center of heavens throne room, victorious. His wounds testify to His triumph.The Lamb who was slain is worthy because He is the King who cannot be conquered. Jesus is worthy because He is the Omniscient King (v. 6) The unconquerable King is seen with seven horns and seven eyes. As you may recall, in Scripture, horns symbolize strength, power, and sovereign authority, while eyes symbolize sight, wisdom, and knowledge. The number seven points to fullness and perfection, which means the Lamb who was slain is not weak but all-powerful, not limited but limitless, not unaware but all-seeing.He shares the wisdom and sovereignty of the Ancient of Days.Nothing escapes His sight. No enemy can hide from Him. No suffering saint is forgotten by Him. No act of faithfulness goes unnoticed by Him. The Lion, who is the Lamb, sees all and reigns over all by the fullness of the Spirit sent into all the earth. Jesus is worthy because He is the King whose reign is as extensive as His holiness, goodness, justice, love, grace, and mercy. Jesus is worthy because He is creations Lord (vv. 7-8) The living creatures and elders fall before Him because the Lamb is creations Lord through Whom all of creation exists. The four living creatures represent the created order, and the twenty-four elders represent the redeemed people of God. The worship that belongs to the Lord God Almighty is directed to Jesus not only because of what He has done, but also because of who He is. All things were created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:16), and now all creation bows before Him as One who is equal with the Father. The Lamb who was slain is worthy because He is the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and rightful Lord over all things. Jesus is worthy because He was slain as the sinners ransom (v. 9) The blood of the Lamb is the price of our redemption. The new song of heaven celebrates this: Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation... The Lion of Judah is the willing Lamb who stands before those He came to save; He is the Kinsman-Redeemer that creation needs. The price was not the religious deeds of fallible man, but the life of the second Adam, who lived the life we could not live and died the death we deserved. We were once enslaved by sin and stood condemned before God as guilty sinners, but Jesus gave His life to ransom us and set us free for God. Jesus is worthy because He was slain in our place, bore the judgment we deserved, paid the debt we could not pay, and purchased us by His precious blood. Jesus is worthy because He redeemed a people for mission (vv. 9-10) Jesus did not ransom, redeem, and save sinners from condemnation merely so they could occupy space in His kingdom; He redeemed them for His kingdom purposes. We are not only forgiven of our sins; we are restored to the purpose for which humanity exists. Jesus saved us to send us into the world as His ambassadors and the Fathers priests. We are priests before God, and we live under the reign of Christ as citizens of His kingdom. This is why Peter says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). Jesus is worthy not only because He rescued us from the wrath of God we deserved, but also because He restored us to what we were created to be. Jesus is worthy because He is the song of the angels (vv. 11-12) After the song of the four living creatures and the new song of the twenty-four elders, John turns his attention to what he hears around the throne. What he hears is an innumerable host of angels resounding with praise: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! The angels erupt in praise after those who represent redeemed humanity conclude theirs. Why? Because the second person of the Trinity took upon Himself human flesh, was born of a virgin, and came to redeem a lost, rebellious, and cursed race (Phil. 2:1-11). This is something angels find baffling, for Peter tells us that our salvation is something angels long to look into (1 Pet. 1:12). What the angels offer in worship is a sevenfold declaration of what belongs only to Yahweh. To give this kind of worship to anyone else would not merely be inappropriate; it would be idolatrous. You cannot see it clearly in English, but in the Greek there is one definite article governing the entire sevenfold list attributed to the Lamb. The point is simple: Jesus is worthy to receivethepower,thewealth,thewisdom,themight,thehonor,theglory, andtheblessing that belong to the One true God. In his commentary on Revelation, Richard Phillips captures the wonder of this angelic worship well: Like that of the glorified church, the angels worship responds to Christs atoning death on the cross. Their testimony therefore shows that what once seemed like defeat for Jesus has been revealed as total victory. The cross was seen as weakness but was actually power; the cross displayed poverty but gained true riches; the cross was foolishness to the world but wisdom from God; the cross represented shame but earned the highest honor for Christ; the cross was a place of deep disgrace, yet revealed the very glory of Gods grace; and the cross stood for the curse of sin but achieved eternal blessing for those on whose behalf Jesus died. The One who was slain is now declared worthy by countless heavenly beings. Jesus is worthy because all of heaven knows what earth so often forgets: the Lamb who was slain is worthy of the glory that belongs to God alonebecause He is God. Jesus is worthy because He is creations celebration (v. 13) The worship does not end with the millions of angels, the twenty-four elders, or the four living creatures. John hears more. He hears every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, declaring in worship: To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! What John witnesses is not universal admiration, but the worship of every creature directed to God and to the Lamb. The One who was rejected and despised by men is celebrated by creation. The One who was crucified and crushed outside the city is praised throughout the universe. Jesus is worthy because He is the Lamb before whom every creature will one day bow in worship. Jesus is worthy because He deserves everything (vv. 12-13) Jesus is worthy to receive the power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing that belong to the Lord God Almighty. Every creature appropriately joins the heavenly worship by declaring, To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! Heaven holds nothing back, and creation attributes to the Lamb what rightfully belongs to Yahweh alone. All power belongs to Him because He reigns. All wealth belongs to Him because all things are His. All wisdom belongs to Him because His ways are perfect. All might belongs to Him because He has conquered. All honor belongs to Him because He is exalted. All glory belongs to Him because He is God. All blessing belongs to Him because all praise is His due. Jesus is worthy because He embodies, in infinite measure, all that is good, glorious, powerful, beautiful, and praiseworthy. Jesus is worthy because He is the Amen of the Father (vv. 13-14) Jesus did not need to earn the praise He receives from the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, the angels, and all creation; He is worthy because of who He is. In the same way the Father is unchanging, Jesus is unchanging, for Scripture testifies, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8). In response to the worship and praise Jesus receives as the One worthy to take and open the scroll, the four living creatures respond, Amen!a word that means, Truly, Let it be so, This is true. But do not misunderstand what they are doing. They are not only saying Amen to Jesus as the One who is worthy; they are saying Amen because He Himself is the Amen of God the Father. Jesus is the faithful and true witness, the One in whom every promise of God finds its fulfillment. As Paul writes, For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory (2 Cor. 1:20). Revelation 5 begins with the question, Who is worthy? But after the Lion who is the Lamb takes the scroll, it ends with heaven, earth, and every creature confessing through worship that He alone is worthy. There is nothing left to say but Amen, and nothing left to do but fall down and worship. Conclusion Jesus is worthy before the angels sing that He is.Jesus is worthy before creation celebrates that He is.Jesus is worthy before the elders fall down because of who He is.Jesus is worthy before you and I respond to all that He is! Jesus is worthy. Our worship does not make Him worthy.Our worship simply agrees with what is already true. The question is not whether Jesus is worthyheaven has already declared it, and creation will one day echo that truth. There will come a time when every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and all creation will acknowledge what has always been true (Isa. 45:23; Phil. 2:9-10): the Lamb who was slain is worthy. The question I leave with you today is whether your heart, your obedience, your faith, your suffering, your worship, and every other part of your life will respond with Amen to the Lamb who is worthy. So, do not wait until every creature sings to join the song of heaven. Sing now. Trust Him now. Follow Him now and may Psalm 119:37 be your hearts cry: Turn my eyes away from worthless things; revive me with Your word (Ps. 119:37; BSB).

We often treat the term “Immanuel" as a seasonal word reserved for Christmas cards, but the concept of “God with us” is actually the fundamental characteristic of God from the first page of Scripture to the last. We began a new journey into Practicing Presence by looking at the three ways our Father moves toward us.First, He moves toward us when we hide. In Genesis 3, when humanity falls and hides in the trees, God doesn't stay on a distant mountain or wait for us to climb back up to Him. He enters the garden and asks, "Where are you?" Second, He moves toward us when we hurt. In Exodus, God tells Moses, "I have seen... I have heard... I know... and I have come down." Our God doesn't just offer sympathy from a distance; He descends into the "brick pits" of our lives. Finally, He moves toward us when we hunger. Like Moses in Exodus 33, we are invited to refuse "the gift without the Giver." We don't just want the Promised Land; we want the Presence. The Gospel isn't a story of us climbing up to God; it is the strange and beautiful story of a Father who has already come all the way down to walk with us and be present with us. Support the show

In Genesis 9, Noah plants a vineyard, and eventually becomes drunk and uncovered in his tent. Then we are told that Ham sees the nakedness of his father, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan, Ham's son. For more than two thousand years, interpreters have struggled to make sense of this story, trying to fill its gaps and explain its ambiguities. Tune in as we speak with Justin Michael Reed, who offers a novel explanation in his recent book, The Injustice of Noah's Curse (Oxford UP, 2025) Justin Michael Reed is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Genesis 46, Jacob makes the hard decision to leave the Promised Land and go to Egypt, where he will finally be reunited with his son Joseph. Pastor Dan Rude teaches how we follow the Lord when we are afraid and how God used the nation of Egypt to build up His people.

In Genesis 9, Noah plants a vineyard, and eventually becomes drunk and uncovered in his tent. Then we are told that Ham sees the nakedness of his father, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan, Ham's son. For more than two thousand years, interpreters have struggled to make sense of this story, trying to fill its gaps and explain its ambiguities. Tune in as we speak with Justin Michael Reed, who offers a novel explanation in his recent book, The Injustice of Noah's Curse (Oxford UP, 2025) Justin Michael Reed is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Main Idea: Genesis Chapter 7 describes a worldwide flood instituted by God and how He chose a righteous man named Noah to build an Ark to save his family along with examples of all the animals. In Genesis 8 the floodwaters recede and as Noah's Ark settles onto Mount Ararat we see a hope and a promise of a new beginning for mankind.  Message Notes: http://bible.com/events/49605669

In Genesis 9, Noah plants a vineyard, and eventually becomes drunk and uncovered in his tent. Then we are told that Ham sees the nakedness of his father, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan, Ham's son. For more than two thousand years, interpreters have struggled to make sense of this story, trying to fill its gaps and explain its ambiguities. Tune in as we speak with Justin Michael Reed, who offers a novel explanation in his recent book, The Injustice of Noah's Curse (Oxford UP, 2025) Justin Michael Reed is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Genesis 9, Noah plants a vineyard, and eventually becomes drunk and uncovered in his tent. Then we are told that Ham sees the nakedness of his father, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan, Ham's son. For more than two thousand years, interpreters have struggled to make sense of this story, trying to fill its gaps and explain its ambiguities. Tune in as we speak with Justin Michael Reed, who offers a novel explanation in his recent book, The Injustice of Noah's Curse (Oxford UP, 2025) Justin Michael Reed is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

In Genesis 22, Abraham has a personal encounter with God and he walks away with a personal name for him – Jehovah Jireh. If you have a pressing need and you don't know how it will happen for you, Jehovah Jireh is the name of God you can call on. If you're walking in the middle of a situation where you don't have what is required and you don't know how you ever will, Jehovah Jireh is the name of God you can call on. If you don't know how to give what is being asked of you, Jehovah Jireh is the name of God you can call on. Jehovah + Jireh. Two names together that radically change everything. Jehovah is a translation of the name of God in our breath. This is YHWH, the LORD who has made a personal covenant with his people. Jehovah is the one who has made promises and will be faithful to his promises. When Abraham uses the name Jehovah, he's not just talking about “a god” – he's referring to the personal, covenant-keeping God he knew he could trust in. Jireh comes from the Hebrew word “ra'ah” which means to see, to perceive, and to provide. It's a word that means seeing a need is connected to acting on that need. When you put Jehovah and Jireh together, it means, “The Lord will see to it” or “The LORD will provide.” If God sees a need, he doesn't just ignore it. He doesn't turn his back on a need. He doesn't just walk on by. When God sees a need, his holy power is moved with love and compassion and he takes action to provide for that need. God's seeing always leads to action. Yesterday we learned from the story of Hagar how El Ro'i is the name of God who always sees you. He saw even Hagar, the one no one else saw. And now we learn another name given to God, Jehovah Jireh which assures us if God sees it, he will SEE TO IT. This is more than just seeing and observing. This is moving in response, this is meeting the need, this is divine provision, this is love in action showing up on the scene. You can be assured that God sees you, he sees where you are, he sees what you need, and his seeing always leads to his action on your behalf. God's provision is never random, it is always intentional and it is personal for you. So why did Abraham call God Jehovah Jireh? It's important to understand the setting so you can understand how Jehovah Jireh will show up for you too. This moment of naming God comes right after one of the most intense tests in all of scripture. Abraham has waited for 99 years for his promised and beloved son Issac. God's promise for the future rested on the life of Abraham's son Issac. Knowing this, God speaks to Abraham and says, “Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.” Scripture says, “The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped woofdfor a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about.” What in the world is happening here? What's happening here is a picture of the deepest trust and holy surrender of a faith filled man. Faith that told him his God is good and his specific promises would be upheld. What's happening here is Abraham knowing that no matter what, God will take care of every need, God will provide precisely what is needed, and his timing will be perfect. On top of the mountain, God shows Abraham where to build the fire. Just as Abraham is trusting God enough to let go of his son, the Lord shows him a ram caught by its horns in the brush. The ram was perfectly placed at the perfect time for the substitution sacrifice. The fire was for the substitute sacrifice. Abraham's son, Isaac, would come down off that mountain with him. The Lord saw the need and the Lord provided for the need. And right here is where Abraham gives a personal name to his personal God who has show up so personally for him. Jehovah Jireh, the LORD will provide. Now remember, God told Abraham to go to a mountain that he would show him. It wasn't that Abraham knew exactly where he was going in advance, he was trusting God to lead him there. Abraham was willing to follow even when it was the hardest thing he would ever do. Abraham was willing to go even when he didn't know where or how. And where God led him was to the exact place he already had a ram waiting stuck in the bushes for him. What this tells Abraham is God saw it all ahead of time, God provided what he could not provide, and God did it in ways he could have never expected. What that tells us is the personal God of Abraham is our personal God, and he will do the same for us. Jehovah Jireh – he will see to it for you – he will provide. The LORD sees everything concerning you way ahead of time. Before you ever get there, before you even know about it, God sees it. And because he sees it, he is working far in advance to provide for it. He's already aligning everything that will be needed for you when you follow him with your steps of obedience. He will provide specifically for you in ways you could never expect. And Jehovah Jireh shows us something even deeper – he shows us he will provide the sacrifice to cover us. He will do what we cannot do. He will make it right. The LORD did not require the sacrifice of Abraham's son – no, instead that's what the LORD did himself – he himself gave his Son, Jesus, as the sacrifice to make things forever right. Again and again, God gives the sacrifice we could never give, all to perfectly provide what we could never supply on our own. We couldn't save ourselves, but God saw the need and he did it for us. That's Jehovah Jireh. The LORD will provide. The LORD will see to it. He will do it for us and he will do it perfectly. Beyond salvation, here's what this means for you today: • God sees your situation fully. Not just one side of it. Not even just from a distance. He sees the big picture and he sees the tiny details. He sees what was, what is, and what is to come. He sees it all fully. And when God sees it, he does something about it! • God's provision will come on time. Abraham didn't see the ram until the moment of sacrifice. God had aligned the ram in perfect timing just when it was needed. He will do the same for you. Just because you don't see it now, doesn’t mean God hasn't already aligned it for you. What you need will be there when the time is right. And God will get it right. The key here is trust. Abraham had a choice to make that morning. He could choose whether he obeyed God or not. He could choose whether he got up and gathered the wood for the fire or not. He could choose whether he climbed the mountain or not. He could choose whether he brought his son or not. His trust in the LORD led him to obedience. And his obedience led him to meeting God in a personal and powerful way. His obedience led him to really knowing Jehovah Jireh, the LORD who personally provided for him. Do you need Jehovah Jireh to provide for you? You can honestly tell him your needs. He's listening. He sees. And he is responding. You can trust him. You can trust his ways and you can trust his timing. Jehovah Jireh is inviting you into a deeper relationship where your feet move in obedience well before you have clarity of where exactly and how exactly. This obedience is what leads you to a revealing of just how personal and powerful your God really is. Jehovah Jireh is the God who sees ahead – the God who acts faithfully – the God who provides what aligns with His greater purposes. LORD, you are Jehovah Jireh – the God who sees and provides. You know what we need better than we know what we need. Help us to trust you, even when we don't see the answer. You will provide what is right, and you will provide it in your perfect timing. Here's my heart, LORD, shape it to follow and obey you. Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com

Through studying the names of God, we understand our God is a personal God. In the past 9 devotionals, we've seen 10 names and we now know so much more about our God. As YHWH, God has revealed himself to be so near that he's our very breath. As Adonai, God reveals that he is our Master, and therefore responsible for our care and our protection. As Elohim, God reveals he is our Creator who continues to create and make us a new creation even today. As El Shaddai, God reveals he is the Almighty one whose hand is in everything. As Yahweh Rapha, he tells us we can count on him to be the LORD who meets us in the bitterest of places in life and heal us. As Yahweh Mekaddishkem, God makes us forever good enough by calling us his own, making us holy and then teaching us to rest in him. God has revealed himself as a Shepherd, caring for his sheep. Through Jesus, God is revealed as Abba, Papa. Then Jesus goes on to call him Holy Father and Righteous Father. We now have 10 names for God, each that reveal his character, his power and his heart towards us. Have you been using these names in your conversations with him? Have you been calling on him by specific name according to how you need him to show up for you? He promises to respond. Now, we go even deeper. Beyond these 10 names, we read of dozens of other names given to God by people in the Bible who have had a personal encounter with him. The names they give God define how they've met him and what he has done for them. And my friend, if God did something for them, he can do something for you. What he did then, he can do today. We're in relationship with the same God of the Bible. In Malachi 3:6, God says, “I am the LORD, and I do not change.” God showed up for people personally in the stories in your Bible, and he can and will show up for you personally now. Remember that as we study the names of God given by other people in scripture – he's revealing what he did for them personally and what he can do for even YOU personally. He is the same God and he hasn't changed. He has a personal encounter waiting for you too. One person in scripture who had a very personal encounter with God is Hagar. Yes, a woman. In these times, a woman was a second-class citizen. She didn't have rights. She didn't have her own life. She was completely dependent on the man of the family to care for her. And for a woman, if there was no man to care for her, she was in a truly desperate situation. Hagar didn't have a man, she was only used by a man. (Perhaps you can relate.) But Hagar wasn't only used by a man, she was used by everyone in her entire life to get what they wanted. She was a totally unimportant character in everyone else's story. Have you ever felt that way? Like you're not important enough for your own dreams, your own desires, or your own story. Like you're stuck in the story of someone else and you're always just along for the ride. Like the life you live isn't your own. Like you're forever forgotten – forever overlooked – forever unimportant. That was Hagar – that was her life and that was her story. In Genesis 16, Hagar was the slave of a woman named Sarah. Sarah was the wife of Abraham. They were a couple who had been unable to have children, and now in their old age, they had lost all hope for the family they so badly wanted. That's wasn't Hagar's fault or Hagar's problem – but she became their solution. Hagar's boss lady, Sarah, decided she would use Hagar to give her the baby she had always wanted. Sarah sent her husband Abraham to sleep with Hagar, and so she became pregnant. It wasn't love. It was ownership. Sarah owned Hagar, and Hagar's body was used to get what she wanted. This wasn't Hagar's choice. It wasn't her dream. It wasn't her plan. But it became her life as she was used in someone's else's story. While Hagar is pregnant, Sarah begins to treat her so harshly that Hagar finally runs away. Now remember, where they are is surrounded by nothing but wilderness. Running away was a sure death sentence. There was no water, no food, and no help beyond the borders of their city. But Hagar was so desperate for something different that she runs. And there, in the wilderness, the Lord sent an angel to find her, care for her, and redirect her back home. And it was there, for the first time in Hagar's entire life that she felt personally seen. There, she gives God the name El Ro’i. Genesis 16:13, “You are El Ro'i”. In Hebrew El is “God”, and Ro'i is “who sees me”. El Ro'i – The God who sees me. El Ro'i meets us in the moments we didn't plan, the plans we didn't want, and the reality we didn't think God could be in. And right there, when life has been unfair, when the story isn't the one you wanted, God says, “I SEE YOU, MY GIRL.” To everyone else, Hagar was unimportant and discarded. To everyone else she was someone to be used for their own gain. But to God, she was worth pursuing, worth rescuing, worth restoring, and worth giving hope for the future. For the one absolutely no one else valued, El Ro'i, the God who sees, personally saw her and declared she mattered. You know where God sees you clearest – in the places you never wanted to be. In the places where you are trying to run away. In the places where you hurt and feel lost. God's eye is on YOU. (Remember he leaves the 99 to find the 1 who is lost and struggling – YES HE SEES YOU IN THAT STRUGGLE). Here in this place in the wilderness, where Hagar is running away, pregnant, alone, mistreated and hopeless, God meets her. If that's the place you're in, this is the perfect place to be found by El Ro'i! You see, he's not the God who waits for you to figure it all out and get it together – he's the God who meets you in the mess and calls you back to his plans for your future. Yes, the Shepherd who brings the lost sheep back home again. The Lord says to Hagar, “Return home and I will give you more descendants than you can count.” He's not only comforting her in her pain, but he's giving her direction and promise. He's giving her an identity where she's never had one before. When God sees you, that's what happens – you get direction to your destiny! I may not know where it is you feel overlooked, but I know we all feel that way at times. We work so hard and no one notices. Our efforts aren't applauded or appreciated. The good things sometimes seem to happen for everyone else – and where does that leave us. Oh let me tell you where that leaves you – that leaves you SEARCHED OUT AND SEEN BY EL RO'I!!!! And you have no idea how important that really is. Girl, if I see you, that won't change your life. I might be able to encourage you for a moment, give you a hug, or make you smile, but that's temporary – if God sees you, your whole life changes. And may I remind you, HE SEES YOU! He sees what they did to you. He sees how you were left out. He sees how you were used. He sees how it wasn't fair to you. He sees how that made you feel. He sees how that made you question your worth. God sees you when you're running and he calls you to QUIT RUNNING NOW. Honey, you can't outrun the God who sees you. The angel of the Lord says to Hagar, “Where have you come from and where are you going?” Did he ask because he didn't know? Of course not. He asked because Hagar needed to stop running and realize while she knew what she was running from (her mean boss lady Sarah and this life she didn't want) – she had no idea what she was running to. The question is helping her see she's running without thinking, without a future and without hope. God is helping her see the path she is on isn't leading anywhere good. Lord, if any of your girls listening today are running – stop them. For real, stop them right now in their tracks. You see them where they are at this moment – meet them there and stop them. Help them to see the path they're on and where it's leading. Help them to stop running and surrender to you. You are the God who meets us when we're running and calls us back to the future you have for us. Call her back now, El Ro'i. God told Hagar to go back. Yes, go back where life was hard but where there was purpose. Listen now – what is God telling you to do now? Will you listen for him? Will you stop running? Will you obey? Here in the wilderness, God appeared to Hagar. The wilderness where nothing else was there for her – God was there for her. This was the place of his appearance. If you're in your wilderness, will you ask God for his appearance? He may not radically change your situation, but he will change you – that's always bigger and better. Hagar returned home where she had that baby and then she saw God's bigger plans unfold for her future. She went home knowing one thing for sure – El Ro'i, the God who sees her, had a future for her! If you feel stuck in a story that's not your own – call on El Ro'i. If you feel unseen, unwanted, unappreciated or unworthy – call on El Ro'i. If you've been running away without direction of where to go – call on El Ro'i. If you're in a wilderness season of life, struggling and suffering – call on El Ro'i. God wants to meet you in what you've been running from. How would this change if you really knew that God sees you here? What would you do if you knew God has a promise for your future? Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com

In Genesis 26, we see the faithfulness of God on full display — not because of Isaac's perfection, but in spite of it. Just as with Abraham, Isaac stumbles, fears, and falls into familiar patterns. Yet God's promises do not falter. What the Lord has spoken, He will surely bring to pass. This reminds us that the covenant rests not on human strength, but on divine faithfulness. Despite us, God remains committed to fulfill every promise He has made.

In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant seeks a wife for Isaac while God seems silent. This message explores how to make godly decisions with trust, discernment, prayer, and humility. When guidance feels unclear, God is still providentially at work, inviting us to seek him and take faithful action.If you haven't already, click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to download the Sermon Application Guide to follow along.For more information on how to get connected with Five Oaks Church, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.fiveoaks.church/connect-me

Most people could answer this question without hesitation: What is the most important birth in the entire Bible? Christmas makes that one easy. But here's the harder question: What is the second most important birth in Scripture? In Genesis 21, a 90-year-old woman named Sarah finally gives birth to a son named Isaac, the child God had promised 25 years earlier. It sounds like a personal miracle for one elderly couple, but it was far more than that. That one birth set off a chain reaction, from Isaac to Jacob, from Jacob to Judah, from Judah to David, and from David to Jesus. Without Isaac, there is no Israel. Without Israel, there is no Jesus. Without Jesus, there is no Gospel. God is a missionary God, the Bible is a missionary book, and, if you have a heart for God, you will have a missionary heart.

It’s a well-known story. In Genesis, we read that Jacob wrestled with a heavenly being. Monday on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie says that heavenly being was likely Jesus Himself!Support the show: https://harvest.org/resources/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do some translations of John 3:16 not say "begotten"? What does "begotten" refer to? Hasn't Jesus always existed? In Genesis 6, God sees evil everywhere. What about now? And does He see believers the same way? What does "I die daily" mean in 1 Corinthians 15? What did Jews in the Old Testament (and now) think of the Holy Spirit? *previously aired

Why do some translations of John 3:16 not say "begotten"? What does "begotten" refer to? Hasn't Jesus always existed? In Genesis 6, God sees evil everywhere. What about now? And does He see believers the same way? What does "I die daily" mean in 1 Corinthians 15? What did Jews in the Old Testament (and now) think of the Holy Spirit?

Wednesday, 29 April 2026   But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: Matthew 19:11    “And He said to them, ‘Not all, they contain this word, but whom it has been given.'” (CG)   In the previous verse, the disciples responded to Jesus' words about marriage and divorce, saying that because of what He said, it is better not to marry. Having heard that, Matthew records, “And He said to them, ‘Not all, they contain this word.'”   The question arises: Is Jesus referring to His own words concerning marriage, or is He referencing the response by the disciples? His continued words through the next verse will show that it is in response to what the disciples said –   Disciples: “If it is this, the case of the man with the wife, it conduces not to marry.” Jesus: “Not all, they contain this word.”   Of this, the Pulpit Commentary rightly states that Jesus “endorses these words in a different signification from theirs. Their objection to marrying arose from the impossibility of putting away a wife for any cause. Christ passes over these ignoble scruples and enunciates the only principle which should lead a man to abstain from marriage.”   In other words, Jesus is going to explain that there is a certain condition where not getting married is to be expected. Beyond that, marriage is the standard which is set for human existence. Despite all of its baggage and many setbacks, it is the normal, anticipated, and expected path for humans to follow. Understanding this, the following words introduce the matter concerning who is anticipated not to get married, saying, “but whom it has been given.”   Said differently, “Marriage is God's plan for humanity, but it must be adhered to according to God's expectation for marriage. It is a difficult but proper path to follow. However, there is an exception to this expectation for a particular category, they are...” From this point, Jesus will explain those who are the exception.   Life application: The point of this interaction between Jesus and the disciples, and the substance behind it, is that marriage is the proper avenue for humanity. In Genesis 1, the six days of creation are detailed. At the end of day 6, it said –   “And He saw, God, all which He made. And behold! Good, vehemently. And it was, evening, and it was, morning – Day, the sixth.” Genesis 1:31   Everything was good at the end of the sixth day of creation. From there, Genesis 2:4-25 is given as an insert to the portion of the sixth day concerning the creation of man. The Lord created the man, he was then placed in the garden, and he was given a command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.   Right after that, it said, “And He said, Yehovah God, ‘Not good, being the human to his separation. I will make to him ‘helper, according to counterpart'.'” Genesis 2:18 (CG). During the sixth day of creation, there was something not good, a lack, which needed to be rectified.   To reveal this, the animals and birds were brought forward to be named by Adam. With that accomplished, it said, “And to Adam, not he found ‘helper, according to counterpart'.” Genesis 2:20 (CG). Adam could see there were male and female creatures, but he was alone in his kind.   With that understanding, the Lord put the man into a deep sleep, fashioned the woman from his side, and she was presented to him. At that time, Adam made his proclamation concerning the woman. Genesis 2 says –   “‘And he said, the man – “This the beat: Bone, from my bones, And flesh, from my flesh. To this, it will be called ‘Woman.' For from man, she was taken – this.”' 24Upon thus, he will relinquish, man, his father and his mother, and he impinged* in his wife. And they were to flesh – one.” Genesis 2:23, 24 (CG).   With this completed, the words of Genesis 1:31 are properly understood, “And He saw, God, all which He made. And behold! Good, vehemently.” Only after the creation of woman for man and the acknowledgement that they were fashioned for one another was the sixth day considered good. It is the expected norm for humanity since that time for humans to marry and continue the species accordingly. To not do so is considered the exception.   A logical question for those who insist on long-term creation arises from this thought. “If man is created, not having evolved, and if everything was good at the end of the sixth day, but it was not good during the sixth day, then how can that be reconciled with a long-term creation?” It cannot.   Either the record of man's creation in one day is true, following the pattern from the other single days of creation, or 1) the account of man's creation is false, or 2) the record of the Genesis 1 account (regardless of how long it actually was) is false, or 3) the entire Genesis creation account is false. Everything hinges on six literal days of creation, with man having been created in one day on the sixth day.   One cannot have things both ways. Either God's word stands and is true and reliable, or it is not. If Genesis 1 and 2 are merely allegorical, then Jesus' words about marriage hold no significance. If this is true, then the Christian message concerning moral issues has no validity at all.   Think things through! Don't be so foolish as to think you can outsmart God. We all must stand before Him and give an account of our lives and doctrine. Accept the word as it is written. It is truth.   Lord God, thank You for the rite of marriage that has existed since the first man on earth. Thank You that even though we fail one another at times, this is the beautiful course of life You have set forth for us. Help us to be faithfully faithful to one another as we live in Your presence. Amen.

Trusting God during conflict and injustice isn’t passive—it’s deeply intentional. In Genesis 26:19–22, Isaac faced repeated opposition as others claimed the wells he and his servants dug. Instead of fighting back, he chose to move forward in faith, trusting that God would provide space for him to flourish. His story reveals a powerful truth: God’s plans will prevail, even when others come against us. Highlights Isaac faced repeated conflict but chose trust over striving Not every battle requires a fight—some require faith and surrender God’s provision cannot be blocked by others’ actions Trusting God often means releasing control and resisting retaliation Scripture shows both times to act and times to be still God is faithful to restore, provide, and make room in His timing Even in injustice, God is working for our good and His glory Links & Resources: Have an idea for our newsletter? We want to hear from you! Take our survey below: Take Our Survey! Do you want to listen ad-free? When you join Crosswalk Plus, you gain access to exclusive, in-depth Bible study guides, devotionals, sound biblical advice, and daily encouragement from trusted pastors and authors—resources designed to strengthen your faith and equip you to live it out boldly. PLUS ad free podcasts! Sign Up Today! Full Transcript Below: Trusting God's Plans to Prevail When Others Come Against UsBy Jennifer Slattery Bible Reading:Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. But the herders of Gerar quarreled with those of Isaac and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him. Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.” (Genesis 26:19-22, NIV). Have you ever had someone use your kindness and integrity against you? Or betray you in some way, and you wanted to fight back, but sensed God telling you to trust Him to rectify the situation? For years, I watched my husband endure the painful effects of slander and parental alienation. He was married before me to a woman who was verbally and psychologically abusive. When they divorced, his ex told his children that he’d abandoned them and didn’t love them. Then, once he married me and he and I gave birth to our daughter, his ex told his kids that we were his “replacement family.” While he diligently showed up for them and financially provided for them, that negative narrative became their reality. To say this devastated him would be a huge understatement. And the cruel injustice of it all angered me. I vacillated between feeling frustrated with God for not intervening on my timeline, and trusting that one day He would make things right. That was decades ago, and while my husband, sadly, remains estranged with some of his children, he’s been able to rebuild (and is rebuilding) his relationship with one of his daughters. He’s also been able to connect with three grandchildren, something we’d previously feared might never occur. I reflected upon my husband’s experience and God’s faithfulness this morning as I read Genesis 26. This occurred after Abraham’s death and well into Isaac’s adult years. Like his father before him, he endured what Scripture terms “a severe famine” and moved to an area of Gerar, presumably in search of food and access to water. The Lord, likely alert to the anxiety this would’ve caused, told Isaac not to go to Egypt (with its constant access to the Nile). He also promised to provide for and bless him. This reminds us that God knows precisely how to comfort and strengthen our fearful souls! In the middle of Isaac’s life-or-death crisis, He spoke powerful assurances to his soul. These divine commitments probably allowed him to remain calm and faith-filled later, when the people of the land continually sabotaged or laid claim to the wells his servants dug or reopened. This occurred three times, during which Isaac could’ve fought back. He might even have been successful. Genesis 26 tells us that He became quite rich and powerful (vs. 13, 16). Instead, he simply moved on, and once he reached the place he later called Rehoboth, he dug another well, and “This time there was no dispute over it” (Gen. 26:22b). Recognizing God’s provision, he proclaimed, “At last the LORD has created enough space for us to proper in the land” (Gen. 26:22, NLT). Intersecting Life & Faith: Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying Christ-followers should never advocate for themselves. Throughout Scripture, we see numerous instances when God directs His people to stand firm against evil, advocate for and defend others, or take hold of a blessing He provided. Ancient Israel taking possession of the Promised Land is a perfect example. But there are also times when he invites us to “Be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). This seems to be how he directed Joseph, introduced in Genesis 37. It also appears to be how He led Isaac in the chapter surrounding today’s passage. Did you catch how God spoke truth and assurance to Isaac before the well events? This reads like He was saying, in essence, “You don’t have to fight and strive for your survival, because I, Almighty God, will bless you.” He says the same to us. He is bigger than any injustice we’ll face or betrayal we’ll endure. He is faithful to protect, defend, and provide for His children. Sometimes, He invites us to play an active role in that protection or provision. Other times, He asks us to trust while He works the situation for our good and His glory, just as He promised in Romans 8:28. Regardless of how He leads, we can trust in His attentive care. He is the God of abundance, who owns all, sees all, and remains sovereign over all. But more than that, He is a God of tender, merciful love who sees our pain, heals our hurts, quiets our fears, and tends to all of our needs, physical, spiritual, and emotional. If you are struggling with a present or past betrayal or injustice, perhaps reflect on and rehearse this passage: Do not fret because of those who are evilor be envious of those who do wrong;for like the grass they will soon wither,like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good;dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.Take delight in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps. 37:1-4). Further Reading: Psalm 37 Genesis 26:12-25 Genesis 41:37-43; 50:15-20 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

In Genesis 1 and 2 we learned about man walking with God in a garden and a beautiful marriage between a husband and a wife. Then, in chapter four we'll learn about jealousy, anger, murder, lying, wickedness, rebellion, and worst of all, a broken relationship with God. What happens in between? Travel with us through chapter 3, as Adam and Eve meet a serpent and, through their disobedience to God, everything changes.

Pastor Gabe George continues week three of our teaching series, The Life of Abraham. God isn't after surface-level belief, He's after deep relationship. In Genesis 15, we see a God who pursues us, makes an unbreakable covenant, and invites us to trust Him fully. In this message, Pastor Gabe explores the following Scriptures:  GENESIS 15:1A ESV 1a After these things ... REVELATION 21:1-3 ESV 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. GENESIS 15:9-10 ESV 9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. JOHN 3:16 ESV 16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. GENESIS 15:1 ESV 1 ... "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." GENESIS 15:7 ESV 7 ... "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." HEBREWS 11:6 ESV 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. GENESIS 15:1-3 ESV 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." 2 But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir." GENESIS 15:6 ESV 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. GENESIS 15:7-8 ESV 7 And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." 8 But he said, "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" GENESIS 15:17-18 ESV 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, MATTHEW 1:1 ESV 1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. – Next Steps Looking to take a next step? We'd love to help you get connected.

Our Broken Arrow Senior Pastor, Ethan Vanse, continues week three of our teaching series, The Life of Abraham. In Genesis 15, we see that at the center of everything is a God who pursues us, initiates covenant, and invites us into something unbreakable. Abraham shows us what that kind of relationship looks like: bringing God his deepest desires, his honest doubts, and even his greatest shortcomings. And instead of pushing him away, God meets him there—making a promise Abraham could never fulfill on his own and carrying the weight of it Himself. In this message, Pastor Ethan explores the following Scriptures: Genesis 15:1-18 ESV 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." 2 But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir." 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: "This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir." 5 And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 7 And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." 8 But he said, "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" 9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, Psalm 25:14 ESV 14 The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. Hebrews 4:16 ESV 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. – Next Steps Looking to take a next step? We'd love to help you get connected.

In Genesis 28:10–12, Jacob meets God in an unexpected place, reminding us that even in seasons of uncertainty and grief, God still calls us to something greater. Join us as Guest Speaker Dr. Darnell Williams reminds us that what God has spoken over your life is still alive and still unfolding in His timing.

In Genesis, Satan tempted Eve with, “Did God really say?” He got her to question God's Word and put her own ideas and desires above God's clear instruction.

In Genesis 9 we read that flood resets the world—but it doesn't reset the human heart. Genesis 9 opens with blessing, mandate, and covenant… but it doesn't take long before something feels off. Why does creation now fear humanity? Why does God permit meat, but forbid blood? Why introduce justice systems right out of the gate? And why, after wiping the slate clean, do we find Noah—Noah, the preacher of righteousness—drunk, exposed, and at the center of one of the most unsettling stories in Genesis? So what actually happened in that tent? Was Ham just seeing something… or doing something? Why does the text use that loaded phrase, “uncovering nakedness”? Why do Shem and Japheth respond the way they do—walking backward, almost ceremonially covering their father? And maybe most confusing of all—why is Canaan cursed instead of Ham? Is this a personal outburst… or a prophetic moment shaping the future of nations? Is this just a strange footnote… or is it the Bible quietly telling you that even after judgment, sin is still alive and well? In this episode, we trace what actually changed after the flood—and what didn't. We'll look at the shift from Eden-like harmony to a world marked by tension, survival, and shorter lives. We'll unpack the covenant with all creation—and ask why God promises stability in a world He knows is still broken. And we'll wrestle with Noah's failure as a kind of “new Adam”—and what it reveals about the limits of starting over. Along the way, we'll connect the dots to the rise of nations, the roots of human conflict, and a sobering truth running underneath it all: a new world doesn't create new people. If the flood wasn't the final answer… what is?