So we're going to start Exodus chapter 1 now.
These are the names of the children of Israel who came to
Egypt. Each man in his household came
with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun,
Benjamin, Dan, Nathalie, Asher. All those who were descendants
of Jacob were 70 and Joseph was in Egypt already and Joseph died
and his brothers and all that generation.
So Lord, I just lift up this time and the study.
Lord, just Lord, just introduce yourself to us.
I know that I know that we know you.
I know that there are there are many in this room that spend
time with you that are filled with your spirit Lord, that just
hang out with you every day. But Lord, there's so much more
to you than we can know on this earth.
And Lord, that you would just continue to grow our knowledge
of you and continue to to just shine light and Lord, that you
would continue to correct our thinking and our our ways of
doing things. Lord, as as we as we submit our
control, the controls of our lives over to you.
I just pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.
So my corny title once again, but I think this one actually is
pretty good is trust the driver. And Faye has a hard time with
that one. Not really, but she loves it
when I'm driving. She's not up here.
So I can say that no. So in he.
So we're going to get into a little bit of the introduction
of Hebrew or of of Exodus. Exodus just in the, in the
Hebrews, because they didn't have, you know, we added
chapters and verses to make it easier to find things in the
Bible. And how the Hebrews kept track
of things in the Bible is they would just memorize them as they
were memorizing the, the chapter or, or the the book or the Psalm
or the Proverb, they would just remember the beginning of it.
So what they would call Exodus is now these are the names and
that's their way. That was their way of keeping
track of it. But the, the Hebrews, because
we're, we're spoiled, we all walk around with, with Bibles of
some kind, right? And we have in America
especially, there's probably more than one Bible in your
house, right? Well, they didn't, they didn't
have that luxury. You know, they're on scrolls.
They were at the synagogue. So they memorized whole chunks
of the Bible and one of those places that we can look back on
and, and, and just dwell on the, the idea of it.
So imagine 2000 years ago on a hill in, in just outside of
Jerusalem, hearing a guy that you're mocking say, my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? And that's, that's Jesus's words
on the cross right now. If you're, if you're a Jew and,
and you knew your Bible and you'd memorized it and you're
standing there and you listen to a guy that you're, that you're
mocking and he, he cries out these words that King David
wrote 1000 years earlier. Well, you know that Psalm
because you're, you've memorized it.
And you get to verse 16 of that song.
And it says in Psalm 22, verse 16, it says for the dogs
surround me, the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me.
They Pierce my hands and my feet, I count all my bones, they
look and stare at me. They divide my garments among
them. And for my clothes they cast
lots. And So what does that have to do
with the introduction to Exodus? So I tell you that the reason
that we believe the Bible is numerous reasons, but one of the
reasons that we can share with the doubters of the world is, is
things like that. So that was written.
And if you read Psalm 22 and you go from the beginning to the
end, it is a it is a straightforward prophecy of
Jesus dying on the cross. And it is it is prophetic in
ways Jesus had no control over how he died.
I shouldn't the the man Jesus God obviously did.
But those are hard things to, you know, to get guys to, Hey,
could you cast lots for my clothes?
So this lines up, you know, can you Pierce my hands and feet?
Don't break any of my bones, right.
This isn't something that this this was something that we can
look back on. I mean, if I read, if I read
Psalm 22 to the general public that that was raised in in
America and knows Jesus died on the cross and I read it to him,
90% of them are going to tell you that it's written in the New
Testament, right? Nobody.
Nobody thinks that. Because it is that.
Clear and so something that as we're going through Exodus just
know that that this is proven right.
This is this is solid because anytime we look at the Old
Testament, all those smart people show up and they start
they start coming up with, yeah, it couldn't mean that it didn't
say that. That isn't what they meant.
And I love God's sense of humor because over the years,
Margaret, modern archaeology have come at the Bible and known
that that it was wrong and they went about to prove it.
And they have been made to look like fools over and over and
over again. And, and I say that not not
because I'm mocking them, but it's because if it's how we, how
we as believers need to approach the Bible, we are not over it.
It is over us. And the when they come at the
Bible, they think they're the smart one in the room, right.
And over the years, some places that they knew that they knew
the Bible was wrong. So once they thought the Hittite
Empire didn't exist and they, they mocked the Bible.
It was made-up place, made-up, made-up people.
And then they, then they found an entire, an entire, they, they
dug up an entire empire that was the Hittite empire and proved
it. The Tildan stone that mentions
the House of David. David proved that David existed.
And before that they just thought he was a myth.
He never existed. A stone that proves Pontius
Pilate was a real Roman leader once again, something they said
was just made-up in the Bible. And then Belshazzar was the
ruler of Babylon. And they, they stood, they stood
opposed to that for years. And then they found a, a stone
that that listed him as the, the Regent in that air in, in over
Babylon during that time. And they're like, oh, I guess it
worked. You know, I would say we were
talking about it before the service today.
When I look back at the Bible and it says something happened,
it's easy for me to go and this is how that happened, right?
You know, I look at you know what I've talked about it before
about Jesus and pre Jesus coming, you know, the Messiah,
the Messiah. There was some prophecies about
him that are pretty straightforward.
He was going to be born in Bethlehem.
He was going to be a Nazarene and he was going to come out of
Egypt. And anybody pre Jesus would have
looked, looked at those and went, well, those contradict
each other. Which one is it?
Well, it's all three, right? And from this side I can look
back and tell you that. So all that to say, as we go
through Exodus, it is not a course.
It will not be a course of us going well, did he really mean
that? Did he really say that it's
going to be a course of that's what happened.
How do I apply it? You know, the the smart people
of the world, if they would come at the Bible with the attitude
of how did God make that happen or how did God do that?
They would they would have much better luck than how they come
at it all the time is how can I prove it didn't?
How can I prove that I am smarter than the people that
wrote that down? And anytime we come at the Bible
like I'm the smart one in the room, we are then we're trying
to bend the words of the Bible to what I think it should say.
And we don't want to do that right.
That is, that is never our goal. Our goal is to submit to what it
says now within within our our understanding of it, obviously.
And and when I say that, I mean there is there is cultural
stuff. There are different styles
written, you know, I mean, one of those is that he gathers us
like hen, like a hen gathers her chicks.
Well, he's not a hen, right? That's a picture, right.
So we you got to use metaphors were metaphors, allegories were
allegories, but history for history, you know, something I
use in. Talking about that is.
Noah and the flood, if you, if you watch archaeology or people
that are trying to disprove the Bible or whatever, every, every
ancient culture has a flood legend.
And the funny with that is that that just automatically says so
the Bible's true, but they they can't seem to.
Put that together. But if you and if you listen to
the flood legends, they have something about a boat, a
family, and some animals. When you read the history of
Noah and the Ark, you have a specific family with names.
You have specific animals with with amounts, you have a
specific boat with a size, you have specific dates it started
raining, you have specific times it stopped you.
You have history in reference, not some some legend that has
some mystical things in it, right.
And that's what I'll tell you when you go through the word
with an attitude of the historical books being history.
That's what they are. If you if you dig into Daniel
and and you take all of his prophecies, you will see how
they line up with what went on up until modern time, right?
His his prophecies were they nailed it.
Unless I think I'm smarter. And I don't.
And it comes down to who do I think's driving this thing,
right? You know who's?
Who's in charge? The smart thinkers in the world
will tell you they and, and this is I say this, this is truly
been disproven. But one of the theories that was
out there for years in the in the 50s and the 60s is that
Moses didn't write the first five books of the Bible, that it
was a commentary written centuries after, right?
And the problem with that is Jesus says Moses wrote it.
Right, which is? Mark 144 says, see that you say
nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the
priests and offer for yourself cleansing those things which
Moses commanded you as a testimony.
And if it was just that somebody had a commentary on it, then
Jesus would have said God commanded and somebody else
wrote it down, right? But Moses commanded it.
And then Moses also says he wrote it down specifically in
Exodus 24, three. And it says, So Moses came and
told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments,
and all the people answered with one voice and said, all the
world, all the words which the Lord has said we will do.
And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and he rose early in
the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and
12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel.
So it always comes down to when we're studying the book, do we
believe that these are the words of God or do we believe these
are some guy's opinion and I get to have an opinion about his
opinion, right? Because God, this is important,
especially as we get into Exodus and God telling us who he is.
Because, because there are things in Exodus that are going
to make a squirm. There are there are things that
are going to make us question, is that possible?
Some places will even make us ask, is that OK?
Can God really do that? And our anchor will be the word.
And this is, this is something I will beat up.
And I, I was looking at all my notes again and I, I figured out
you guys hear particular verses on a pretty regular basis.
And the reason for that is I want you to be able to, to just,
these are verses that we should all just have memorized and, and
be able to share them with people.
And what's our what's our anchor verse on why we trust the Word?
And that is Second Timothy 316. All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God and it's profitable for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness.
And I do beat that verse up. But all Scripture is given by
inspiration of God. All Scripture isn't given by
Peter. Peter wrote it like this.
So Peter had a plan. No, it's given by inspiration of
God, right? Moses wrote this down by
inspiration to God. When you think about how much
Moses wrote down, there's a supernatural effect to that as
you go through the Bible and even even the Gospels, that if
you put the four Gospels together, everybody will, you
know that back to those fuzzy thinkers in the world, and
they'll say, well, they contradict each other and they
don't. And if you have questions on any
of that, I can walk you through why they don't.
But what they do is they all tell the story from individuals
points of view. And if you've ever tried to
write three years of your life down it, it would take, for me,
it would take a, a supernatural amount of memory to write it
down, right. And so there is just some proof
in that. And they, and that's when you
look at the gospels, it's something that they, they do
line, they do align. But when we run into hard verses
or whole passages, we'll remember that line.
That one of my friends in Uganda and I've, you guys have heard
this story numerous times and you kind of Plumb the depths of
of my stories. But you know, a pastor that was
with a bunch of pastors and said, I have a problem with that
verse. And another pastor said, no, you
don't. That verse has a problem with
you. And do you understand that when
you're reading your word, when we when we go over something, if
it doesn't align with your thinking, your thinking needs to
change. My thinking needs to change
right now. We need to know.
We need that. We need to understand the
context and we need to understand what's being what,
what the meaning, the person that they're talking to at the
time, right? How that culture understood that
specific thing, right? It you know, when we, we talked
about in Corinthians, there's there's head coverings and non
head coverings and there's, there's all kinds of places in
the Bible we can get hung up with, with things that were said
to a culture on purpose, right? And we need to we need to study
that out now. But you also have to understand
that God, God knew who he was talking to and he knew those
were going to be used throughout time at the same time.
So there's, there's always a connection to us.
It's why when we're reading through Exodus, we can, we can
look at it and apply it to our lives, right?
He was 100% speaking to Israel. But there are, there are still
things in all of it that we can apply to us.
And the key. Is guys, if you go to Acts 17
and and look at the Bereans, which is who we want to be at
all times and that this is for us forever, not us on a Sunday
morning. This Is Us on Monday morning,
This Is Us on Monday evening. This is anytime we're in the
world. This is when you're listening to
radio programs. This is when you're when you're
watching movies, whatever it is. Acts 1711.
These were more fair minded than those in Thessalonica in that
they received the word with ready with all readiness and
search the scriptures daily to find out whether these things
were so so they were listening to understand.
And then if they were, if, if there were doubts, if they
didn't understand, they were digging into their own Bible
that were their their scrolls, their, their Wiz, their
scriptures, right, and finding out what the word said.
And so as as believers, we need to cut and, and even as non
believers, if they have any sense, they need to come to the
word from a position of submitting to what it says.
Our thinking will be change as we see hard truth, right?
We will submit to the law of life that we that we believe and
trust in him who put it all down in writing.
I mean, guys, that's I beat that up on a regular basis too.
You know how impressive. It is that we have a book.
We don't have some theories the book and we can read it right.
So when when people say I mean that it's that that flood story
thing, right. We have history, others have
legend, right. And what what you will get from
non believers who haven't read it is that well, it's a bunch of
fables and a bunch of this. Have you read it?
Because it's not it's specific fables.
Fables are, you know, the Hansel and Gretel, right?
It's a story. It's neat.
This has dates and times schedules this happen.
And so Second Peter is another one that lines up with with
Second Timothy, Second Peter 120.
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any
private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will
of man. That holy men of God spoke as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit, as the things in this
book didn't come from men. And do we believe that or do we
believe that men got together and made us a rule book for
life? Or do we believe that God wrote
it down so we would know Him? And it comes down to will we
fear God and trust His truth, or will we fear our fear, our
understanding and our experience in this world?
Will we trust Jesus and submit to Him in His Word?
God doesn't change, right? He is, he is the same.
And like I said earlier, we've been to him.
He doesn't been to us, right? It's it's that, you know, well,
I think there are people out there that that, and I shouldn't
say I think there are we know there are people out there that
says, well, that isn't my truth. That isn't my reality.
You know, my truth is this. If you're in an airplane and
your truth is that you can fly when you jump out of the
airplane, does gravity care what your truth is not?
Not even a little bit, right? Or maybe your truth is that you
need a parachute, but you need a parachute made out of irons.
Does gravity care that you think irons will float you down?
No, right? It truth doesn't bend to my
desire. Truth is truth.
Hebrew, Hebrews 13/8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
today and forever, right? He is the Alphaean Lamega.
He is the beginning and the end. And this gets us into why I
love. I love this.
I love Exodus and I love Exodus for many reasons, but I love
that God came down to his chosen people and reintroduced himself,
right? He had introduced himself to
Abraham in Genesis. He had introduced himself.
He had had, he had had some time with Isaac.
They don't go into that, but obviously there was a time on a
mountain where Isaac was being sacrificed that I'm sure that
Isaac and him had a conversation and and Jacob had his time with
him. That was all 400 plus years
before it, before Exodus. And we once again in America and
in the, in the West, in the modern world, we see the Bible
as so Genesis, the end of Genesis and the beginning Exodus
are 400 years apart. And for us they're a page turn.
So we think, well, of course they knew who God was.
I mean, they, they, he was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
and they served him and they knew all the things.
He had not written it down. It was not on paper anywhere,
right? So they didn't, if you think
about the things and, and we here in here in America, we have
printing presses and we've had them for a long time.
We have the printed word, we have history, but we are very
good at wanting to rewrite it even when it's written down
right in the US. Some things that that I would
imagine that most of us think we know Plymouth Rock when the when
the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock and the first colony was,
was established at Jamestown. Now there are probably some some
students in here and some, some people that know this, but how
many would put Plymouth Rock before Jamestown?
Well, Jamestown was first. Plymouth Rock was second 100
years ago. 400 plus years ago that was 16 O 7 was Jamestown
and 16/20 was Plymouth Rock. The Declaration of Independence
was 250 years ago. Which is when we call, you know
that's. The founding of America.
But when was our first election? When did we actually have a
president and a Congress? That'd be 1789.
And that's that's so. So that would be when George.
Washington was elected and the Congress.
So it took time, right? You had the war and then you had
the then you had the, all the process of building the
Constitution and then you had the Civil War.
Anybody remember how long it was?
It's 160 years ago. It was from 1861 to 1864.
And right now I am reading a book, kind of my my nerdy fun
book. It's a the a biography of
Abraham Lincoln written in 19, I think it's 1912 by an
Englishman. It's great biography.
Do you know why? Because.
It was written within the time that people would remember who
Abraham was that had been alive at that time.
And it's written by somebody outside that didn't have an axe
to grind, whether he was a Republican or a Democrat.
Now I will ask you all, what was, what was Lincoln?
What was he? Was he a when he, when he got
into politics, was he a Democrat, a Republican or
something else? Anybody.
He was a Whig, then Republican. Party, then the.
Whigs went away and the Republican Party and he was a a
founder of the Republican Party. I was going to get a picture
I've got on my phone. Me and Faye were.
In. Oregon, almost California and
one of the small towns and the Democrats and I'm I'm picking on
them, but it it this isn't this is revisionist history.
They're they were downtown like we have a downtown.
We were in one of those and their windows, and the
Democrats, whatever their. Headquarters was there.
And in the window, they had some, they had some cardboard
cutouts of famous Democrats. Can't remember the other one.
But one of the famous Democrats was Abraham Lincoln, so that
they don't know their own history, right?
But how many people walk by that window?
And think well, obviously. Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat.
Right, he's for human. Rights, right.
So that's. Guys, that is in.
A small span. Since our country was founded.
How about how about we can we can even do better?
How? How much has changed in our view
of communism and socialism since 1991?
Anything right? I was going to say that in 1991,
communism was the evil in the world.
And and it had. There was fruit to that.
You could see it. You know the the joke is the
Berlin Wall came down in 89 and something you can ask the young
people today, which way were people running?
Were they running into? East Berlin or out of East
Berlin, right? So the Iron Curtain.
Ended in 91 and since then it has become popular to be a
socialist and a communist because, well, they have it,
they have it figured out. It's it's a good system.
And I will tell you communism, communism on paper.
Oh, it's beautiful that you add humans, right?
Because we are we are wicked and sinful, and we are not to be
trusted. So all that.
To say when Exodus, when when we start exodus.
They didn't know who he was. They they were.
They had been in Egypt for 400 years.
They've been separated. They've been in Goshen.
But they were still. Interacting with Egypt, the
world and Egypt is, is definitely for for us.
It is a real place. It still exists today, but at
that time it was a real place with real rulers and real
people. But it's also something that we
can look at as this is God taking them out of the world and
Egypt is a picture of the world and they were affected.
By that culture and it's. Something God's going to go
through and he's going to knock down every one of that culture
strongholds that Israel thinks is better than he is.
That they they are lost in their in their not understanding how
big their God is. Do you understand how big your
God is? Do I understand how big he is?
We were once again talking about it before servicing.
We put God in a box, the box of my understanding he's bigger
than that. I guarantee when I get, when I
get there, we if, if, if we get there, when we get there, we're
going to get there and we are going to fall on our face
because we don't get it. We.
We don't get how big. This, this God we serve is.
We don't understand what he. Did on the cross we can, we can
grasp what we can grasp. But he is so much bigger than
that. And and Israel.
Had no clue who their father served the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. And he'll go over that and over
that. The I am who I am, the ever
eternal 1. This was.
Jacob's family and that's that that first part of it Jacob's
family is there are probably more dysfunctional families that
have been since then, but it's it it breaks right up there
right. I mean, this is this is we we
they are he he made a mess. And the cool thing with.
That is, is. I'm going to pick on him
tremendously, real quick. But know this, Jacob.
Made a mess and God still used him, right?
So Jacob's Jacob's mess didn't affect how much God used him.
Jacob's Holiness. Didn't affect how much God used
him, right? His twelve sons who?
Became the tribe of Israel. His name was Jacob.
When he was born, his name was Jacob, which was heel catcher,
and that suited him because he was in a constant how to
manipulate the situation. Now in in fairness to Jacob, he
learned a lot from his mother and his mother.
Her side of the family was definitely, you know, Will.
If you. Read in Genesis, you'll, you'll
hear about Laban and there there's a whole bunch of just
the way she was raised and the way she came up.
But they both spend a tremendous amount of time in that 4 letter
word that that that I pick on, which is feels right.
They they feel, I feel like. I need to help God's plan along.
I feel like I should control. This situation I should
manipulate. This situation I should
influence, I should sway, I should manipulate, right?
Do we do that? Right, we or can.
We do we. Rest in what he's doing in
Uganda. America's corrupt but.
Uganda is corrupt out loud, right?
America's corruption. Is quiet behind closed doors.
Uganda's corruption is obnoxious.
Just straightforward, right? It's, it is, but it, but it
creates both sides of it. I tell the guys all the time, I
said the reason that you have to bribe people is because you are
trying to break the law or you are breaking the law and you
need to bribe them to keep out from breaking the law.
So they're just, you're just as bad as they are.
And we have this back and forth, but I'm I'm teaching a Bible
study at A at a pastor's conference in Jinja and these
are head pastors in a room about about the center of the of here
full. And these are head pastors that
know their Bible. And in America?
Bribery is dishonest in Uganda. I have to show you where it says
don't bribe because it's part of their culture.
It isn't it they, it's not a dishonest thing.
It's just part of doing business.
And so as I'm up there teaching about standing in right places
and letting God be in control of it.
And just by my general, you know, do everything as unto the
Lord and not to men. And I had a pastor after I was
done teaching question, answer time, head pastor raises his
hand, said if you're not going to bribe anybody.
How are you plan? How do you think?
You're ever going to get anything accomplished in Uganda.
And everybody laughed. And this is what I will tell.
You is and what I told him I said, Simply put, I believe God
is bigger than the government of Uganda.
If he wants to move it forward, it will move forward without my
without my manipulation, control, push, bribery, any of
that. I just get to do what he said.
I get to where do I get to sit in the passenger seat, right?
Probably not even there. I probably have to ride in the
trunk. Because in the passenger seat I.
Still might reach over and grab the wheel and Jacob spends most
of his younger years coming up with ways to move God's plan
forward and the wreckage that that caused was unnecessary.
Now it doesn't say that in the Bible in the in in those moments
where God's like and if he hadn't done that, I'd have done
this. But I know God and what God
wants in all of my plans in everything.
This place my work at A at a nuclear power plant working.
If I if I am the. Missionary in Uganda.
What God wants is all the blame. He wants the only thing that
explains my life to be him and what he's done in it.
He doesn't want that. Well, I, I made the right
decision. I moved up the corporate ladder.
You know, I did a good fundraising campaign.
That isn't what he wants, is all the blame.
He wants to be blamed. For our entire life and what?
I how that how? That looks in Jacob's life is if
you think about when he lied to his dad, put on the costume to
act like Esau, and stole Esau's blessing.
And ran off. To his mom's family, because
you. Understand that it looks.
Like so his mom loved him. And it looks like he never saw.
Her again. There's nothing in the word that
says he ever saw his mom again. And God's plan will never.
Be to break relationship by lies and manipulation.
That doesn't mean that relationships won't be broken as
you walk through life with Jesus.
It just means that it. Won't be because.
Of lies and manipulation. It'll be because you're standing
in right places, so James, 317 says.
But the wisdom, that is. From above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good
fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.
And that is, that is. God's heart in all moments.
Now relationships, like I said, will get broken.
But because they won't. Submit to God's plan and what
God is doing what we want is when someone when when a
relationship in your life in my life is broken.
We want them to be looking. At God, not you, right?
Because if you look at the Esau Jacob moment, guys.
The Lord told. Rebecca, the younger, the older
will serve the younger in in Genesis 25 it says, and the Lord
said to her, two nations are in your womb. 2 people shall be
separated from your body, 11 people shall be stronger than
the other, and the older shall serve the younger.
And do you know what? You know what Rebecca went about
doing. Get Matt to go.
She grabbed that wheel and went to work.
And that's what. That was her her drive and and
she put that on Jacob. It doesn't say that, but that is
she she was A and I and I'm picking on her, but this is her
really trying to to move that forward.
Now. Had Jacob just waited on the
Lord, and the Lord gave Esau, or Goat gave Jacob Esau's blessing,
Esau very well could have been just as angry.
But he would have been angry at the.
Lord and not on, not at Jacob, right?
And it doesn't mean that that in reality they're not mad at you
because that's what happens, right?
We don't. Somebody gets mad at me.
But if I know I'm standing where I'm supposed to be standing,
doing what I'm supposed to be doing, then they're problems
with him, not with me. Now if I give them.
If I give them reason, right, corporate ladder climbing is a
great example of I'm just going to I'm just going to make myself
look good, make them look bad, right?
That is, that is opportunity for your witness to be blown, but
God's desire for everybody you touch.
Is for them to come. Into a saving relationship with
Jesus if you don't know him, that is his desire for you is
that you come into that relationship and.
When we get involved. When we when we think that I'm
just going to help this long little things, little comments,
little false humility here little little little.
Snide back talking right? Anybody have lane assist in
their car and had it on on a windy Rd.
So lane assist isn't? Isn't.
Isn't automatically isn't automatic driving like a a smart
car that just takes the corners lane assist kind of watches the
the the stripes on the side of the road and guides right if you
and it are going on a windy. Road you are going to fight it
all the. Way around the road because it's
trying to hold one line and you're trying to hold another
because you're not. Lane Assist.
Right. Or have you?
Ever ridden on a? Motorcycle and had the passenger
try to take you around the corner.
You want to see a bike go down real fast, right.
But the one that the one that because we were talking about a
couple weeks ago being a pilot, I'm going to mangle it because I
I'm definitely not a pilot. But I have.
I got lucky years back and got to fly with a guy who is a was a
crop duster and he was, we were in a much nicer plane than a
crop dust and plane, but he was very talented, good pilot.
And so I'm in the passenger's seat and he's flying and we're
going over next to Mount Hood and we'd went over to the.
Coast and we were flying us. Back and so you don't fly for a
while. When you fly a plane, it is.
Not driving a car right? It's not I mean, when, when I
took over, it wasn't like we were taken off.
We weren't doing anything. All I was doing was holding it
on a heading at a height. Well, everything's kind of
fuzzy, right? I mean, it's not like you, you
know, in a car, if I do this, the car turns in an airplane
when you do this, then it goes and, and so you can get yourself
out, right. Well, the thing with our the
reason he could do that is. We have the.
Same controls, right? My, I have, I have controls in
the passenger's seat and he has controls in the driver's seat.
And they're the same. When I turn this, his turned.
When I turn this, his turned, right.
They do the same exact thing. Well, now imagine that we're in
a cloud bank and I don't know what the what the instruments
mean because I'm not a pilot and I'm in.
A cloud bank and. If you guys have ever, I don't,
I don't know this, I've just heard it.
Is it as a when you go into a cloud bank in an airplane, you
can you can lose your way. You don't know whether you're up
or down, whether planes upside down, right side up.
It's it's confusing, but the pilot has all his instruments.
So he just, he just looks at his instruments and knows that angle
of the plane, knows all the things.
As. As humans, we're in a cloud
bank. I can see the, I can see the end
of today. Can't even really see the end of
today. I can see the horizon.
God can see the whole story. And Can you imagine while we're
while we're in that cloud bank that I grabbed the wheel and I
decide I'm going to take us where I think I need to go?
The driver has the plan. Right.
And that's that's our job is to trust and rely on him, submit
our lives to him. And Jacob, we'll get into his,
we'll get into his family real quick.
Not good at that. And the train wreck that follows
Israel for their for their duration to this day.
So. Jacob's family who?
Turns into Israel is Reuben, Simeon and Lee.
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, and then Issachar and Zebulon are
all Leah's, which is Jacob's first wife.
And then just. Not to be outdone, Rachel, who
couldn't have children, said sleep with my servant, then I
can have some children with her. So then, then he gets Dan and
Nathalie from Rachel's servant and Leah's thinking, well I want
to give you more and so have my servant and she gets Gad and ash
Astor. And then finally there's.
Joseph and Benjamin, which are Rachel's too.
So you literally have in in one moment, Judah or Jacob has 12
kids. He has 13 listed because there's
a daughter, but twelve sons and six of them he gets from his
first wife. That he was conned.
Into having four of them are from servants.
And then two of them are. From from Rachel the the woman
whom he loved. Now like I said.
There are more dysfunctional families out there, but this
one's pretty good. And like I said, God wants the
blame. Now you got to know that Abraham
was much smarter than Isaac, was smarter than Rachel, was smarter
than Jacob. He told.
His servant go and get my son, go, go and get my son a wife.
And he said, go back to my home country and get my son a wife.
And his servants said, well let me take him with you.
Never take my son to that country.
I forbid it. And so then he went and got him
a wife. And that would be Rebecca.
And Rebecca had two children and that was their life.
Now, I'm not saying she was perfect.
As I said, she was trying really hard to to make God's plan come,
but they didn't have a dysfunctional train wreck of 12
boys that were that So Isaac could have if if Rebecca would
have just been trusting and and Jacob would have just sit still.
Isaac first of all, the Lord would have given Jacob the
blessing over Esau because that's what he said and he would
have he could have I'm I'm this is this is definite things that
could have happened. It isn't how it happened.
I'm just telling you that God is big enough to make his plans
work. Doesn't require my input.
He's going to fly the plane. Where it needs to go and he
could have sent a servant to go get a bride and then he could
have had Jacob could have had twelve sons with one wife.
Believe it or not, that happens. I don't I, I all the ladies out
there that have children. I had 12 of them.
Wow. But no.
But it's we need to trust in the fact that the Lord can do what
he says he's going to do. And this is and and.
This is something that. God doesn't lie, right?
God, God moves forward as God sees fit.
He doesn't manipulate, He doesn't come up with different
plans. He has a standard He has put in
place. Numbers 2319.
God is not a man that he should lie, nor son of man that he
should repent. Has he said and will he not do
or has he spoken and will he not make it good if the Lord said
it? That's it.
I don't have to come up with ways to make that come true.
My, my time in Uganda and, and I don't believe it's over.
I don't know at what, at what capacity I will ever, ever be
able to live there again. I think that might be over.
But my, my time of, of loving on the, on the people there that
that's still something I get to do that I'm blessed to do.
But God told me in 2009, 2008, 2009 that I was going to build a
water line across Africa and I got asked all the time, well,
what's? That look like.
I have no idea. I mean.
When I first heard it, I. Thought that meant I was going
to dig a water line across Africa.
They need water in Africa. That that's not.
The if he'd have told me what he meant by it at the time, I
probably would have ran somewhere else because there's I
definitely wasn't, didn't think I could do this at that time.
So all that to be said is that I don't.
I don't put, I don't. Attempt to put words in God's
mouth when if he says something like that, you're going to build
a water line across Africa. I have no problem with that.
I don't then say and he said I should do this and I should move
here and I should go there unless that's what he said.
I am standing up here because I asked and was told that I was to
stand up here. You guys have heard that story?
That's that's not because. I think so, right?
I don't. I don't want to put words in his
mouth, and I also don't want to grow this church in my power,
right? You don't want to do that,
right? We want to be where He wants us
to be, period. And growing.
At the rate he wants us to grow, speaking to the speak people he
wants us to speak to and that's it.
Because if not, we just, it basically means we have to get
back on track, right? If we're manipulating, if we're
controlling, if we're doing any of that stuff, it's just a
constant state of us getting back in line with where he wants
us to go. Jacob ended up where he wanted
him to go, but he ended up there after a whole lot of deviation,
right? He was in a he was in a foreign
country for 20 years. Had had 12.
Children with four different ladies, two of them that weren't
even his wife right now. At the end of the day, God named
Israel got him into Egypt. You know, we know the end of the
book. There was a plan.
Jacob just made a wreck out of it.
My. Goal.
And I don't do this perfectly, and I don't think anybody in
here does. My goal is not to make a wreck,
right? Is to just do everything as
under the Lord and not to men, which means don't worry.
I mean, I used to tell my old boss Lauren, I don't work for
you. I work for.
Jesus if I work. For you, you'd fire me.
And the reason for that was because if I work for Lauren
Watts, what I'd be trying to do is make Lauren Watts happy.
And the only time I had to make him happy was when he was
around. Guess when Jesus is around.
All the time. So if I'm working for Jesus, I
got to make him happy all the time.
And how I do that is by giving 100%, standing in right places,
not well, I'm just going to manipulate this situation,
Ephesians 417 through 24 says. This I say therefore.
And testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the
rest of the Gentiles walk. In the futility of their.
Mind having their understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their heart, who being past
feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work, to
the work, all uncleanness with greediness.
But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard
Him and have been taught by Him, As the truth is in Jesus, that
you should put off concerning your former contact, conduct the
old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lust, and
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you put the new man
which was created according to God in true righteousness and
holiness. Or the verse.
I use all. The time, therefore, if anyone
is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become
new, right? Don't apply the world's thinking
to your walk with the Lord. So verse 5 of Exodus says all
those who were descendants of Jacob were 70 persons, for
Joseph was already in the land. And Joseph died and all.
His brothers and all that generation.
But before that, in Genesis, you can read where Jacob died and
his brothers and Joseph's brothers all freak out because,
well, Joseph is going to now condemn us because they didn't
understand. That Joseph was submitted.
To the to God's plan. Joseph wasn't submitted to
Jacob's plan. All of Jacob's sons had are all
those Jacob's sons had this idea that Joseph wasn't hurting them
because because he had submitted to their moral center, which was
their father. Who's your moral center?
My moral center when I was 19 years old was my mother, and I
moved to Alaska, which was 2500 miles away.
Do you know how much your moral center has on you at that point?
None. You knew anything because your
moral center is 2500 miles away. Well, lose your moral center,
right? If it's Jesus, then he's with
you all the time. You're filled with the Spirit.
So we're not going to get to the end of this.
So we'll pick it up again next week.
Lord, I just thank you for everybody here.
I thank you for this time. I thank you for all you do for
us, Lord. Lord that.
Lord, you do have the controls, and if we would just let go and
let you, Lord, that we would be blessed beyond our ability to
understand. Lord, as struggles come, Lord,
let them come from the outside, Lord, not come from what we've
done that we're paying for. Lord, that, or that you would
just give us wisdom ahead of time to be still.
Or that we would just trust you, rely on you.
Guide and direct us, Lord. Pray all this in Jesus name,
Amen.