Podcasts about pharoah

Extra! Extra! Listen all about it! Welcome back to the pod is Askmi Leitr! In Salt Lake City, UT it is approximately 7 blocks per 1 mile. Bryan would know because he has been riding his bike around SLC, UT for the Great Cycle Challenge USA - riding to fight kids cancer. He is about $50 away from his goal of $500! Like Tony says let's help get him get over the hump! Every little bit counts through the month of September. Also, Askmi Leitr is involved with a couple of local shows this week and next. He gives us a bit more info on those shows and he has own ‘Record-of-the-Day' as well. Best of all, he gives us a blend of Baladi with some LIVE drumming on his dumbek drum! Fantastic! Bryan's one request was to follow a band that he is in on Instagram: Desert Echo. Thank you and enjoy! Music clips: ‘Down The Rabbit Hole' -Orphans Cabaret, ‘Pharoah's Dream' -Kairo By Night, ‘Lamma Bada Yatathanna' -Bazeen, ‘Drum Solo' -Bryan Askmi Leitr of Tabla Arabia

Imagine being able to physically see God directing your steps. It would certainly be easier to follow Him. God gave the children of Israel His visible presence—pillars of cloud and fire—to comfort and guide them along this new journey. Follow along as Dr. McGee covers more about the Passover, the Promised Land, and (surprise) Pharoah's once-again hardened heart.

While the Passover was a monumental night for those who put their faith in God, it was a tragic night for many Egyptians. Defeated and afraid, Pharoah finally surrendered. Almost instantly, the Israelites were hurried out of the land of Egypt. Their exit was so rushed, they had to eat their unleavened bread on the go. And so, at the end of Exodus 12, we see God's people—hurried and unprepared—finally leaving Egypt behind.

Before the Burning Bush, the Plagues, or the Red Sea, Moses was a Hebrew boy raised inside Pharoah's household -- caught between the people he came from and the world that raised him. Then at 40, one violent decision blows up his entire life and sends him running into the wilderness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Send us a text and chime in!Get ready for a night of sharp, high-energy comedy when Jay Pharoah, acclaimed comedian, actor and master impressionist, takes the stage at the Jim & Linda Lee Performing Arts Center on Thursday, October 8 at 7 p.m. Best known for his six memorable seasons as a cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live, Pharoah has earned widespread recognition for his spot-on impressions and remarkable ability to capture some of the biggest personalities in entertainment and pop culture. On stage, Pharoah blends stand-up, pitch-perfect impressions, current pop culture and razor-sharp observations into a fast-paced performance driven by wit and cultural insight....   For the written story, read here >> https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/jay-pharoah-coming-to-prescott-for-live-comedy-show/ Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Dolly, Joseph, and Jesus Pastor Mark Havel Matthew 18:21-35Then Peter came to Jesus and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often must I forgive – as many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you seventy-seven times.”“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought before him. When he couldn't pay, the king ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all of his possessions, and payment to be made. But the slave fell down before him and pleaded, ‘Have patience with me and I'll pay you everything.' Out of pity for him, the king released him and forgave him his entire debt.“But that same slave, when he went out, came across a fellow slave who owed him one hundred denarii. Seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe!' When he could not pay, he knelt down before him and said, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay you.' But the first slave refused and he went and had him thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and they went and told the king everything that had taken place.“The king summoned the first slave and said to him, ‘You wicked slave!' I forgave you all of that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave the way I had mercy on you?' Then, in anger, he handed him over to be tortured until he could pay his entire debt. So, my heavenly father will also do to every one of you unless you forgive your brother and your sister from your heart.” It's been a few weeks since we lost Saint Dolly. I knew there would be an occasion where her death – and her life – and her Christian witness – would make its way into something around here. She was such an example of what faithful, generous, Christ-likeness looks like in the world, after all. But I'm not going to talk about her generosity – the million dollars she donated to jumpstart the development of the COVID vaccine during the pandemic; the gazillion books her “Imagination Library” has shared with kids around the world; the millions of dollars she gave to hurricane, flood, and wildfire victims in her home state and beyond. That is all very impressive, for sure. But for someone with Dolly Parton kind of money none of that is as impressive as what caught my attention about her capacity to forgive, just as generously.If you know anything about her story – or if you happened upon any of the many tributes and reflections about the trajectory of her career, in the last few weeks, since her death – you likely know something about her early days with Porter Wagoner. Porter Wagoner – that goofy looking dude of a country singer-songwriter. He was 20 years older than Dolly and had his own TV show. He gets credit for discovering Dolly Parton and for giving her her big television debut as a regular on “The Porter Wagoner Show.” She was just 21 years old, at the time, and not so far removed from the hills and hollers of Sevierville, TN.Dolly lived in Porter's shadow – and under his thumb – for seven years on his show. As her boss and producer and mentor he apparently controlled and dismissed her creativity so that, in 1974, Dolly told him she wanted to leave the show, break out on her own, and have more creative freedom to do her own thing. When Wagoner resisted the idea, Dolly went home, wrote the masterpiece that is “I Will Always Love You,” sang it to him the next day, and let him know she would be leaving, whether he wanted her to go, or not.Wagoner knew what he'd lost, of course, and held a grudge that had him speaking ill of Dolly thereafter until, when his own career fell apart and his finances took a dump, he sued Dolly – five years after the fact – for $3,000,000, in 1979, for breach of contract. (That's about $14,000,000 in today's money.) Dolly kept a lot of that quiet and on the down-low and they ultimately settled out of court.Several more years later – in spite of all of that – when Dolly Parton learned that Porter Wagoner was in such dire financial straits that he had to sell the publishing rights to his own music, she secretly, quietly, on the down-low again, bought his entire catalogue of music and gave the rights to it all back to him as a gift.In other words, Dolly pulled a Joseph.If you don't know or remember the details of that story, which we just heard a little piece of this morning, Joseph was one of 12 brothers. When their dad, Jacob, made it clear that Joseph was his favorite, showering him with praise and special treatment and dressing him like Dolly Parton in that coat of many colors, the other brothers didn't like it. They conspired to kill Joseph, but ended up selling him to some human traffickers, instead, and then faked his death, letting their dad believe their little brother was killed by some kind of wild animal.Like Dolly, though, Joseph made it big. He landed in the house and in the favor of Pharaoh – interpreting dreams like Dolly wrote songs – until he became one of the most influential men in all of Egypt. So that, years later, when famine and dire financial straits fell upon his family back home and his lying, traitorous brothers showed up looking for rescue and relief from Pharoah's reserves in Egypt, Joseph had a choice to make: hold a grudge and send them packing? Or give them what they wanted and needed, whether they deserved it or not? Like Dolly, Joseph chose the latter and, in some quiet, sly, down-low ways of his own, Joseph helped his brothers – welcoming them with open arms and setting them up with some new land on which their family – his family – could survive, live, and thrive as a people.I can't be sure, because I've never had Dolly Parton dollars or access to the unlimited funds of the Pharaoh, but I have a hunch that the harder, more generous, sacrificial, faithful part of the reconciliation offered up by these two well-dressed, well-heeled, giants of faith we have in Dolly and Joseph, comes NOT in the grand total of the financial help they offered … but in the selfless, sacrificial, humble, ego-free, no-strings-attached, utter grace of their forgiveness.They did it, not because they had to … or because they didn't have plenty of reason to do the opposite … (in this era of Taylor Swift style – paybacks are Hell sort of break-up songs – it's worth noting that even Dolly's “break up” song to Porter Wagoner was full of humility, gratitude, and love). And Dolly did it – forgave him and helped him and reconciled with him – she apparently said, because she didn't want to live her life bearing the burden of that broken relationship.Joseph did it – forgave and helped and reconciled with his brothers – because he could see the bigger picture of what God was up to in his life and for the sake of the world. Only God could have turned Joseph's great loss and suffering into good for his family … and only if Joseph had played along by forgiving them like he did.All of which is the way of Jesus, just the same. And it's what he's talking about this morning with this parable – remember, this is a parable – nothing more and nothing less – about the “unforgiving servant.”Jesus tells that story about this poor guy who couldn't share, with his friend, the same kind of forgiveness he'd received – and then ends up being tortured because of it. Now, I don't think we need to see that as some kind of cosmic threat or warning about the likelihood of our own suffering when we die for all the ways we didn't forgive on this side of heaven. The “kingdom of heaven” Jesus is describing here has already broken into our midst in Jesus, remember. The kingdom of heaven about which Jesus teaches is alive and well and among us, just as much as it is up there and out there and beyond the grave.So, when Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is like…” what if Jesus is teaching us about and calling us to something Dolly and Joseph knew and practiced: that living – on this side of heaven – in a state of unforgiveness … carrying – in this life – the weight of a grudge … shouldering – daily – the burden of resentment for someone else's sins against you, is its own kind of torture; it's own kind of hell; it's own kind of suffering – on this side of heaven; in this life; right where we live; right here and now? And what if Jesus' point – what if his promise – is that God doesn't want that for any of us.In other words, forgiveness isn't an entirely benevolent act – and that's okay. Yes, to forgive another is a wonderful gift to give someone else, but it's something we do for ourselves, too. It may mean mending a relationship or it may mean moving on from one with grace. It may mean accepting someone's apology and it may mean accepting that someone will never apologize and mean it. It may mean healing a hurt from the past or it may mean letting the past be the past and moving on. It may mean setting the record straight or it may mean setting the score card aside – or on fire – and starting from zero.Whatever the case, we are invited to forgive because God doesn't want us to live in bondage. We forgive because grudges and memories of sin are heavy burdens to carry around. We forgive because we know it's been done for us in more ways than we can count. And we forgive because to refuse it is to refuse God's place and power in our lives.Because it all starts with God's grace – made known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus – promising, as God does, that “I will always love you.”Because of that truth – because of that promise kept, in Jesus – because of that mercy made real – because of that burden lifted – because of our Sin, forgiven – we can do the same for others and for the sake of the world. And when we do, we set ourselves free along the way, just the same.Amen

Our Wrestling Podcast Unscripted Episode 187: WWE SNME Recap - R.I.P. Pharoah and Butcher - Smackdown in Mexico - Memes This week the Cuz 'N' Craig bring to you another tag team championship reign under the Unscripted banner as they talk: - WWE Sunday Night's Main Event Recap! - Smackdown in Mexico - Sami defeats Punk for the WWE Undisputed Championship! - Ric Flair and Bret prank call - RAF Success - Wrestling Memes - Aw Dude! - Cockbusters! - And more! X: @owp2019 Instagram: @owp2019 Meta: www.facebook.com/ourwrestlingpodcast Twitch: www.twitch.tv/ourwrestlingpodcast Rumble: rumble.com/c/c-7660138 Youtube(sucks): www.youtube.com/channel/UCTcCUQMd…iew... #wwe #worldscolllide #aaa #nxt #wwenxt #smackdown #moneyinthebank #wwemitb #mtb #MARIAHMAY #MARIAHMAYNXT #blakemonroe #johncena #cenapipebomb #Johncenapromo #smackdown #britishbulldogs #britishbulldog #brocklesnar #ajlee #ajleereturns #wweraw #wrestlepalooza #aew #aewallout #wwewrestlepalooza #espn #wweonespn #zackryder #zackryderreturns #johncenasfinalmatch #SNME #WWESNME #CENA #CENAFINALMATCH #royalrumble #royalrumbleriyadh #royalrumble2026 #aew #andrade #ofmodels #wrestlemania42 #wweraw #codyrhodes #wwe #wweraw #rawaftermania #wrestlemania #wrestlemania42 #brockretires #brocklesnar #oba #obafemi #brockvsoba #punkvsroman #cmpunk #romanreigns #codyrhodes #randyorton #rhodesvsorton #reignsvspunk #ortonvsrhodes #obavsbrock #obavslesnar #lesnarvsoba #lesnarvsfemi #femivslesnar #brocklesnarvsobafemi #obafemivsbrocklesnar Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use; for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

In Exodus 10, Egypt faced the worst plague yet—locusts. This plague was so bad that Pharoah finally admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord your God.” Upon this admission, God sent the locusts away. When Pharoah's heart hardened once again, darkness fell over Egypt, and God promised to bring one final judgment to the land of Egypt.

What would it take to get you to surrender to God? Pharoah opted to endure physical agony—the plague of boils—rather than obey God. Why did God tolerate Pharoah? Why must the story unfold this way? God could have snapped His fingers and set the Israelites free. Instead, He used Pharoah's stubborn, wicked heart to demonstrate His sacred power and ultimate authority.

“Let the plagues begin.” Hard-hearted Pharoah refused to let God's people go, resulting in the first of the ten plagues. Egypt's entire water supply was turned to blood—a plague directed at the Egyptian god of the Nile. Follow along as Dr. McGee teaches about Egypt's false gods, Pharoah's hardened heart, and God's righteous judgment.

The Wonderful Works of God Will Stueve Download Psalm 111,Praise the Lord!I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.6 He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.7 The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy;8 they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.9 He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! My family and I have noticed an abundance of large spiders around, and occasionally, to our horror, inside our house recently.There's a reason for this… apparently, August and September mark “peak spider season” in Minnesota, as adult spiders reach their full size after feeding all summer, and as the morning dew makes their webs more visible to us…In 1723, the great theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote about this in his treatise “Of Insects and Spiders.” In this short letter, Edwards marvels at the wise design of God the Creator as he considers the complex behaviors of the “flying spiders” common in New England. As he considers the complex design of their webs, how they can seemingly support themselves in mid-air… He says,“We hence see the exuberant goodness of the Creator, who hath not only provided for all the necessities [of spiders], but also for the pleasure and recreation of all sorts of creatures, and even the insects and those that are most despicable.”Whereas Edwards studied spiders with delight and saw them as an opportunity to praise God, my only thought when I see a spider is to kill it as fast as humanly possible…The point is: The wonderful works of God are all around us if we have eyes to see. And that's what this sermon is about.Psalm 111 is about the wonderful works of God. More specifically, the big question from our text this morning is: What makes God's works so great?In this sermon, I want to answer that question by showing you three truths about the works of God.God's works demand our praise.God's works reveal his character.God's works teach us to fear him.1. God's works demand our praise.Look with me again at verse 1 of our psalm:“Praise the Lord!I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.”The psalmist resolves to praise God with his whole heart and publicly. And right off the bat, this first verse convicted me as I prepared this past week. How often do I praise the Lord with half of my heart, and not my whole heart? Have I ever truly praised God with my whole heart?These were convicting questions for me this week. It made Psalm 86:11 come alive for me… as the Psalmist prays, “unite my heart to fear your name.”So that I may praise you not with half my heart, but with my whole heart.Oh, to have a congregation, this whole church filled with whole-hearted worshipers, so captivated by God's glory… so in awe of his wonderful works, that they are moved to praise him with their entire being. That's what the psalmist envisions for us here.I can remember when my wife and I came to Cities Church for the first time. We were captivated by this building. When I walked in, I could not help but say, “Wow!” The huge wooden beams holding up the towering ceilings. The beautiful stone steeple. And the colorful stained-glass windows. Look around for a second! This place was designed and built by man. That's amazing!This building is truly a wonderful work of art, a feat of human engineering, and we rightly admire its beauty. How much more should we admire the wonderful works of God?!Get this: The man who designed this building… God made him. God designed him and gave him every breath of his life… And that is true of each and every one of us in this room.By a miracle of God's hand, our hearts are beating with blood, our lungs are filled with air, and this earth is still rotating around the sun! Hebrews 1 says that Jesus Christ “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Meaning, if Jesus were to snap his fingers, you and I would cease to exist in an instant.Every breath we take, and every moment we continue to exist is due solely to the mercy of God.Whether we consider that, or the intricate machinery inside every cell in our bodies to the vast reaches of the Milky Way galaxy and billions of galaxies beyond ours. God's wonderful works are all around us in creation and give us countless reasons to praise him! So be an admirer of God's works in creation…Thank God for the breath you just took!Like Edwards, consider the complex web of the spider… God made that!Consider how the honey bee gets nectar from the flower… God designed that!Consider the beauty of the night sky… and marvel at the Creator of it all.The theme of our whole lives should be verse 2…“Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.”The works of Yahweh are to be studied. Literally, the Hebrew word ‘darash' means “to seek out.”We are to study, to diligently seek out the works of the LORD anddelight in them. We should be awe-struck admirers of God's works in creation, and we should be eager students of God's word.The Bible is the works of God written. The works of God written for us. God wrote a book. And we ought to read it, and study it with delight, and meditate on it all the day!At a chosen time each day,Read the Bible while you may,Do not start until you pray,Ask, “What does this passage say?”Look for Him who is the Way,Find a lesson for today,Pray once more, and go your way.May we be a people that eagerly studies and delights in the works of God in nature and in Scripture for his works demand our praise.Look with me at verses 3-6“Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.6 He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.”This brings us to part two.2. God's works reveal His character.This is a basic point. What you do reveals who you are. Your works reveal your character. The character of a good student is revealed by their long hours of study. The character of a good parent is revealed by the love and attention they give to their children.And likewise,the righteous character of God is revealed by the splendor and majesty of his work. And we must press on to know the character of God through his works. Why? Why is that important?Well, we cannot truly love what we don't know. Am I a good husband to my wife if I know literally nothing about her? If I make no effort to learn about her, her hobbies, her interests…?So too with God!We cannot love God very well if we know nothing about him! And make no effort to learn about him!And if the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart then we must press on to know God's character. And we see God's character on display in these verses.Particularly, on the heels of Psalm 110: I believe these verses are celebrating the Greater Exodus, the Greater Provision, and the Greater Conquest of the Melchizedekian Priest-King who is David's Lord.Verse 4 says that God's works reveal that he is gracious and merciful.This refers to the Exodus… Where God reveals his glory to Moses and says,“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…”And we know that God's righteousness, grace, and mercy is seen most clearly in the greater Exodus of the cross of Christ. The Israelites were delivered from the tyranny of Pharoah and we as New Covenant Christians are delivered from the tyranny of sin and Satan.Verse 5 tells us that God provides food for those who fear him, which calls to mind the manna he provided for his people in the Wilderness.And God's provision is seen more clearly in the greater manna, Jesus himself who says, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”Lastly, verse 6: “He has shown his people the power of his works,in giving them the inheritance of the nations.”This, of course, refers to the conquest of the promised land under Joshua.We see God's power in our greater Joshua. Jesus is the greater Joshua… the conquering Warrior-King of Psalm 110, leading his people to a new Promised Land in the New Heavens and the New Earth.We must know that God's perfect grace, mercy, provision, and power is sufficient to meet all of our needs…If you are broken over sin… if you have failed… rest in God's mercy and grace today.If you are anxious about your life… are you not of more value than a sparrow? Trust the God who provides!If you see chaos in the world around you, remember God's power. That right now he is ruling and reigning over all nations for his glorious purposes!God's works demand our praise; they reveal his character, and point three…3. God's works teach us to fear Him.Look at verses 7-8, and notice how God's works and God's words are put in parallel here,“The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy;8 they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.”God is trustworthy, and so everything he says (his precepts, his words) are trustworthy. In other words, you can stake your life upon God's words!And verse 8 says that because God's word is trustworthy, we are to obey him faithfully and uprightly.The psalmist continues in verses 9-10,“He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!”From the very beginning, after humanity fell into sin, God has promised redemption… And the whole story of the Bible, through God's covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David… all culminate in Jesus Christ and the New Covenant.“God sent his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).Those who reject Christ will be separated from God forever. But those who receive Christ are given the right to become children of God. Forgiven of all their sin, and given new hearts to obey God with joy. This is beautifully prophesied in Jeremiah 32:40, which says, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”In the new covenant, God puts the fear of him in our hearts, so that we do not turn away from him! What a promise! Has God done that in your life? Do you fear God? What does it mean to fear God?Proverbs 3 says that to fear the LORD is to turn away from evil.Psalm 112:1 says that the blessed man fears the Lord and greatly delights in his commandments.But I think our church's mission statement also helps us here: Cities Church exists to make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.I think that's a good definition of the fear of the Lord. To fear the Lord is to remember his realness in all of life. Do you remember God's realness in all of life? Has God put the fear of him in your heart? Do his wonderful works cause you to marvel in awe at him? When you hear the good news of the gospel, does your soul cry out, “Holy and awesome is his name!”?If that is not true of you this morning, ask God to change your heart. Ask him to put the fear of the LORD in your heart today.Because, as verse 10 says,“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;”This is crucial for us to get. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom… Not one helpful tip … Not one thing to tack on to the Christian life… but the beginning of wisdom… the foundation of the good life.Meaning, if you are not basing your life upon the reality of who God is as your Creator, and what he has done as our Redeemer, then you are a fool! If God is not the central reality of your life, then whatever you are building in your life is a straw-house doomed to fail.Jesus says,“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”Or as Psalm 111 puts it,“Those who practice [the fear of the LORD] have a good understanding.”So as we close here, I want us all to reflect on this question: Where do I need to grow in practicing the fear of the LORD? In your home, in church, at work, at school. What would it look like for you to remember the realness of Jesus in all of life?God's works are indeed wonderful.They demand our praise.They reveal his character.And they teach us to fear him.His praise endures forever!Let's pray.

We left off with Pharoah's important question, “Who is the Lord?” Pharoah refused to acknowledge God and instead made life in Egypt worse for God's people. Because of this, Moses and his people began to doubt and lose sight of God's promise. But God—patient and strong—reminds Pharoah, Moses, the children of Israel, and even us today exactly who He is: Jehovah. The self-existing One. He alone is the LORD.

Give God your heart, then let Him sort out the rest. Moses offered some valid reasons proving why he was the wrong guy for the job. God made it clear that as long as Moses had a willing heart, “I will teach you what you shall say.” Follow along as we learn more about Moses' feelings of inadequacy, Zipporah's act of faith, and Pharoah's important question: “Who is the Lord?”

IntroductionGod shows his grace in capturing an unlikely prisoner. Saul assumed that Christ was a failure. Saul's goal is to do everything in his power to destroy Jesus. Saul sees Jesus as the failed liar who ended up on a cross. Saul was breathing threats and murder. This makes explicit that he was consumed with destroying the church. He had received authority to travel to Damascus, find those who confessed Jesus Christ as the Messiah, bind them, and bring them back to Jerusalem. Saul's entire identity and purpose were wrapped up in opposing Christ and destroying his people. He will not bow the knee to the self-proclaimed Messiah. Saul soon realizes that he is closer to Pharaoh than to Moses. A Changed PlanSaul's plan is to stamp out the church. However, the Lord had another plan. The Lord is going to take the Pharaoh oppressor and turn him into an agent of revelation like Moses. Before Saul ever arrived in Damascus, Christ met him on the road. Heavenly glory surrounded him, and Saul was helpless on his knees. Ironically, he bows before the Lord he seeks to destroy. This is the reality of God's sovereign grace. Saul did not change his own heart. He did not decide one day that perhaps he had been wrong. Christ confronted Saul in such a way that a stubborn man is kneeling before him. The Lord has a way of disrupting our plans when our plans are contrary to his will. Christ captured Saul on the road to Damascus. We are reminded that we are truly saved by the Lord's grace. It is by the Lord's power. We can kick against the goads, but the Lord always gets his man. Pharoah may have rebelled, but eventually he released the Lord's people. An Intended DestinationSaul might have a letter from the high priest, but the true heavenly high priest has different orders for Saul. He is still bowed down before the Lord. He hears a voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”Christ does not say, “Why are you persecuting Christians?” He says, “Why are you persecuting me?” Christ is identified with his people. He heard the groanings of his people in Egypt. So, he experiences the persecution of his people. Christ is present with his people, literally feeling their pain. That should be a tremendous comfort to the church. We can sometimes think that Christ is far away. We see the struggles of the church. We experience suffering. We wonder whether the Lord sees what is happening to his people. Acts 9 reminds us that the Lord does not just see it, but he feels it. The church's persecution is persecuting Christ. Saul asks, “Who are you, lord?” As Saul recounts his kicking against the goads, this is probably not affirming that Christ is God. Rather, it is just Saul affirming that someone with a bright light has captured Saul's attention. And then Saul hears the words that overturn his entire world: “I am Jesus.”The Jesus that Saul thought was a failure is very much the messiah. Stephen's sermon was not fluff, but the substance of Isaiah's servant songs. Stephen correctly understood the connections of Christ in scripture. Saul must come to grips that his whole identity is his own self-deception. Saul is not putting down a deviant movement. No, Saul is the deviant movement that seeks to destroy the Lord's work. A New CommissionWhen Saul arrives at Damascus, he is no longer following the directive of the high priest's letter. No, he is fasting. He realizes that these threats and murder were against Christ. He realizes that he has destroyed the very thing he is called to build. Then the Lord sends Ananias. Ananias is resistant to his mission. He knows that Saul is not someone who casually disagrees. No, Saul is here to arrest, haul back to Jerusalem, and potentially kill if he can get away with it. So, we can understand why Ananias does not run out the door. But Christ assures Ananias that the Lord has taken hold of Saul and Saul has a mission. His mission is to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, and even his own people. Saul is going to suffer on account of Christ. Saul will not only be the messenger, but he will be invested in this message. Ananias enters and addresses him as “Brother Saul.” A man who had intended to drag believers away as prisoners is now welcomed into the fellowship of God's people. The Lord restores his sight. Saul is baptized. He receives strength. We see how the grace of the Gospel works. And the Lord gives him a new commission. Yes, Saul will suffer for Christ. He will proclaim Christ. He will bring the gospel to Jews and Gentiles. The man who once sought to destroy the people of God will spend the rest of his life serving the people of God and proclaiming the Christ he once hated.Ananias is not giving him an assignment to undo what he has done, but commissioning him. Saul will suffer like the other disciples. Only the grace of God can produce such a transformation.Thus, the Lord captures his prisoner of war. Little did Saul realize that he was going to be more Moses than Pharaoh. ConclusionWhat, then, is the point of Saul's conversion?It reminds us that no one is beyond the reach of Christ.Saul was actively opposed to Christ. He had heard the preaching of Stephen. He had seen the testimony of the church. He had heard voices calling for restraint.The Lord had been pricking and prodding Saul, as Saul recounts in Acts 26. However, Christ will break his people. We may look at someone and think there is no way that person will ever come to Christ. We may see anger, hostility, rebellion, and hatred toward the gospel.The wisdom of the world would never have chosen Saul to become an apostle. Ananias certainly would not have chosen him. The church probably would have considered him one of its greatest threats.The Lord's grace will overcome. Christ will prevail. The reality is that we may taste the suffering of this present age, but we are not a defeated people. Christ is in the midst of our suffering. He conquered death. He gives us life. So let us not think that Christ is distant. Let us not think that his grace is weak. Let us not think that anyone is beyond his reach. Let us not limit God's power. May we draw near to our Savior as his redeemed people. Let us trust in his power. Let us not test the boundaries of his grace. Let us see the joy that the Lord has made the unworthy share as the worthy only in Christ. Let us see the sweetness of his grace, his mercy, and his complete redemption. Let the peace of God rule within us so the joy of the Lord exudes from us.

This episode of Going In Raw is sponsored by Hims! Start your free online visit for personalized treatment options for hair loss, ED, weight loss and more today at http://www.hims.com/goinginraw Steve & Larson review WWE SmackDown from Ottawa! Kevin Owens opened up about his emotional Toronto loss and vowed to keep coming for CM Punk, a #1 contender's triple threat descended into Sami Zayn chaos, and Cody and Randy Orton had a brutal, personal face-to-face ahead of Saturday Night's Main Event. Full reactions and analysis! Consider joining Friendo Club by clicking JOIN ($5/month) OR becoming a $5+ Patron at http://www.patreon.com/steveandlarson!

Another summer DNB drive through some old favourites.Playlist: Tim Reaper - ScreenplayAversive - Soft DubGold Dubs, featuring Camo MC - 10amConrad Subs - Let's RockTotal Science, S.P.Y - Gangsta (Watch The Ride Remix)Kyrist - NTYDanny Byrd - Salute (Remarc Remix)Syncopix - Happy Happy Joy Joy (Euphonique Remix)Pacific - YeahhhSimple Simon, Pharoah - 50 CalibreQuadrant & Iris - False SpringSub Focus , featuring Fireboy DML, IRAH - Original DonSUV & Dr. Meaker, featuring Paul Charles - Fire (Bladerunner Remix)Bladerunner - Jungle StrikeDEBRIEF - Get UR Freak On BootlegBaby D - I Need Your Loving Silent Code Jungle RemixMandidextrous - Let's Get Fucked Up Mandidextrous FlipMacca, Loz Contreras, Critical Event - See Me Now

Humble beginnings often unfold into amazing stories. In Exodus 2, God blessed Jochebed's sensible faith and saved her child from Pharoah's soldiers. From a baby in a basket to an Egyptian prince, meet God's promised deliverer—Moses. Follow along with Dr. McGee as he shows us how God used an imperfect leader to represent Christ and to begin an amazing story of courage, freedom, and redemption for God's people.

The Rev. Nick Lannon preaches a sermon on Exodus 1, in which the baby Moses is sent to live in Pharoah's house. Moses' temporary saving of his people points us to Jesus, and his finished saving work for sinners.

התוכן כל הענינים כפי שהם בתורה, שקדמה לעולם, הם תכלית הטוב, כל עניני התורה הם חכמתו של הקב"ה ללא כל נפק"מ בתוכן הענין, ובלשון הרמב"ם בפירוש המשניות "ואין הפרש בין ובני חם כוש ומצרים.. ותמנע היתה פלגש, ובין אנכי ה' אלקיך ושמע ישראל, כי הכל מפי הגבורה והכל תורת ה' תמימה טהורה וקדושה אמת". וע"ד מה שאמר אדמו"ר האמצעי בנוגע קריאת התוכחה שבפ' כי תבוא ע"י אדה"ז ש"כשאבא קורא הערט זיך ניט קיין קללות!", כי קריאת אדה"ז היתה כפי שהענינים הם בתורה שקדמה לעולם, ואע"פ שקריאתו היתה למטה בעוה"ז, אבל בשעת מעשה הי' בעולם האצילות! וע"ד משה רבינו שגם בשעה שדיבר עם פרעה היתה "שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו", ו"הי' מאיר בו אצילות בבחי' גילוי"!‏משיחת אדר"ח מר-חשון ה'תשמ"ו ל"הנחה פרטית" או התרגום ללה"ק של השיחה: https://thedailysicha.com/?date=25-08-2026 Synopsis Everything in the Torah is the ultimate goodness and part of Hashem's wisdom, as the Rambam states in his Commentary to the Mishnah: “There is no difference between ‘The sons of Cham were Cush and Mitzrayim...' or ‘Timna was a concubine,' and ‘I am Hashem your G-d' or ‘Listen, Yisroel,' because it is all from mouth of the Almighty, and it is all Hashem's perfect, pure, holy, and true Torah.” Based on this we can understand the Mitteler Rebbe's remark regarding the tochecha in parashas Ki Savo, “When Father reads it, you don't hear curses”: The Alter Rebbe's reading reflected the reality in Torah as it preceded creation, and although he was reading it below in this world, at that same time he was in the World of Atzilus. This can be compared to Moshe Rabbeinu talking to Pharaoh in Egypt: Even when Moshe was talking to Pharoah, who embodied the lowest level of kelipah, the light of Atzilus shone within Moshe in a revealed manner, and “The Shechinah spoke from within his throat.”Excerpt from sichah of 1st day of Rosh Chodesh MarCheshvan 5746 For a transcript in English of the Sicha: https://thedailysicha.com/?date=25-08-2026 לזכות פריידא ברכה בת שיינא שתחי' ליום ההולדת שלה י"ב אלוללשנת ברכה והצלחה, ואריכות ימים ושנים טובות*לזכות ר' אהרן בן גיטל לאה שי' ליום ההולדת שלו הרוחני י"ב אלול

A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity 2 Corinthians 3:4-9 by William Klock Imagine you're an Israelite at the time of the Exodus.  Moses shows up and announces that the God of your ancestors—a God no one's heard from in four hundred years—is going to deliver you from Pharoah's slavery.  Sounds pretty sketchy.  But then God begins to act.  He sends ten plagues on the Egyptians.  He turns the Nile to blood.  Wow!  But then Pharoah's magicians do the same thing.  Okay…maybe not as impressive as it seemed at first.  But as the plagues go on, they get more and more impressive and Pharaoh's magicians can't keep up.  By the tenth plague you know without a doubt that this God of your fathers is something.  He's even more powerful than Pharoah and his gods.  And then the Red Sea.  Pharaoh chased you down.  Your people are stuck between the sea and Pharaoh's army.  All is lost.  And then the God of your fathers parts the sea itself in an amazing display of power and authority.  Imagine what it was like to walk through the sea on dry ground.  And then to watch as, just as miraculously, the God of your fathers causes the waters to come crashing back into place just at the right time to drown Pharaoh's army.  And you join with your people as, for the first time, you sing praise to this God of your fathers—a God whom you're now starting to think of as your God.  But God isn't finished.  He appears as a magnificent pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night and he leads your people into the wilderness.  When there's nothing to drink, he causes water to pour forth from a rock.  When there's nothing to eat, he miraculously provides an abundance of manna and quail.  At Mount Sinai he meets your people in cloud and lightning on the mountaintop.  He establishes a covenant with you.  He will be your God and you will be his people.  He sends Moses down the mountain with the torah and with instructions for the tabernacle.  And having been in God's presence, Moses' face shines so brightly with God's glory that he has to wear a veil.  And when your people have finished assembling the tabernacle, you see God's glory—like a cloud—descend to fill it.  It's astounding.  It's the sort of thing the Egyptians could only dream about their gods doing and the God of Israel does it for real.  And, eventually, just as he promised, God leads your people into Canaan—the promised land—and he conquers the people for you and gives you their cities.  And you know it's him, not you.  There's no doubting it.  He had you march on Jericho, not with swords, but carrying his ark and blowing trumpets as you marched in circles around the city.  Not to attack it.  Not to put siege to it.  But simply to announce that the Lord, the God of Israel had come.  And when that announcement was clear and when everyone could see that you and your people had done nothing but announce the Lord's presence, he caused the walls to come crashing down.  He defeated the city.  And neither you nor anyone else could possibly think of taking credit for it.  Neither you nor anyone else took the Lord for granted.  Neither you nor anyone else could dream of giving your faith, your loyalty, your allegiance to any other god.  Because you had seen with your own eyes the glory of the Lord. Even as the generations passed, the people remembered the Lord.  They lived in those cities, they drew from those wells, they harvested crops from those fields that the Lord had taken from the Canaanites and given to their fathers and grandfathers.  They bore in their flesh the sign of God's covenant—that statement, “I will be your God and you will be my people”—they bore that sign in their circumcision.  And every year they celebrated the Passover and not only recalled the events of the Exodus in which the Lord had saved their fathers; they participated, themselves, in those events—they owned them as if they'd happened to them.  And the covenant was renewed. And if you read the Old Testament no further you might think it would be like that forever.  How could a people who had so experienced the glory of God ever take him for granted, let alone turn their backs on him?  How could a people who had so experienced the glory of God ever look for confidence and hope in anyone or anything else?  But it happened.  They took their status as his people for granted.  They began to take those cities and wells and vineyards and fields he'd given them for granted.  They stopped celebrating the Passover and remembering what he'd done for them.  They started worshiping other gods.  They lost faith in the Lord and started putting their trust in kings and in armies and in politics.  And when the prophets came to rebuke the people and to call them back to faithfulness, they refused to listen and abused those prophets.  Eventually, because they took it all for granted, because they were unfaithful, the Lord took away the land and the cities and fields and vineyards—and finally even his presence—and sent the people into exile in a foreign land.  But not before he promised them renewal.  One day he would restore them and make them new and fill them with his own Spirit, he would turn their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, so that they would be forever faithful. And, in Jesus, the Lord fulfilled that promise to his people.  In Jesus he was born as one of them, but rejected and crucified as a false Messiah.  God raised Jesus from death and overturned the verdict against him, declaring that he really was the Messiah and creation's true Lord.  In rising from the grave Jesus conquered death.  And then, to those who were baptised and received the sign of God's new covenant, he gave God's Spirit.  The old Israel had a temple.  This new Israel is the temple.  And as we read in last week's Epistle, Paul stressed that the risen Jesus appeared to the twelve, and to the other disciples, and even at one point to five hundred, and lastly to him.  And Jesus changed everything for them.  In his death and resurrection he led his people in a new exodus, not this time from physical bondage under Pharaoh, but from bondage to sin and death themselves.  And in baptism, Jesus leads his people like Moses through the waters of redemption to meet the Lord on the far side.  And the Spirit leads us, not as a pillar of cloud or fire, but as God's very presence within us, as we embark on a world- and humanity-saving trek through the wilderness of the old evil age into the age to come, towards the New Jerusalem, to that day when gospel and Spirit have done their work and Jesus does away with sin and death and evil once and for all and forever, and creation is set to rights and we enjoy the presence of our God eternally.  Those first eyewitnesses took this astounding gospel story to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the world and amazing things happened.  It was more than just a story of the glory of God.  The story of the old exodus was that, but this was more.  The story of the Messiah and this new exodus has power unlike any story that has been told before or since.  This is a story backed by the life-giving and life-changing power of Jesus and the Spirit and the people who heard it and believed it and came to trust in the death and, most importantly, the resurrection of Jesus, they were changed.  Forgiven by the redeeming death of Jesus and then given a foretaste of the life of God's new world by the Spirit whom he poured into them.  It was a change that no one could ignore.  Some were captivated by it and came to hear and to believe the gospel story for themselves and they shared in this new life too.  And others got angry as the gospel story and God's new world challenged the gods and the kings and the systems in which they were already invested.  But to those who believed, the gospel, the good news about Jesus was life itself.  And they gathered together as often as they could and when they did, they not only shared the community the gospel had given them, they shared in the meal Jesus had given them.  In the Lord's Supper they ate bread and drank wine—and just as in the Passover—they didn't just remember what Jesus had done to deliver them from sin and death, they appropriated that death and resurrection, they participated in that saving event themselves.  They owned this new exodus just as the Israelites owned the events of the first exodus.  And each time it was as if the Lord was renewing his covenant with them: through Jesus and the Spirit, I will be your God and you will be my people. And you might think that their faithfulness to the Lord would be unending.  You would think that their trust and loyalty—their confidence—would always and only be in Jesus the Messiah.  But it wasn't.  If we're honest about our struggles, we know that it's easy to become distracted by other things.  There's a reason we gather every Sunday to hear the good news again and to come to the Lord's Table to be reminded and to renew the covenant.  There's a reason why we daily immerse ourselves in the scriptures and in the story there of God and his people.  Because when we don't, even as glorious as that story is, even as it once captivated us so thoroughly, somehow—and to our shame—we forget.  And Jesus is still there, but we start focusing on other things and we start looking for other things and we start putting our confidence and our hope in other things. It even happened in the early church with that first generation of believers.  Paul had arrived in Corinth in about a.d. 50 or 51.  He proclaimed the good news about Jesus and both Jews and gentiles there were captivated by the story.  They believed.  They were baptised.  And Paul stayed with them for about a year and half, helping them to set up a church.  And everyone knew that it wasn't Paul who had done it.  He was just an unassuming little man.  Funny looking, maybe with a speech impediment.  (Remember in last week's Epistle he owned that insult about being a monster, prematurely born.)  What happened in Corinth wasn't about Paul.  Brothers and Sisters, it was about the power of the gospel and the Spirit.  And yet just a few years later, it all started to fall apart.  The amazing story about the death and resurrection of Jesus that had once so spoken to them about the glory of God started to fade, and with it their motivation to holiness.  Sin—gross, truly wicked sin—started to creep into the church and they found ways to justify it.  Their worship became chaotic as people began using the gifts the Spirit had given to bring attention to themselves instead of to build up the body.  They abused the Lord's Supper and twisted and undermined its covenant meaning.  And when Paul, their brother, the one who had not only brought the gospel to them, but who could speak with authority about it because he, himself, had met the risen Jesus, when he wrote to them they brushed him off.  They told him they didn't want to hear from him anymore.  He'd been displaced by other preachers who were flashier, who were more handsome, who were better spoken then he was. And so, at the end of 2 Corinthians 2 he appeals to them.  He talks about himself as “we” instead of “I” and I think he does that to emphasise that he stands with the other apostles whose authority came from being eyewitness of the risen Messiah.  The same could not be said of others who have come to them and led them astray.  He writes to them, saying, “We aren't mere peddlers of God's word, as so many preachers are.  We speak with sincerity.  We speak from God.  We speak in God's presence.  We speak in the Messiah.”  The Messiah: that's who this is really about.  Paul has no authority of his own.  He simply speaks what he heard from Jesus himself.  And his point here is that they had once been captivated by that gospel of the Messiah that Paul had proclaimed to them, but now they've been captivated by the words of mere men.  “Do you want a letter of recommendation before you'll listen to me?” Paul asks.  “Do I need to give you a sheaf of reference letters so you'll know I'm legit?” “No,” says Paul, going on in 3:2: “You are our official reference!  It's written on our hearts.  Everyone can know and read it.  It's plain that you are a letter from the Messiah, with us the messengers.  A letter not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.  Not on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of fleshly hearts.” In other words, despite all their problems, despite their backsliding into worldly ways, they are not the people they once were.  Paul had proclaimed the good new—the story about Jesus and his death and resurrection and ascension—and through that preaching the Spirit had captivated them and filled their hearts with faith.  They believed.  They gave their trust, their loyalty, their allegiance, their obedience to Jesus and they were transformed.  And Paul could see it even through all their problems.  No, Paul doesn't need to give them references.  “You are my reference,” he says to them.  I know you've kicked me to the curb, but it was the message I received from Jesus that I preached to you that transformed you—not the merely human words of the other preachers who came along.  It was the word of God that did it. And they really, really need to hear this.  Because in the years since Paul left, as they've listened to teachers who led them astray, as the glory of the pure gospel has faded from their vision, they've begun to put their confidence in other things.  They no longer associate Paul with the gospel.  They're thinking of him as that funny-looking little man with the speech impediment.  And following someone like that in Greek culture, well, that wasn't going to get you anywhere.  And so they associated with the handsome preachers with eloquent rhetoric who could impress the Greeks.  They've forgotten that the gifts the Spirit gave them were gifts of grace to build up the body, and now they're abusing them and putting their confidence in them.  They've forgotten that the gospel puts them all on an equal footing before the throne of grace, and they're letting their old class and cultural divisions divide them up.  They were growing their church—as we'd say it today—but they weren't growing it on the gospel. We do the same thing today.  We may do it even more than the Corinthians, because commercialism is the cultural water we swim in and we don't even realise how much it impacts how we think about church and we don't realise how it so easily displaces the gospel and gospel growth and gospel ministry.  We build our churches around personalities.  We build our churches around programmes.  We build our churches around demographics.  We build our churches by advertising that we're better than or that we're not like our neighbouring churches.  We treat the church as if it's a business or a social club instead of a family—the covenant people of God, transformed and shaped by the gospel and the Spirit.  The Spirit has transformed our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh through the power of the gospel, but we forget the centrality of the gospel and allow our hearts to petrify back into stone.  It might not seem like that's what's happening at first.  Our churches may even have the appearance of success, but it's because we're appealing to stony hearts of worldly people with what they value, not with the power of the transforming gospel they need.   It's that simple gospel that needs to be at the centre of everything.  The risen Jesus always before us.  The risen Jesus at the centre of every decision we make.  The risen Jesus at the heart of everything we do.  Just Jesus, crucified and risen.  The simple gospel.  So Paul goes on in verse 4: “That is the kind of confidence we have toward God, through the Messiah.”  Stop putting your confidence in other things.  Just put it in Jesus.  He and only he can bring us before God.  So Paul says, “It isn't as though we are qualified in ourselves to reckon that we have anything to offer on our own account.  Our qualification comes from God: God has qualified us to be stewards of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.  The letter kills, you see, but the Spirit gives life.”  The gospel was his only qualification and the only one that mattered.  The same goes for us. Now, think again of the glory that God put on display in the Exodus and in the story of Israel that followed.  That's what Paul gets at in verse 7 when he writes: “But just think about it: when death was being ministered, carved in letter of stone,”—he's talking about Mt. Sinai and the giving of the law”—“it was a glorious thing, so glorious in fact that the children of Israel couldn't look at Moses' face because of the glory of his face, a glory that was to be abolished.”  The glory God displayed in those days was astounding.  It moved the people to faith and trust and worship. But now Paul's talking about the new covenant and what God has done in Jesus and the Spirit.  “Will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?” he asks them.  “If ministering condemnation is glorious, you see, how much more glorious is the ministry of vindication—of righteousness, of justice?  In fact, what used to be glorious has come, by comparison, to have no glory at all, because of the new glory which goes so far beyond it! O, Brothers and Sisters, would that we would also be so captivated by the glory of the simple gospel of Jesus the Messiah.  There is no other glory that can compare and if we will keep it always before us—this good new of Jesus, crucified, risen, and Lord—if we would keep our eyes always focused on it, if we let it shape our lives, if we let it shape our decision, if we let it be the basis for everything we do as the church.  If the glory of the gospel were our sole source of confidence and hope, it would transform our churches and make us the people God intends for us to be.  God's promise is that one day the knowledge of his glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, but, Brothers and Sisters, remember that he has made us the stewards of that glory.  He has entrusted his gospel of life to us and he's filled us with his Spirit.  It is our calling to make his glory known by taking the good news of Jesus to Courtenay and Comox, to Vancouver Island, to Canada, and even to the ends of the earth.  You may have placed a veil over God's glory.  This morning let the scriptures lift that veil.  Let the bread and the wine here at his Table lift that veil.  Look on the glory of the Lord revealed in Jesus the Messiah and be refreshed and renewed for the gospel ministry to which you have been called. Let's pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve:  Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Saviour; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Rev. Nick Lannon preaches a sermon on Exodus 1, in which the baby Moses is sent to live in Pharoah's house. Moses' temporary saving of his people points us to Jesus, and his finished saving work for sinners.

Daily Dose of Hope August 21, 2026   Scripture:  Genesis 12   Prayer:  Almighty Father, You always know what is best for us.  Thank you for that.  We are sorry for the ways that we resist.  Help us to want what you want for us.  Help us to want to be patient, to want to be kind, to want to be obedient.  Conform our will, Lord, In Your 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 doing a deep dive into the books of Genesis and Exodus.  Today, our reading is Genesis 12.    In today's reading, we have the call of Abram.    The first eleven chapters of Genesis were a broad sweeping narrative. God is beginning to reveal himself to a specific group of people and it all begins here.  God commands Abram to leave his native land, and his father's home, to go to a land God would show him.  God is asking him, as age 75, to leave the old and go to something totally new and different.  If Abram does what God asks, God promises to give him wealth and many descendants.  He will be blessed.   What's most interesting to me is that Abram does it.  We aren't privy to any of the behind the scenes discussion.  Did Abram think about saying no?  I mean, the man was 75.  He was pretty established.  We don't know if he deliberated.  Regardless, he says yes.  He obeys.  Interestingly, if you look at the Hebrew, the call to go was really just to Abram as an individual.  It didn't include wife and family.  But Abram brings Sarai and his nephew, Lot.  They bring their whole household.  I can only imagine the conversation between Sarai and Abram.  She also would have to battle fear and uncertainly.   There are a number of call stories in the Bible.  It usually involves God calling an individual person, followed by some kind of commission or promise.  When God calls a person, there usually isn't a lot of attention to the impact on their families, such as in this situation.  Yet, a call by God will impact not only the person called but everyone around them.    I can remember when God called me to full-time ministry.  It was a very clear call (a story for another time) and it couldn't have happened in a more complicated season of my life.  I had three young kids, Richard worked a stressful job, and money was tight.  I couldn't imagine going back to school.  And yet, the call was real.  Would I say yes or no?  In my case, I felt like there was only one answer.  I had to obey.   Have you ever felt God call you to do something?  God doesn't call all of us to full-time ministry but he does call all of us.  God may be calling you to a particular kind of service in the church or in the community.  He may be calling you to give of your resources.  He might be calling you to reconcile a relationship.  Take some time today and pray about God's call on your life.   Now, I wish I could stop there today but there is no way I can finish the devotional without mentioning Abram and Sarai in Egypt.  They traveled there due to a famine.  Once there, Abram passes Sarai off as his sister rather than his wife and she is taken into the palace.  He feared that otherwise Pharoah would kill him to take Sarai, who must have been quite stunning.  Almost immediately, God intervenes in the situation with plagues.   If God had not intervened, Pharoah would not have known that Sarai was Abram's wife and Abram would not have had a son by Sarai in fulfillment of God's promise to him. Let's be real - Abram was absolutely in the wrong here, but God graciously intervened in order to keep his covenant with Abram.  God plans to use Abram, despite his mess-ups!   One of the more comforting things about reading these texts is realizing just how much these heroes of the faith messed up.  They were far from perfect and God uses them anyway.  That bodes well for us.  Now, it's time for our going deeper discussion with Emmy... Blessings, Pastor Vicki    

Pharoah versus God. A king versus a baby. Who wins?

Welcome to the place where we get to let our geek flags fly and talk about all things geek. Basically a fuzzy guide to life, the universe, and everything but mostly geek stuff. This level of the podcast is more theme park geekery from the fuzzy trio. Our discussion includes:Spaceballs and video game and Hadestown and Spotify businessThe Lazy River at Raging WaterGoliath at Six Flags Magic MountainKingdom of the Dinosaurs at Knott'sJaguar! At Knott'sBoomerang at Knott'sGravitron at every Fair everPony Express at Knott'sRiddler's Revenge at Six Flags Magic MountainSuperman: Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Great AdventureFreefall at Six Flags Magic MountainTrick ‘r Treat maze at Universal Studios OrlandoSpecial Ops: Infected at Knott's Scary FarmSecrets of the Empire VR at The VoidMonstros 3 maze at Universal HollywoodMedieval TimesKiller Klownz from Outer Space maze at Universal HollywoodBumper cars at Coney IslandTimber Mountain Log ride at Knott'sGoofy's Sky School at DCAObstacle course attractionsBatman: The Ride at Magic MountainBigfoot Rapids at Knott'sCasey Junior Circus Train at DisneylandStitch's Great Escape at Disney WorldAlice in Wonderland at DisneylandLaser Tag at Pharoah's Lost KingdomBackdraft at Universal Studios HollywoodRoger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin at DisneylandMark Twain at DisneylandMuppetvision 3DCongrats on completing Level 505! Feel free to contact me on social media (@wookieeriot). You can also reach the show by e-mail, laughitupfuzzballpodcast@gmail.com. All other links are easily findable on linktr.ee/laughitupfuzzball for merch, the Facebook group, etc. I'd love to hear from you. Subscribe to the feed on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, or any of the apps which pull from those sources. Go do your thing so I can keep doing mine. If you feel so inclined, drop a positive rating or comment on those apps. Ratings help others find the madness. Tell your friends, geekery is always better with peers. Thank YOU for being a part of this hilarity! There's a plethora of ways to comment about the show and I look forward to seeing your thoughts, comments, and ideas. May the force be with us all, thanks for stopping by, you stay classy, be excellent to each other and party on dudes! TTFN… Wookiee out!

When we lead our tours to the Holy Land, we will inevitably pull out some humor from the Biblical sources, attempting to create memories of laughter in remote parts of the tour. Our Bible jokes are many and varied and of a quality that only a dad could appreciate. “Who is the great tennis player of the Bible? Of course, everyone knows it's Joseph, because he served in Pharoah's courts! And who was the great comedian of the Bible? It was Sampson. He brought the house down! And what kind of man was Boaz before he got married? Ruthless! … I'm waiting for all of you to finish laughing. And then we pull out the most obvious one: Who was the greatest doctor of the Bible? Some contend it was Job, because he had a lot of ‘patience.' But most would agree it's Moses because he delivered all the children of Israel! All humor aside, we know that the greatest physician in the Bible is the Savior Himself—the one who can heal each of us. This week we will see some of the ways that Job reminds us of Jesus and leads us to Him.

(Exodus 11:1-10) A final plague is threatened, against the gods of Egypt and against Pharoah's control of Israel.

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Moses' story begins with the heroism and sacrifice of those that came before him. Shiprah and Puauh, his older sister, and his own mother all risked their lives to defy Pharoah and save the lives of Hebrew newborn boys. We too don't get to where we are alone. The work, sacrifice, and generosity of those that came before us lay the foundation on which we stand. You didn't get here alone.

Telling the Story: Part 2 Acts 7:1-16 by William Klock When I was an American school kid in the 70s and 80s I learned that the defining events in the history of the United States were was the founding of Jamestown in 1607; the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620; and, of course, the Revolutionary War that began in 1775 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence—well—almost exactly 250 years ago.  There were plenty of other events that shaped the story, but those were the events that set the United States on its trajectory: a heritage from Britain with a good dose of religious freedom and Protestant work ethic coming together in a grand expression of the rights of man shaped by the Enlightenment.  Were there flaws?  Yep.  Slavery was a big one.  But the way I learned the story, the British mainland colonies of North America were on the fringe of the slave trade.  We received a tiny fraction of it.  The real slavery problem was in the Caribbean and Latin America.  Plus, we dealt with it.  The whole Civil War thing—a tragedy.  But it was a story to be proud of. But in 2019, the New York Times began a new publishing project.  They called it The 1619 Project.  It was subtitled, “A New Origin Story”.  Why 1619?  That was the year the first African slaves were brought to Virginia.  Before the Pilgrims.  Before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  It was a deliberate attempt to reframe the story of the United States.  Instead of a story rooted in a proud English heritage and religious liberty and Enlightenment ideals of freedom and liberty, the 1619 Project told the story of the United States as one rooted in racism and slavery and oppression.  Instead of a story that makes you stand proud, it's a story meant to instil shame and guilt. The 1619 Project didn't come out of nowhere.  It made public a story that many people had already been telling, especially to younger generations. And, as you would expect, this resulted in a great cultural clash.  Both sides shouting at the other, basically saying, “How dare you tell our story wrong!”  It wasn't so much a matter of the events themselves.  Both versions of the story involved the same events, the same people, and all of that.  But it highlights how much how you frame a story, how much you stress certain events and people and ideas over others, that you can end up with stories that are essentially the same, while dramatically different.  One instils national pride; the other instils national shame.  That doesn't mean there's no right or wrong.  Framing the American story as if slavery and racism are its fundamental core is dishonest.  But at the same time, telling a story that glosses over those evils for the sake of instilling pride, well, that's a problem too. And as much as this Postmodern metanarrative dilemma was nowhere on the radar of First Century Jews, I think it's a good way to understand what was going with Jews in those days and it's a good illustration of what Stephen is doing in his speech before the Sanhedrin in Ats 7.  [It's page 1087 in the Pew Bibles.]  There were different “parties” competing for influence and control in First Century Judaea and as much as they all told the same story of Israel, reaching back to Abraham and Moses and David, to the law and the Prophets, all rooted in the same exodus and exile and the same promises, how they told the story produced very different results, different feelings about Israel's present situation, different ideas about the future and how to get there—just as how I learned American history makes you smile when you see the Stars and Stripes, but others, having learned The 1619 Project story, feel shame. For Pharisees, unfaithfulness to the law resulted in exile—one that was still effectively ongoing—and only national faithfulness to the law would get them out of it.  For the Sadducees, that was all in the past.  God had restored them from their exile, and the temple and its priests were the proof.  All was well.  For the Zealots, the story said that armed revolution was the only way out of their oppression.  For the Essenes, the group responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, the story said that the everyone and everything had been defiled by unfaithfulness, even the temple itself.  God would wage holy war on the unfaithful, so they—the only truly righteous ones—retreated to the desert to wait and to keep pure.  And there was the historian Josephus.  A generation later, he told the story—after the disaster had happened—to say that the Jewish revolutionaries had brought God's wrath on themselves and that God had raised up the Romans to act as his instrument of judgement.  Same story, but the different ways they told it, the different parts they emphasised, the way they interpreted certain events like the Babylonian Exile, landed them in very different places.  Like I said last week, the story got them to the airport, but they were all waiting at different gates—and none of them the right gate for the God's real homecoming.  That said, all of them held the same markers of Jewish identity dear: the torah, the temple, the promised land, their circumcision.  They disagreed on a lot, but attack any of those things and they'd all join in stoning you after charging you with blasphemy. So what Stephen is doing before the Sanhedrin, backing up all the way to Abraham and telling the story yet again, was in good keeping with what was going on in First Century Judaea.  So—in case you missed last week or have forgotten—in the first sixteen verses, Stephen began telling the story of Jesus and the Spirit by going back to Abraham.  This was the moment when the God of glory—Stephen wants to stress that he's here to glorify the God of Israel, not blaspheme him or his holy things—Abraham was the moment when God stepped into the darkness and misery of his broken, fallen, corrupted creation and called to Abraham.  In Abraham, God was launching his project to restore rebellious humanity to himself and to set to rights the creation that we broke.  Now, there was more to it than this—it's online if you missed or forgot it—but Stephen's main point is that the gospel is not a departure from the story of Israel.  It's not something new that has no roots in what happened before.  He's saying to the Jewish elders: When the God of glory, the God of Israel called Abraham out of Ur and settled him in the promised land and established his covenant with him to make him a nation, that was the beginning of the story that brings us to Jesus, to the cross and the empty tomb, to the ascension and to Pentecost.  The story of Abraham is the story of the gospel and vice versa. Remember, they accused him of blaspheming torah and temple and Stephen's saying, “No way!  Torah and temple are good.  They're glorious.  They're how God prepared us and brought us to Jesus.”  Like I said last week, when you leave your car and board the ferry, you are in no way saying your car was bad.  It got you to the ferry.  But you can't drive on water.  Now it's time do something new—to do the very thing your car brought you to do. And then from Abraham to Joseph.  Stephen tells Isreal's story in such a way to highlight that when the God of Israel acts to bless and to save his people, it's often in unexpected ways.  Abraham was promised the land of Canaan, but never had any more of it than a little burial plot.  And Jacob and his sons were forced to flee the land of Canaan in order to survive a famine.  And Jacob's sons were wicked men who sold their brother, Joseph into slavery after nearly choosing to murder him.  And Joseph went from slavery to prison.  How was God going to work anything good from any of that?  But he did.  The sovereign God was at work all along.  Slavery and prison led Joseph to the premiership of Egypt just in time deliver his family when they arrived.  None of them had ever expected any of that.  But God delivered them.  And Stephen's telling of the Joseph story also highlights that gracious forgiveness has always been at the heart of the story of God and his people.  There was Joseph, hated, abused, sold into slavery by his brothers, but instead of taking revenge, he welcomes them and throw a party. This is what Jesus had been doing as the lost sheep of Israel, the tax collectors and sinners, came to him in repentance and faith. And this is the sort of rejoicing that would take place in heaven were the Sanhedrin to see how the story leads to Jesus and repent.  God was waiting for them with open arms and a promise of blessing, and they should know that, because that's how God's great story has always worked.  It's the key in which this great symphony is written. So now, Moses.  As important as Abraham and Joseph were, Moses stands like a colossus over the story of Israel.  Moses was the deliverer who led Israel out of Egypt and parted the sea.  It was Moses who went up Mt. Sinai and saw God for himself.  It was Moses who came down and delivered the torah to Israel.  It was under Moses that God made a nation out of Abraham's family.  And this is where they've accused Stephen of blasphemy.  They've accused him of speaking against the torah and temple and Moses.  So look at Acts 7, beginning at verse 17.  Stephen highlights three things about Moses.  The first thing he stresses is how Moses was raised up by God to be the right man at the right place at the right time—even though no one would have guessed at the beginning that Moses was God's man for the hour. Stephen says: “God had sworn an oath to Abraham.  [Remember the promise to make him a great nation and to give his descendants the land of Canaan?] When the time drew near for this promise to be fulfilled, the people had increased and multiplied in Egypt, until another king arose over Egypt, one who had not known Joseph.  He got the better of our people, and ill-treated our fathers, forcing them to abandon their newborn children so that they would die.  It was at that time that Moses was born, and he was pleasing to God. He was nursed for three months in his father's house.  But, when they abandoned him, Pharaoh's daughter claimed him and brought him up as her own son.  So Moses was educated in the full teaching of Egyptian wisdom, and he was powerful in what he said and did.” Already, in the life of Joseph, Stephen has stressed that God works human evil for good.  Nothing escapes his sovereign hand.  And just so with Moses.  First, this new Pharoah decides to make slaves of the Hebrews.  Not good.  And then, when their numbers increase so prolifically that Pharaoh fears being able to control them, he hatches a plan to murder all the baby boys.  And so Moses ends up in a basket in the river, where Pharaoh's daughter finds him and decides to raise him as her own.  God turns Pharaoh's hate, prejudice, and injustice against him, sovereignly placing one of those Hebrew boys right in Pharaoh's own home, raised at Pharaoh's expense, and tutored by Pharaoh's own tutors in the famed wisdom of the Egyptians.  God ensure the story is full of irony.  Pharaoh unwittingly nurtures and educates the very man who will be his downfall.  And Moses, himself, receives the training needed one day to oversee, to govern the people of Israel.  Again, at the time, none of this made any sense.  No one could see any significance to the story as it was unfolding.  But God has a plan and one of the things the Jewish people learned from Moses' story—and so many others—is to trust God.  In the famous words of William Cowper, God moves in a mysterious way.  It's another motif in the divine symphony—one that comes back over and over and that God's people out to recognise when they hear the music. Second, Stephen stresses the rejection of Moses by his own people.  Look at verse 23: “When he had grown to forty years old, it came into his heart to see how his brothers, the sons of Israel, were doing.  He saw someone being wronged, and came to the man's defence; he took revenge on behalf of the man who was being oppressed, by striking down the Egyptian.  He thought his kinsfolk would grasp the fact that God was sending him to their rescue, but they didn't. “The next day he showed up as two Hebrews were fighting, and he tried to bring them back together again. ‘Now then, you two,' he said, ‘you are brothers! Why are you wronging each other?'  But the man who was wronging the other wasn't having it.  ‘Who made you a ruler or judge over us?' he retorted, pushing him away.  ‘Do you want to kill me in the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'  At that word, Moses ran away, and lived as a guest in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.” Yet another motif in the symphony, another recurring theme in the story.  Jesus wasn't the first of God's deliverers to be rejected by his own people.  The story highlights that this is sometimes how God works.  Now, there's no one-to-one equivalence between Moses and Jesus.  Moses was rejected because he wasn't ready yet.  He had a desire to see his people freed, but he hadn't yet been called by God to that mission, nor had he received instruction on how to do it God's way.  This way of telling the story, this way of looking back to the Old Testament is something we see all through the New Testament.  I think of the way Matthew regularly explains how something in the Jesus story “fulfils” this or that thing from the Old Testament.  And often we're left wondering how the connection works.  Thanks largely to the Church Fathers, we've been taught to see these connections as literal prophecies or as “types”, as spiritual shadows that prefigure Jesus and various events in his life.  That's kind of close, but it's not quite what Stephen (or Matthew) do.  When Matthew, for example says that in the birth of Jesus Isaiah's words about the virgin conceiving and bearing a child are fulfilled, we wonder how that works.  Isaiah was talking about a young woman in his own day bearing a child…and she wasn't a virgin.  What Matthew was doing was pointing back to an event in Israel's past, in Israel's story, where the birth of a child to a young woman—maybe a princess, maybe the Prophet's wife…it's not clear—but where the birth of this child signalled that God was about to act to deliver his people.  Matthew latched onto that.  This is how God works, but this time—in the birth of Jesus—it's not just a young woman, it's an actual virgin, and this time God's not just delivering his people from a foreign king; this time it's deliverance from sin and death.  Matthew recognised the motif in the music.  It was there in Isaiah's day, a lone violin telling a story that most people missed, but in the birth of Jesus that motif returned, and this time the whole symphony was playing it. Stephen's drawing on the story of Moses the same way.  Moses was rejected by his own people.  A repeating theme in the story that the Sanhedrin—people who know this story, know this symphony so well already—a theme they ought now to see plain as day in what happened to Jesus.  It should be obvious.  They were the ones playing the instruments this time, after all. And then, third, Stephen stresses how through Moses, the God of glory, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God Israel had known for two thousand years, had revealed himself in a new way that no one had expected.  Look at verse 30: “After another forty years, an angel appeared to him in the desert at Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.  When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the vision.  But, as he came closer to see, there came the voice of the Lord: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.'  Moses was very frightened, and didn't dare to look.  But the Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.  I have looked long and hard at the trouble my people are having in Egypt. I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them.  So, come on now: I'm going to send you to Egypt.'” Stephen wants to be clear—and we see this all through early Christian preaching—the God revealed in Jesus the Messiah is not new.  He is the same God who has been directing this story, this symphony from the beginning.  This is the God of their fathers, the God who has been rescuing his people according to his promises for two thousand years.  The God they know.  The God whose character and ways they ought to have recognised in Jesus. Yes, Stephen's saying, Jesus was not what we expected.  In Jesus—and now in the Spirit—God is doing something amazing, something astounding, something new.  And that's why you rejected him.  But knowing the story, knowing the music, we should have expected God would do precisely this: something new, something wild, something we didn't expect.  Because the story is already full of episodes where God does just that.  No one, least of all Moses, exiled to the wilderness, tending his father-in-law's sheep—expected the burning bush.  And yet in that moment, heaven and earth came back together, God spoke, a man was called, and the world was never the same again. And Stephen's point is this: You can't predict the unexpected thing that God will do; but you can be sure—because the story is full of such moments—that God does act unexpectedly to do the things he's promised and that we expect, the very things in which we hope. Holy ground, for example, was something Stephen and his fellow Jews understood.  The temple was holy ground.  It was where heaven and earth met.  But it wasn't the end-all-be-all of holy grounds.  It began at Mt. Sinai—not in Isreal, but in the wilderness—where God met Moses in the burning bush, where the plan to rescue Isreal from her bondage began.  When the Israelites built the tabernacle and the cloud of God's glory descended to fill it, God upstaged what he'd done at the burning bush.  And then again, with the temple.  As if it were the strings playing the motif at the burning bush, and in Exodus 40 as God's glory fills the holy of holies, the woodwinds join them.  And the music was good and it was beautiful, but the Sanhedrin should now be hearing that same motif as, in Jesus and the Spirit the whole symphony comes together to play.  Stephen isn't disparaging Moses.  He's not blaspheming the law or the temple.  He's saying, “Can't you hear it?  Their beautiful theme is now being woven into something far grander and played by the whole symphony.  The motifs have been there all along, the story has always been told this way.  Don't plug your ears to this new thing.  Listen.  And hear how it's taken up all the old themes into something that is nothing short of glorifying to the conductor, to the God of glory. That's as far as we have time to go this morning.  Like I said, Acts 7 is long and there's a lot to unpack.  But I think the great take-away for us from this part—in addition to learning to hear the great story of God and his people—I think the most important thing here is to know that God really does do new and unexpected things.  As we get to know the story, we ought to expect for God to do the unexpected, for God to do new things that upstage what he's done in the past.  And yet, the story also emphatically tells us that as much as God does new things and upstages the things he's done before, those new things are always in keeping with what he's done before.  The past always points to the future and the future never undermines the past.  As the writer of Hebrews tells us, “God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”  We live in an age where too many people are ready to do something new themselves—something that breaks from what or how God has already revealed himself, something that breaks from or that disparages or that blasphemes God's past actions or his past instructions—they take this new human thing and declared that God is doing a new thing.  Andy Stanley saying we need to unhitch from the Old Testament so that God can do something new.  No!  Churches embracing sexual immorality and post-modern notions of identity and sexuality and family and marriage and then saying, “See, God is doing a new thing!”  A thousand times, no!  Brothers and Sisters, the theme of the story, the key of the symphony doesn't change.  God does new things, but those new things follow from what God's already done.  On the other hand—and I think it's mostly in response to all the proclamation of “new things” that aren't godly at all—on the other hand, we can become too fearful, too conservative and we can end up where the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Essenes were: locked down, afraid of the new, and turning away from burning bushes, and unwilling to go where God is actually leading. This why we need to steep ourselves in the story.  This why we need to immerse ourselves in the great symphony and to let the music wash over and through us.  Brothers and Sisters, we need to know the themes and the motifs, to learn the key in which God is playing, to be intimately familiar with how they interact, weaving around and through each other, so that as the story continues to unfold, as the symphony bursts into new movements, we can hear God bringing those old familiar themes to new heights, while also being able to recognise when a different story is being told, or a different symphony is being played.  I've said over and over, Brothers and Sisters: God's word is life.  Know, meditate on it, let it mould you, and then let it pour forth from you to give life to others. Let's pray: Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things:  Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, July 5, 2026, sixth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series. Texts: Jeremiah 22:13–16; Luke 14:12–24   This weekend our nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. This is an occasion for celebration. It's also an invitation to reflection. Moments like this invite us to look backward with gratitude, to look honestly at who we have become, and to consider what kind of future is still possible. This year those reflections seem incredibly important. Ours is a nation of extraordinary gifts and extraordinary contradictions. We inherit remarkable democratic ideals alongside a history that has too often failed to live up to them. We are living through another season when many of us are deeply concerned about our common life. Because our nation is broken. We see division deepen, neighbors dehumanized, militarism, cruelty and violence normalized, power abused for personal gain, and disregard for the rule of law. Perhaps you'd describe our situation differently, but I can't imagine anyone would argue that everything's OK. And while it doesn't make it any better, I think it's helpful to remember that what's happening in our nation and world right now has happened many times before. If the prophet Jeremiah were to wander into our capital city he would feel right at home—surely to his dismay. Let me explain by telling you a story. Jeremiah is preaching in the final decades before Jerusalem falls to Babylon. Assyria has collapsed. Egypt and Babylon are competing for power. Judah is caught in the middle. The world order is shifting dramatically and it is a time of profound national anxiety—about security, identity, economic stability, and the future. In our text, Jeremiah is speaking not to the people, but specifically to the king, Jehoiakim. And he's none too pleased with what is happening. But to understand why you need some backstory. Jehoiakim's father, Josiah, had been one of Judah's finest kings. He wasn't perfect, but he loved God, took the covenant and the laws established during Moses' time seriously, and sought to govern with justice. As Jeremiah remembers him, he “judged the cause of the poor and needy.” Then Josiah died unexpectedly on the battlefield. It was a devastating national loss. The future suddenly felt uncertain. Egypt quickly asserted control over Judah, deposing one of Josiah's sons and installing another—Eliakim, whose name Pharaoh changed to Jehoiakim (a classic power play). Jehoiakim wasn't in an enviable position. He was set up to do the bidding of Pharoah, required to pay tribute, and anxious about survival for himself and his people. Maybe it was the pressure or maybe it was pure opportunism, but Jehoiakim made a choice. Rather than “judging the cause of the poor an needy,” he consolidated power, exploited labor, and built a magnificent cedar palace as a symbol of royal prestige. Jeremiah looked at that palace and didn't celebrate its magnificence but instead says, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness...” He asked a different question than everyone else. Not, “Isn't it impressive?” but, “How did it get built? Who paid the price? Who was harmed in the process?” And then this: “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness?” This may seem a random question, but it reveals that Jeremiah's critique isn't about having wealth or a comfortable life. In other words, Josiah wasn't a monk. He enjoyed the ordinary gifts of life. The difference isn't that one king denied himself while the other indulged himself. The difference is that one understood leadership as doing justice and practicing right relationship, while the other understood leadership as entitlement. One king governed as someone who knew God, while the other governed as though power itself could save him. Jeremiah continues, clarifying his critique: “Your father judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. ‘Is not this to know me?' says the Lord.  But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.” Again, the question Jeremiah asks it key: “Is not this to know me?” If someone asked you to finish the sentence, “To know God is...” what would you say? To worship regularly? To believe the right things? To pray? I imagine all of those can be valid answers. But Jeremiah offers this: to know God is to set your eyes and your heart on what God cares about; to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable, to use power wisely, generously, and compassionately, to treat workers with fairness, to do justice. Is not this to know me? In every age there is a dominant story about what will make things in your life “well.” There are temptations and pressures to sacrifice the good of the “we” for the benefit of only “me.” And in every age, God's faithful are called to offer a counter-testimony. And just to finish storytelling time, Jehoiakim made his choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try to make himself and Judah look strong. He builds his palace, projects confidence, accumulates wealth, uses forced labor. But within about twenty years, Jerusalem is destroyed. His dishonest gain and self-serving choices did not make things well. The palace doesn't save anybody—not the nation and certainly not the people. Jeremiah saw that writing on the wall. And his message to the king is one we need to hear again and again: A society cannot create security—a nation will never be great—while abandoning God's call to compassion and justice. There is no separating our love of God from care of our common life. John Wesley would agree wholeheartedly. He insisted there is no holiness but social holiness. He didn't mean that we're saved by activism. He meant what we discussed last week: that grace blesses me AND creates “we,” forgives me and sends “us.” Ours is not a private practice. Grace always creates community, reshapes relationships, and spills over into the way we use money, exercise power, welcome neighbors, and seek the common good. Personal holiness overflows into public holiness. That's one of the gifts of being United Methodist. Our tradition has never imagined that following Jesus ends at the sanctuary door. For more than fifty years we've had something called the Social Principles—not as a substitute for Scripture or as a party platform, but as a guide for Christian moral discernment. They are our denomination's attempt to ask, together, “What does faithful discipleship look like in the complexities of modern life?” And in 2024, our worldwide church thoroughly revised them. That revision wasn't simply updating language. It reflects the wisdom of the faithful from our whole denomination—disciples from Africa, Europe, the Philippines, the United States, and beyond—asking together how the Gospel speaks into economics, creation care, technology, war and peace, migration, human dignity, and public life. The principles guide our action and advocacy, but we don't pretend every faithful Christian will reach identical conclusions about every public question. We also refuse to pretend that the Gospel has nothing to say about public life. Our United Methodist Social Principles remind us we don't have to figure all this out alone. We inherit Scripture. We inherit tradition. We inherit the wisdom of Christians around the world. All helping us answer Jeremiah's question: What does it mean to know God? Jeremiah says that to know God is to care about what and who God cares about. Again and again Jesus shows us how to live that. He sits down at tables with all kinds of people. And in today' Gospel, while dining with a prominent Pharisee, he quietly begins rearranging everyone's assumptions about belonging. “Don't invite only the people who can return the favor,” he says. “Invite those who cannot repay you.” Then he tells a story about a banquet where the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. ...the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. The table is big enough. Grace is abundant enough. And everyone—from the richest to the poorest, from stranger to friend—is invited to be filled. And then things are well. As we celebrate our nation's birthday, the question before us is not simply what kind of nation we want to be, but what kind of people God is calling us to become. Christians have always loved their country best not by confusing it with God's reign, but by measuring every nation—including our own—against God's justice, God's compassion, and God's welcome. So we keep listening for Jeremiah's question, “Is not this to know me?” And we keep allowing Jesus to reshape our imagination around his table where there is always another place and the invitation keeps reaching farther than anyone expected. Friends, we're about to come to that table. Every time we gather here, we embody a different story from the one our world tells. The world teaches us to ask: Who deserves a place? Who has earned it? Who belongs? Jesus asks different questions: Who still needs an invitation? How can we make more room? And then he places bread in our hands and sends us back into the world to live the answer. Amen.   + + + Sending: This week, take one faithful public step. Maybe it is serving. Maybe it is giving. Maybe it is speaking up for someone whose voice is overlooked. Maybe it's inviting someone who wouldn't expect an invitation. Maybe it is reading a section of the Social Principles and asking where they challenge or deepen your own thinking. Not because the church is trying to tell you what to think, but because discipleship asks us to think faithfully about the world God loves. Just take one step. Because that's where holiness always begins. God in peace and power…

Who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus? Did the Exodus Account Actually Really Happen? Could the Bible's account of the Exodus be historically accurate? Is there archaeological evidence to support it? In this episode of the Bible and Theology Matters Podcast, Dr. Paul Weaver sits down with biblical archaeologist Dr. Titus Kennedy to examine the biblical chronology, archaeological discoveries, and historical evidence surrounding one of Scripture's most debated events: the Exodus. Drawing from both Scripture and archaeology, Dr. Kennedy presents a compelling case for a 1446 BC Exodus and identifies Amenhotep II as the most likely Pharaoh of the Exodus. This conversation explores key biblical passages, Egyptian chronology, archaeological discoveries, and the evidence supporting the historical reliability of the Old Testament. Whether you're interested in biblical archaeology, apologetics, or defending the historicity of Scripture, this episode provides thoughtful, evidence-based answers.In This Episode:-Why 1 Kings 6:1 points to a 1446 BC Exodus-How Judges 11, Acts 13, and Galatians 3 confirm the biblical chronology -Early Date vs. Late Date Exodus: What's the evidence? -Why many scholars reject a symbolic reading of the 480 years -The challenges of Egyptian chronology -Why Amenhotep II best fits the biblical description of the Pharaoh of the Exodus -The significance of the Sphinx Dream Stele-The mystery of Prince Webensenu and Amenhotep II's tomb-Archaeological evidence supporting the biblical account -Why Ramesses II is unlikely to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus -How archaeology strengthens confidence in the historical reliability of Scripture About OurGuest Dr. Titus Kennedy is a biblical archaeologist, author, professor, and field archaeologist who has participated in numerous excavations throughout the Middle East. His research focuses on demonstrating the historical reliability of the Bible through archaeology and ancient history.Resources Mentioned

As the story of Joseph and his family continues, Jacob and his sons are introduced to Pharoah and met with favor. Throughout the famine, Joseph is able to feed them. Jacob is now 147 and prospering, but he knows the end is drawing near so he asks Joseph to bury him in Canaan.

Dr. Gloria Roorda explores a deep cut from the Hebrew Bible as she invites us to encounter Shiphrah and Puah, Egyptian midwives, who defied the Pharoah's command to kill all newborn Hebrew baby boys. Speaker: Dr. Gloria Roorda Part of the series “My Side of the River: An Artisan Spring Read”

(Exodus 8:20-32) Everyone gets it except for Pharoah. Moses, the Israelites , the magicians. Everyone wants God's mercy, but one man's heart is too hard.

“Rags to riches” is how Dr. McGee describes this portion of our study. Last time we saw Joseph, he was still in prison. But as God's hand continues to move in his life, Pharoah begins to have dreams, and none of his magicians or wise men can interpret them. Suddenly the butler remembers Joseph and tells Pharoah. Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dreams, tells him about the upcoming years of plenty vs. famine, and Joseph is made overseer of all Egypt.

God's plan and purpose for our lives isn't always what we'd choose, but He is always faithful. That's the lesson we'll learn as we continue to follow the life of Joseph. We pick up as Joseph is sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharoah. While overseeing Potiphar's house, Potiphar's wife tries to seduce him. Although Joseph refuses, the woman covers up her own sin by framing Joseph. As our study closes, Joseph is thrown in jail.

One of the greatest stories ever told was told in the Bible.    It's in Genesis.    A story about a man named Joseph, not Jesus' Earthly Dad, but another Joseph.    A pair of brothers sell their brother Joseph into slavery to a man named Potiphar.    Joseph gains favor with Potiphar and works in the house.    Potiphar's wife asks Joseph to take her to bed, and he refuses.    She rips her clothes and Joseph is taken into custody on her accusation.    Long story short, he interprets a dream for a Pharoah and is liberated.    Out of this story comes my favorite word to this day.    Listen for the lesson.    About the ReWire Podcast   The ReWire Podcast with Ryan Stewman – Dive into powerful insights as Ryan Stewman, the HardCore Closer, breaks down mental barriers and shares actionable steps to rewire your thoughts. Each episode is a fast-paced journey designed to reshape your mindset, align your actions, and guide you toward becoming the best version of yourself. Join in for a daily dose of real talk that empowers you to embrace change and unlock your full potential.    Learn how you can become a member of a powerful community consistently rewiring itself for success at https://www.jointheapex.com/   Rise Above 

01. Joja - Simple 02. Bass On High - Airstatic 03. Foor, Maddy Lucas - Off My Face 04. Icons - Heavy Rain 05. Jayfor - Ayla 06. Skepsis, Doktor, Tony Perry - Arctic (England Edit) 07. Fred V & Grafix - Rain Is Falling 08. Feed The Fire - Favourites 09. Razer Stil - Get Loud 10. Drz - Like U 11. Davip, Darkiria - Potop 12. Simmer - Higher 13. Osgd, Desh - Bohong Bohong 14. Flowidus, Harlee - Midnight Sound 15. Floonk - Be Alright 16. Jrace & Albert White - Universe (feat. Eda Hinkova) 17. Marie Vaunt - That Acid (Dimension & Subsonic Remix) 18. Daymu - Caught Me 19. Ryan Audley, Nuwei - Pepa 20. Yo Speed - Muita (Vizzen Remix) 21. Gaja - Body Move 22. Krasia, Reconnect - Evolution 23. Mxtr - Get Out My Mind 24. Detch, Rerun - Get Down 25. Fractalone - Beyond The Pale 26. Tantron, Wiguez, Moneo - ICARUS 27. Mizo - Fatum 28. Nemean - The Torrent (Redpill Remix) 29. Tesseracts - DERBY 30. Prolix, Pengshui - Deep In The Grave 31. Indy Skies, Augvst - Burn 32. Jape, Dnb Doctor - Bassline Pressure 33. Alex Physalis - Pressure 34. The Clamps - Click Clack (Burr Oak Remix) 35. Jirobass - SHOGI SHOGI 36. Cockroach - Count To Elevate 37. Prfct Mandem - Jungle is Massive (Jade Venom Remix) 38. Durability - Panagea 39. Unknown Being - Struggle 40. Gridoptic - Biospace 41. Canis X Sirius - Animal 42. Exit4 - Boost 43. Mountain, B - Line - Pressure 44. Macky Gee, Kritikal - Here For You 45. Tomoyoshi - Fake News 46. DJ Marnel - Not Talk 47. Tom Finster, Cuepric, Novalu - Left Room 48. Malinoviy John - Jazzatron 49. Yatuza - Continuum 50. Milzee - Gritty 51. Anaïs, Lawdgad - Badgyal Ting 52. Untrue - The Dreams 53. Jam Thieves - Hello Habib 54. Ggrossy - Sabotage 55. Yussi, Madrush Mc - Tekala 56. Atmos - Never 57. Heist - Observe Our Rules 58. Rollz Royz - Delusion 59. Kolyahorosh - Darkness 60. Sonic Trace - 3 Seconds Window 61. Gardna, Shapes - Snakes & Ladders 62. Subscript, Cosmo - Solid State 63. Pharoah, Silloh - Street Minds 64. Karabin, Rider Shafique - Delusional 65. Azur - Obedient 66. Sigma, Dutch & Graft, Professor Green - NEED YOU NOW 67. Crate Classics - RUDE BOY SOUND (DJ HYPE & HEIST REMIX) 68. Conrad Subs - Cornerstone 69. Shogun - Shaolin Monkey Fist 70. Garrett Jr. - It Flows Through 71. Blix, Dauntless - Riot 72. Djss - Darkside Soldier 73. Dr Meaker .cappo D,rebelstxr &xrusade - OBAYALO (SON,KRAVTIZ&DR MEAKER REMIX) 74. Jungle Jim - Lights in the Sky 75. Digital, Charla Green - Love Inna Di Neighbourhood 76. Reaubeau, Nymfo - Don't Look Back (feat. Daisy Pring) [GANZ Remix] 77. Lenzman - Pin Destroy 78. Nasz - Clear My Mind 79. Dilemma, Winslow, T.r.a.c. - Vibe Check 80. Astran - Inside Out 81. Drumagick - Beautiful Love 82. Unknown Artist - Tommy's Diner 83. Virtue - If You Don't 84. Msdos - Bossa Nights 85. Kuttin Edge, Fox - Catch Flight 86. Fonts - All Good, Alright?

(Exodus 7:1-13) Moses and Aaron stand before Pharoah once again, and it's not going to go the way Pharoah thinks it's going.

What if the pyramid isn't the machine?What if the true design of Giza lies hidden in the plateau itself?For centuries, the pyramids of Giza have been studied as isolated monuments—tombs, symbols, or feats of ancient engineering. Yet key features remain unresolved: the subterranean chamber deep below, the purpose of the Well Shaft, hidden internal voids, and the precise relationship between structure and bedrock.What if these are not separate mysteries—but parts of a single system?The Giza System introduces a new perspective: that the function of Giza may not reside in the pyramid alone, but in what is concealed beneath and surrounding it. It proposes that the plateau itself may have been architecturally engineered to interact with water, integrating stone, elevation, and flow into a unified design.In this view, familiar features begin to shift in meaning—less as isolated spaces, more as elements within a larger process. Subsurface chambers, internal pathways, and surrounding geology suggest coordination, not coincidence.Elevation becomes critical.Position, depth, and relationship begin to matter in ways often overlooked.At the same time, the model opens a broader question: whether architecture and cosmology were conceived together—echoing the ancient concept of Nun, the primordial waters—not only symbolically, but functionally. In this light, traditional interpretations need not be discarded; funerary purpose and hydraulic design may coexist within the same architecture, serving layered roles rather than a single explanation.This is not a claim of lost technology—but a reframing of what may already be present.Drawing on architectural observation, geological context, and comparisons with other ancient sites, The Giza System outlines a model that is both grounded and testable—one that invites exploration rather than final answers.If this perspective is correct, then Giza was not built simply to endure.It may have been designed to operate.And what has been hidden in plain sight… may have been there by design.Brian Pharoah is a Canadian architectural designer with over 35 years of experience in residential design and construction, specializing in large custom luxury homes across Canada. Trained in classical architecture, his work is grounded in geometry, proportion, and the relationship between structure and environment. He approaches design as a disciplined process of visualizing and constructing space through measurement, mathematics, and three-dimensional reasoning.He is the author of two books on the Oak Island mystery, exploring themes of sacred geometry, numerical systems, and the possibility of encoded knowledge within historical structures. His work investigates how underlying mathematical principles—often described as Logos—may inform both architectural form and cultural symbolism.Over the past decade, Brian has extended this architectural approach to the study of ancient megalithic sites, with a particular focus on the Giza Plateau. His research examines the pyramids and surrounding structures not as isolated monuments, but as components of a coordinated landscape shaped by elevation, geology, and groundwater conditions. Through analysis of structural alignments, chamber elevations, and subsurface features, he explores the possibility that water played a fundamental role in the design and organization of the site.Rather than opposing traditional interpretations, Brian's work seeks to expand them—exploring how architecture, environmental forces, and ancient Egyptian cosmology, including concepts such as Nun, Osiris, and rebirth, may operate together within a unified framework. His research integrates architectural analysis with archaeological and geological data, offering a new perspective on how physical processes and symbolic meaning may intersect at Giza.Brian has been featured on The Curse of Oak Island and has appeared on multiple podcasts discussing his research. He is the author of The Giza System, a comprehensive architectural study presenting this evolving interpretation of the Giza Plateau.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.

"We Build Strong Families"Joshua 24:15The Church Series - Part 4 - The Most Important System of GovernancePastor Nate ClarkeMay 17, 2026Virginia's proposed Constitutional amendments on Abortion & Marriage - How to VOTE BIBLICALLY: https://youtu.be/Y8z8xTFsOn8How should Christians respond to wickedness in the world? https://youtu.be/2OJUIM9YRwASERMON NOTES:- Our Vision: Worship God, Equip the believers, Reach the lost- Our Values: Grounded in His Word, Guided by His Presence, Building Strong Families, and Fulfilling the Great Commission- Joshua 24:15- We build strong families- Systems of governance: The family (Eph 5), the Church (Eph 4), the government (Rom 13)- "Peace in society depends upon peace in the family." Saint Augustine- Your family story is not the obstacle to God's plan, it is often the setting for it.- Natural Families      - God ordained & designed: husband + wife = children.- Genesis 1:27-28- Genesis 2:24- Deuteronomy 6:6-9- "When parents receive a child from the hand of God, they receive a life to be shaped and molded." Elisabeth Elliot     - Example: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus- Broken families     - Example: Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37)     - God's plan is not hindered by man's dysfunction (Genesis 50:20)- Blended families     - Example: Jacob, Leah, Rachel (Genesis 29-30)     - God works even in complicated family systems - Adopted families     - Example: Moses & Pharoah's daughter (Exodus 2)      - God used his adoption to position him with influence and access that he would use to deliver Israel- Restored families     - Example: Prodigal son (Luke 15)     - God can redeem any situation- Spiritual family     - Example: Jesus and his disciples- Mark 3:31-35- Ephesians 1:5 NLT- Romans 8:15 NLT     - Because God is a provider, what you lacked in your natural family, God can give you in your spiritual family.- Your family story is not the obstacle to God's plan, it's often the setting for it.- Joshua 24:15bOasis Church exists to Worship God, Equip the believers, and Reach the lost.We are led by Pastor Nate Clarke and are located in Mechanicsville outside Richmond in Central Virginia.STAY CONNECTEDInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/oasischurchva/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OasisChurchRVA/Website: https://oasischurch.online

01. Joja - Simple 02. Bass On High - Airstatic 03. Foor, Maddy Lucas - Off My Face 04. Icons - Heavy Rain 05. Jayfor - Ayla 06. Skepsis, Doktor, Tony Perry - Arctic (England Edit) 07. Fred V & Grafix - Rain Is Falling 08. Feed The Fire - Favourites 09. Razer Stil - Get Loud 10. Drz - Like U 11. Davip, Darkiria - Potop 12. Simmer - Higher 13. Osgd, Desh - Bohong Bohong 14. Flowidus, Harlee - Midnight Sound 15. Floonk - Be Alright 16. Jrace & Albert White - Universe (feat. Eda Hinkova) 17. Marie Vaunt - That Acid (Dimension & Subsonic Remix) 18. Daymu - Caught Me 19. Ryan Audley, Nuwei - Pepa 20. Yo Speed - Muita (Vizzen Remix) 21. Gaja - Body Move 22. Krasia, Reconnect - Evolution 23. Mxtr - Get Out My Mind 24. Detch, Rerun - Get Down 25. Fractalone - Beyond The Pale 26. Tantron, Wiguez, Moneo - ICARUS 27. Mizo - Fatum 28. Nemean - The Torrent (Redpill Remix) 29. Tesseracts - DERBY 30. Prolix, Pengshui - Deep In The Grave 31. Indy Skies, Augvst - Burn 32. Jape, Dnb Doctor - Bassline Pressure 33. Alex Physalis - Pressure 34. The Clamps - Click Clack (Burr Oak Remix) 35. Jirobass - SHOGI SHOGI 36. Cockroach - Count To Elevate 37. Prfct Mandem - Jungle is Massive (Jade Venom Remix) 38. Durability - Panagea 39. Unknown Being - Struggle 40. Gridoptic - Biospace 41. Canis X Sirius - Animal 42. Exit4 - Boost 43. Mountain, B - Line - Pressure 44. Macky Gee, Kritikal - Here For You 45. Tomoyoshi - Fake News 46. DJ Marnel - Not Talk 47. Tom Finster, Cuepric, Novalu - Left Room 48. Malinoviy John - Jazzatron 49. Yatuza - Continuum 50. Milzee - Gritty 51. Anaïs, Lawdgad - Badgyal Ting 52. Untrue - The Dreams 53. Jam Thieves - Hello Habib 54. Ggrossy - Sabotage 55. Yussi, Madrush Mc - Tekala 56. Atmos - Never 57. Heist - Observe Our Rules 58. Rollz Royz - Delusion 59. Kolyahorosh - Darkness 60. Sonic Trace - 3 Seconds Window 61. Gardna, Shapes - Snakes & Ladders 62. Subscript, Cosmo - Solid State 63. Pharoah, Silloh - Street Minds 64. Karabin, Rider Shafique - Delusional 65. Azur - Obedient 66. Sigma, Dutch & Graft, Professor Green - NEED YOU NOW 67. Crate Classics - RUDE BOY SOUND (DJ HYPE & HEIST REMIX) 68. Conrad Subs - Cornerstone 69. Shogun - Shaolin Monkey Fist 70. Garrett Jr. - It Flows Through 71. Blix, Dauntless - Riot 72. Djss - Darkside Soldier 73. Dr Meaker .cappo D,rebelstxr &xrusade - OBAYALO (SON,KRAVTIZ&DR MEAKER REMIX) 74. Jungle Jim - Lights in the Sky 75. Digital, Charla Green - Love Inna Di Neighbourhood 76. Reaubeau, Nymfo - Don't Look Back (feat. Daisy Pring) [GANZ Remix] 77. Lenzman - Pin Destroy 78. Nasz - Clear My Mind 79. Dilemma, Winslow, T.r.a.c. - Vibe Check 80. Astran - Inside Out 81. Drumagick - Beautiful Love 82. Unknown Artist - Tommy's Diner 83. Virtue - If You Don't 84. Msdos - Bossa Nights 85. Kuttin Edge, Fox - Catch Flight 86. Fonts - All Good, Alright?

We explore the intricate story of Joseph. From being a favorite son to a slave and then a prisoner. Despite his hardships, God remains with him, empowering him to interpret dreams. This dream interpretations gives him an audience with Pharoah, to whom Joseph gives grave news.Support the showRead along with us in the Bible Brief App! Try the Bible Brief book for an offline experience!Get your free Bible Timeline with the 10 Steps: Timeline LinkSupport the show: Tap here to become a monthly supporter!Review the show: Tap here!Want to go deeper?...Download the Bible Brief App!iPhone: App Store LinkAndroid: Play Store LinkWant a physical book? Check out "Bible Brief" by our founder!Amazon: Amazon LinkWebsite: biblebrief.orgInstagram: @realbiblebriefX: @biblebriefFacebook: @realbiblebriefEmail the Show: biblebrief@biblelit.orgWant to learn the Bible languages (Greek & Hebrew)? Check out our partner Biblingo (and use our link/code for a discount!): https://biblin...

This week, we kick off our month of celebrating moms with a new series: “Mothers of the Bible.” Today we're looking at the life of Jochebed, a woman who faced unimaginable fear and made an unthinkable choice to save her son. Through her story, Karen and Emily unpack what it looks like to do our best for our kids and trust God with the rest. If you've ever struggled to let go, this conversation will meet you right where you are. Episode Recap:We're kicking off a new series by looking at the lives of some mothers in the Bible (0:49)Jochebed was Moses' mom (2:00)She did everything in her power to keep Moses alive (4:10)God enabled Jochebed to nurse Moses after his adoption by Pharoah's daughter (8:00)Jochebed did everything she could and left the rest up to God (9:50)Jochebed was not Moses' savior (10:20)Only God can reach our children's hearts (10:55)Let go of your need to be a perfect parent (11:35) Children are a blessing - try not to hoard the blessing (15:05)Scripture: Psalm 56:3 (NIV) “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”Discussion Questions: Where in your parenting are you trying to “be the savior” instead of trusting God?What does it look like practically to “open your hands” and give your children back to God each day?How can you balance doing your part as a parent while still surrendering outcomes to the Lord?In what ways might striving for “perfect parenting” be keeping you from trusting God more deeply?Resources:Register for the SOAR Conference today. Become a WT+ Insider today! boaw.mom/insiderPick up Karen's Prayer Journal in the BOAW StoreWant More of This Conversation?In Wire Talk+, Karen and Emily go deeper into real-life parenting moments, sharing honest stories about when letting go has been hardest for them and how they navigated situations they couldn't fix for their kids.Head HERE and join us for the full conversation.

When Joseph became vizier of Egypt, second only to Pharoah and wearing his ring of authority, he also got a new name that doesn't exactly roll off our English-speaking tongues. It is Zaphnath-paaneah and what it lacks in clarity, it more than makes up in its meaning which is “savior of the world.” Yes, his starving family will come from Canaan, hoping to buy the corn that Joseph has stored in Egypt, but his name signifies even more than that.

Dr. Krystal Pierce continues examining Exodus 1-6, revealing how God meets Moses in his self-doubt and demonstrates divine power over both Pharoah and fear.YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/HI8v2xRYxf4ALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIM.coFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookBook of Mormon: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastBMBook  WEEKLY NEWSLETTER https://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletter  SOCIAL MEDIA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE:00:00 Part 2 - Dr. Krystal Pierce02:18 B.H. Roberts's future05:12 A perfect description of God07:31 Meaning of “pharoah”09:01 Pharoah is going to refuse11:26 God reassures Moses13:13 Moses's staff and the symbolism of a snake17:14 Skin diseases20:35 Aaron as spokesperson23:29 Anger or rapid breathing?26:14 A miraculous story and a strange visitor31:52 God sends help in the form of other people34:00 Israel is God's “firstborn”36:23 Covenantal bonds and cutting40:46 Zipporah and “cutting” a covenant43:58 Zipporah helps save her family46:02 Moses and Aaron reunite48:01 Who is Jehovah?50:30 Bricks without straw54:00 Things get worse for Israel56:39 Remember, remember, remember59:29 It is about redemption1:02:59 Crushed, dust, and the Potter1:06:59 Only Jesus can save1:09:17 Four themes and testimony of Jesus Christ1:12:55  End of Part 2 - Dr. Krystal PierceThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsAmelia Kabwika: Portuguese TranscriptsHeather Barlow: Communications DirectorSydney Smith: Social Media, Graphic Design "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com