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Welcome back to the Forging Table, the mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to put
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a pushback darkness with content that forges, spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
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At the Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys digging in to God's word, and
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we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with us.
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That's Jake, that's here.
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Don't call to come back.
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That is Matt Grasmer.
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He has not been here for a very, very long time.
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Matt, do you want to explain why you don't like us or the Forging Table anymore?
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Well, I don't know that we have enough time.
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Let's just get into it.
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I mean, we got it roughly an hour and we don't have anything to cover.
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How have you just been super busy?
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Life has been big.
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Kids work.
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You know, just life in general has been busy.
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And so it just so happens that a lot of the dates that have been thrown out have just
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not worked with my paper schedule.
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Yeah.
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So to give you a little peek behind the curtain, kind of the way we do it because there's four
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OGs.
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So there's Matt, there's Eric, there's Zach Todd, and unfortunately, Ryan Horn.
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And then Winkler, you've kind of, you know, amoeba'd your way somehow into this inner
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circle.
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And so you're kind of in that.
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He's the best man.
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He's amazing, man.
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Well, it's hard to be sneaky at this size.
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I've already caught him looking at himself on the monitor twice in this one episode.
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And it was the only thing I told you to stop doing.
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So you know what, we're off the rails from the beginning here.
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But what I do is I send out a message to the guys and we record these two or three months
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in advance.
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So that's why we don't talk a new cycle for any of you guys that are wondering, why don't
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we talk a new cycle on this?
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And so I send it to OGs first and I try to get like two of this inner circle OGs on the
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episode and then I'll try to do a rotation of some of the other guys that, you know, you
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guys have heard and seen on the show, right?
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And then like sometimes, you know, Ryan, he's always usually the first to respond.
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He like, he's down.
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He's ready to go.
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But I don't want him doing more than two in a row, right?
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Just because I want him to kind of have a break, do his own Bible study, take care of
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mama and the babies and all that kind of stuff.
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And so just the way the cookie crumbled.
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Yeah.
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Literally every date that I sent Matt for like five or six months in a row, it was like
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absolutely not.
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And I was just like, I don't know what I did or what I said or what I was wearing.
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But whatever it was, it made him just completely disengaged from us.
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Jake, do you have any insight here?
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I don't, I don't have any insight.
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I've just missed his, I've missed his folksy wisdom and the buttery smooth.
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I know.
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I know.
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I know.
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All right.
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Let me just go ahead and admit it.
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It's because of the buttery smoothness then my jealousy.
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I've made sure that I have, I have a bit of a confession to make.
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There was one time where I knew as soon as you sent the text that I couldn't do it, but
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I felt bad.
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Gosh.
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It's okay.
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To those just lifts, hey, it's okay.
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It's okay.
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Just like the new orientation, just like that computer just got washed by that water.
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We're about to get washed in the world.
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Let's go.
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Should get into it.
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Those are those folksy transitions that we have been missing out on.
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So I would hate to talk about anything else other than getting right into the text, but
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I do feel need to ask, are you okay, Eric, are we, do you need a napkin, do you need a
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paper towel?
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I see a few drops.
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It's okay.
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It's quick.
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It's quick.
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Okay.
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Today, we're going to be getting into Genesis 20 and 21.
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So again, guys, as we've been going through Genesis, sometimes we're doing one chapter,
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sometimes we're doing two.
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I think we've done three once or twice, but that's just kind of the way the cookie crumbled.
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But with this one, we're going to go ahead and start with Genesis 20.
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We're going to hit the first seven verses of Genesis 20 Winkler, lead us off.
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From there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Caddish and
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Shure.
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And he's adjourned in Gararr.
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And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister, and Abimalek, king of Gararr,
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sent and took Sarah, but God came to Abimalek in a dream by night and said to him, Behold,
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you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken for she is a man's wife.
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Now Abimalek had not approached her.
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So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?
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Did he not?
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Did he himself say to me?
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Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister?
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And she herself said, He is my brother.
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In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this.
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Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity
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of your heart.
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And it was I who kept you from sinning against me.
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Therefore I did not let you touch her.
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Now then return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you and
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you shall live.
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But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die.
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You and all who are yours.
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Quite a warning there at the end coming from God.
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I think you should probably take his advice here.
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But one thing from the beginning, I was like, bro, again, yeah, hold habits die hard.
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Yeah, like what?
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We don't get any insight here in the Texas to what in the world was he thinking?
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But guys, what in the world was he thinking?
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Yeah.
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Like I don't really, again, I think all of us at this table have made stupid mistakes
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twice in the same category of sin.
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Okay, I'll at least say that I have, but here, it's like a cheese or sister.
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Like that's a very specific one that is happening over and over here.
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Yeah, this is ridiculous.
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I mean, especially when you start thinking about, okay, you can somewhat understand his
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fear of Pharaoh and Egypt, you know, big superpower, you know, large army high tech.
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This is some like really small kingdom within Canaan.
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I mean, this is not anything.
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This is not a big deal.
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And yet he's doing the same exact thing.
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It does not make sense, especially when you start thinking about how soon after the, how
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soon after the destruction of Sodom was this, it's like you really don't, you, you just
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saw God destroy Sodom and Sodom and Gomorrah.
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And yet now you're here in this little kingdom and you go, yeah, I'm afraid again.
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Well, yeah, I know you said it as a joke, but you're like old habits die hard is it almost
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feels like he's just in the habit of this particular rather egregious seeming sin.
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Yeah, I think Abraham is just a really good picture of us as believers, the nation of
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Israel being a stick neck, stiff neck people, us being fickle and us being really quick to
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forget the things that God has blessed us in or with.
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And I think we tried, I think a lot of times our ego just takes over and we try to out
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God, God, we think we know better.
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And I think this is just a perfect example of that.
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But the good news is Abraham is just a great picture of God's favor, not because of what
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Abraham has done, but in spite of what he has done.
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And isn't that just beautiful that we can rest in that?
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It's not what we've done.
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We receive grace by faith, not of our works and Abraham is like one of the ultimate examples
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of that.
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He's in the hall of faith, right?
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And so how much faith did it take for him to literally leave the comfort of his home
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and where he was to go into literally Never Never Land based on our promise?
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So it's kind of, it's funny to me that he takes this huge leap of faith, but then when
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he's still under that promise, he's having a hard time like with these small, small
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things.
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Well, what chapter was Never Never Land?
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I was at like 17, 16, I missed it.
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That's the book of Walt.
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Nailed it.
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Appreciate that.
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Sorry.
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Go ahead.
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That was not even a great joke and I interrupted you for it.
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So keep going.
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Well, you know, and I just look at my own life as I know that I've got short-term memory
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loss.
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I feel like, like you said, it's like I get it and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna change
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or I'm gonna be different.
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I'm gonna be different and I am for maybe two weeks and this like I tend to fall back.
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I mean, I think one of the things that we see throughout scripture, especially the Old
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Testament is this setting up of monuments, of altars, of rocks, of things, they did that
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for reasons so they could teach their children, but also so they could have a continual remembrance
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of what God has done so they wouldn't fall back into thinking that God was an unfaithful
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God.
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Yeah.
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Go ahead.
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Go ahead.
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I think to hear like this is just kind of an under-played theme, but like this is another
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example of Abraham kind of throwing his wife, Sarah, under the bus, you know, like you're
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not protecting her because you think you know best and you're literally giving her over
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to become a part of this king's harem of wives.
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Like because you're saying she's my sister, because you're afraid that you're gonna die
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and she's gonna get abducted or like, you know, taken as a slave, but like you're literally
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just proactively giving her over as essentially that.
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And in that moment, you're basically leading your family or your wife into sin, right?
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It's like, hey, we got to do this thing, get to do this thing for me.
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Right?
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When he says this, you say this, that's not a good way to lead.
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Yeah.
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I always, the thing that I always find so remarkable and Genesis is just how frequently
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we see both wickedness and righteousness growing together at the same time, sometimes within
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the same family, sometimes within the same society.
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And in this case, in an Abraham's case, within the same person, this is the first time these
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first seven verses, this is the first time the word prophet is used in the Bible.
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Abraham is you and God calls him a prophet after he gives Sarah over again.
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He's, you know, he's warning a bimilek God is and God calls him a prophet again, just
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marvel at the grace of God here that he's going after somebody commits this horribly
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wicked act where he turns his wife over to a king to be a part of her harem.
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He still says he's a prophet.
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Yeah.
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And we, and you know, look, and you may have said this earlier, Matt, like start contrast.
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I mean, it's, it's so, it's so interesting that God puts these folks, Abraham and others
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into the hall of faith, clearly fallen, clearly they still struggle.
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But then we see the, the person of Jesus who from, from the womb to the tomb, never had
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an issue wavering in his faith.
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Yeah.
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Well, the thing that I think is interesting as well is verse three, but God came to a
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bimilek in a dream by night and said to him, so we, we've had quite a few discussions on
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this table about election and, you know, what, what's the difference here between like free
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will and, and all that kind of stuff.
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But then one of the things that's unexplainable, I guess for the, for the ardent non to lip
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five, five point person for the ardent person who's like, that's just not it.
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It's like, can you please explain dreams to me in the Middle East, right?
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Can you please explain people that are coming to faith in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria
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and all these other different places whenever Jesus is literally visiting these people in
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their dreams and like communicating to them.
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And so people don't need to hear like, okay, we don't need to be doing mission work because,
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you know, the, God will just show up in dreams.
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But it's like, that was one of the first things I thought about is what God is doing with
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Muslims in these places where you can't have street preachers, you can't people handing
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out new testaments, you can't have people like doing church services and the underground
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church in dominant Muslim and not just Muslim, but Islamist, like fundamentalist will cut
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your head off and roll it down the street in front of your family, like in these types
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of countries where we, where God is still moving.
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It's like, if God wants it done, God's going to get it done.
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So that's stood out for me here on verse three.
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What isn't that kind of just a, to me that just solidifies tulip, like, I, if I can't
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get there, if, if we can't get there to preach to these people who are ardent and, you know,
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like jihodist, Islamist who like want to kill Christians and then they're God or Jesus
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is coming to them in a dream.
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It's because he has elected them to be a part of his people, to me that just solidifies
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God's sovereignty over the whole thing and it is a cool, it is cool.
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So I guess I would say what, what, what would you say is you said, I'd like to hear somebody
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explain that.
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What do you, I guess what's, what do you mean by that?
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So to the person that is ardently, we'll just say like anti tulip, like anti-reformed,
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like anti, like to that person, it's like, okay, would it be anti all tulip or would it just
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be an unconditional exercise, I should probably be more precise, anti tulip as, as a singular
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category.
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So it's like you take all five or you take none like that type of person, because I know
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people that have problems with, you know, limited torment, problems with all that, like,
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that's probably the number one of the five that people have the most problems with.
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But for someone who's just like, yeah, reformed theology just isn't, isn't real like all that,
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like, they have problems with it.
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I want to know what they would say about what's happening in Italy.
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Okay.
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Yeah, that makes sense, I misunderstood what you're saying, that makes perfect sense.
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I might have a theory.
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Let's go.
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I mean, it would go into the spiritual gifts.
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I mean, and does God still reveal Himself through prophecy, you know, through a dream
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to people, like, is that a possibility?
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I don't know that it necessarily means that there is an unconditional election or limited
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I mean, I don't know if I don't know if it's anything like that, it could just be as simple
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as this is person who maybe has this spiritual gifting and so they are getting that reveal
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to them.
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The gift of like being able to discern a dream or the gift of yeah.
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Okay.
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So who's read seeking a law, finding Jesus, Nibil Kureshi?
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Not yet.
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Okay.
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So that's fantastic one.
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You definitely need to have it's on our book list.
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One hundred books, every modern Christian man should read list, undaunted dot life slash
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book list.
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By the way, do you know, it's not backslash book book book list.
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I got like a tongue lashing from like a tech guy over email.
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He's like, actually it's forward slash I was like, oh my gosh, I mean, how many hundreds
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of times have I said backslash the side of the other?
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So guys, just so you know, all you tech guys out there, I am so sorry.
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I did not mean to offend you.
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I'm looking directly at camera one camera, two camera one camera, two.
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I am so sorry, but just undaunted dot life slash book list.
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I think they'll be able to get there from there, but Nibil in that book, I can't remember.
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So I was trying to ask you guys.
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So Jesus comes to Nibil.
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So just to kind of give you a heads up, Jake, Nibil had a Christian buddy in college and
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they're both intellectual giants, these two, right?
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And so they kind of are going back and forth on Jesus and all that type of stuff.
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And you know, Nibil is very ardently pro Muslim and his disposition and his argumentation
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and apologetics and all that stuff.
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He's he's on lock.
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But Jesus, he was taught that like he came to America and part of his like, his thing
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was like, I want to convert, I want people to convert them to Islam, right?
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Like, and he was brought like he was trained in that.
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He wasn't just he was somebody who came over here and was like, Oh, I have this buddy,
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like he was trained in that.
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Right.
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And he wasn't just like reading apologetic Muslim apologetics books because he thought,
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you know, Oh, this is interesting.
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He's like, no, I'm going to use these.
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But what I can't remember, I do know that Jesus came to Nibil in a dream.
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I can't remember if Nibil converted immediately or not, like as he awoke, or if there was
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a delay.
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It was here's what I remember.
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And there may be multiple times that he was kind of, quote, visited in different ways,
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but I do remember a dream that he had and he did not know how to interpret it.
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But he did have an aunt is his aunt or his mother?
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I can't remember who was.
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And she knew that because that within the Muslim religion, there was like a book that
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interprets dreams based on symbolism, things that show up in your dreams.
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That's right.
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Right.
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And so he was like, reluctant because he was like, I don't really want to talk to her
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about this.
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Okay.
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Because it may give away something like, I'm, you know, thinking about being a Christian
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or whatever, because he had gotten that far, but he ends up going and talking to her and
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he's like, well, I had this thing and I saw this and she was like, well, that means such
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and such.
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And then it was like four or five different things that she basically revealed to him and
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he was just blown away.
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He's like, that is, that is the person of Jesus.
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So I guess my point there was there's still a discernment process.
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And there's still like, again, that tug and pull between God's sovereignty and our free
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will and you can wake up from the dream and still reject it, right?
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You can still wake up from the dream and choose to harden your heart further, right?
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And at some point God's going to be like, okay, have it your way.
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And then you'll be completely hardened from that.
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Let's go and move, move on in Genesis 20 as well.
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Matt, if you will do eight through, let's just finish the chapter, finish chapter 20 starting
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verse eight.
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Sure.
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So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all
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these things.
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And the men were very much afraid.
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Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, what have you done to us and how have
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I sinned against you that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?
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You have done to me things that ought not to be done.
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And Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you see that you did this thing?
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Abraham said, I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this place and
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they will kill me because of my wife.
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Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my
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mother.
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And she became my wife.
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And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, this is the
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kindness you must do to me.
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At every place to which we come, say of me, he is my brother.
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Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male servants and female servants and gave them
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to Abraham.
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And he returned to say, he returned Sarah, his wife to him.
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And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before you dwell where it pleases you.
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To Sarah, he said, behold, I have given you, I have given your brother a thousand pieces
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of silver.
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It is a sign of your innocence and the eyes of all who are with you.
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And before everyone, you are vindicated.
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Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female
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slaves so that they bore children for the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house
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of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.
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So I guess one of the first things that stood out to me here is, you know, Abraham, he's
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the one that's called by God and he's the one that's sent out and he's the one that's
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obviously continuing to lie and continuing to have some issues.
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Like he gets rebuked by a heathen pagan, like aristocratic figure, right?
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And I tried to think of a modern corollary of somebody, you know, that's, you know, high
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in the church or something like that that is being rejected or rebuked in public.
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I guess you could say the modern pope, you know, basically anytime the pope opens his
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stupid, dirty mouth, like it, you know, it's either, hey, I almost said some really, really
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rude, but I'm going to kind of dial that back just a little bit.
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But you know, he'll say something and he has to be, he'll be rebuked by atheists in culture
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that are just like, Hey, bro, I've read your Bible.
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I think it's all garbage and trash, but literally what you just said doesn't drive with your
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Bible.
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What is wrong with you?
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Right.
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And it seems like that's kind of a thing that's happening right here.
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It's like, bro, like how can you be so far off where it's the pagan guy that's like,
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Hey man, what's, what's your deal here?
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Mm hmm.
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Well, you got a healthy fear of God.
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I think when we had that dream, I mean, he was, I'm sure it shook him up a little bit,
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which is ironic since Abraham was like, well, I didn't perceive there was any fear here,
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but God sure put it in him, didn't he?
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Yeah, I mean, the Abimely here, I mean, there's some fear that I would say is not, I mean,
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there's probably a godly fear just because he did come to him in a dream, but throughout
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ancient Asia.
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I mean, he said you're a dead man.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it's understandable, but throughout Asia, like the adultery was like, I mean, in
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Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, adultery is regularly referred to as the great sin and is considered
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extremely detrimental to society to the extent that is characteristic of anarchy.
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So hit tight laws, middle Assyrian laws, and the code of him rabbi, all contained legislation
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against adultery.
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So in a very real way, a bimalex is sitting here going, I had no intention of committing
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this sin.
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And yet it's thrust upon me because of your deceit and his initial instinct after finding
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all this out after God reveals it to him in a dream, his initial instinct is I've got
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to make this right.
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And he's probably not going by what would be considered godly law in terms of making
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this right.
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He's making it right in the way that his laws would say you have to make this right.
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But I do think that there's a little bit of an aspect of Abraham himself because he was
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called a prophet, it's being revealed to Abimely that Abraham has the ability to intercede
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on your behalf.
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He can intercede with me.
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So if God has closed all the wombs, Abraham, and interestingly enough, God opens the wombs
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and now they can have children again.
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But interestingly enough, this is where I just, I mean, Isaac still hasn't come yet.
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And so this is once again, God showing Abraham, I have the power over fertility and infertility.
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It's revealing it over and over again.
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But I think that, again, I think Abimely is making amends here, but I don't know that
21:39
he's necessarily making an amends based upon trying to follow some sort of godly purpose.
21:45
Well, I mean, you see, as the wombs being closed, I mean, see a lineage being cut off
21:49
and I was thinking like he's a dead man because if he's a dead man, I mean, if you can't produce
21:54
boys or whatever to supersede him or whatever, then that becomes a problem, right?
21:59
So I mean, absolutely, whether he has a godly fear or not, he sees something that's a result
22:06
of his actions, even though they're unbeknownst to him, and he's going to make it right.
22:11
You're right.
22:12
I think it's interesting that Abraham kind of even tries to justify his sin a little bit
22:18
there, not a little bit.
22:19
He does.
22:20
I mean, like he's like, he's even saying like, well, I wasn't, I wasn't technically lying.
22:24
Like she is my sister.
22:26
It's like, man, come on, man.
22:28
It's like we're splitting hairs here.
22:30
It's like, if you start, we'll say, well, actually, it's like, I don't think I'm going
22:33
to enjoy much of what-
22:34
Yeah.
22:35
That was definitely an actually.
22:36
Yeah.
22:37
Abraham for sure.
22:38
Well, and I wonder as well, this might be a hint as to why Abraham is thinking the way
22:42
that he is.
22:43
So a verse 11, Abraham said, I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all
22:47
in this place and they will kill me because of my wife.
22:50
I mean, Matt, you said earlier, this, this isn't that long after Sodom and Gomorrah.
22:54
I tried to look up just how long after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
22:57
This was, and I couldn't get a clear answer, but it's not that long.
23:00
It's not that long after that.
23:01
So it's almost like-
23:02
It's one chapter away.
23:03
Yeah.
23:04
It's almost like she-
23:05
Yeah.
23:06
It's like less than 20 sentences.
23:07
Hey.
23:08
But in the early parts of Genesis, that could be billions of years as we talked about.
23:12
Right, Jake?
23:13
That's right.
23:14
And you know what?
23:15
By the way, Ryan's not here for me to give him this one, but mister, there's no dragons
23:18
in the Bible.
23:19
Well, guess what?
23:20
AI Bible went in and did Genesis three, and you know what they think the serpent looked
23:23
like?
23:24
A diagon dragon.
23:25
Okay, I know this is really on topic, but why does he not think that there are dragons
23:29
in the Bible?
23:30
Who is here?
23:31
Was anyone here where you're at?
23:32
Okay.
23:33
Yep.
23:34
All right.
23:35
It was you and I.
23:36
Yeah.
23:37
Okay.
23:38
And so yeah, basically it was just Ryan.
23:39
Why?
23:40
What was his thing?
23:41
I have a good reason.
23:42
It was no good reason.
23:43
He just said, because I'm the one that brought up the dragon thing, because the question that
23:44
I asked is because whenever God was like, okay, you will now, you know, toil and be on
23:48
your stomach and all that, I was like, okay, it's because the word serpent used here, it
23:53
just means reptile, large reptile of some kind.
23:56
And so it's like, okay, could this reptile had wings and arms and legs at this time?
24:01
And then it was like, all of a sudden zips up.
24:03
Now you are literally just on your belly.
24:05
Now you are a serpent and things like that.
24:07
And we have all these, these dragon, we have these disparate cultures that apparently had
24:11
no way of communicating with one another that all have their own depictions of winged evil
24:17
lizards flying around torturing people and all that.
24:20
And Ryan wanted none of it.
24:22
Like, I can't believe we're talking about him and he's not even here, because when he's
24:25
here, he's just like, he tries to run the whole thing.
24:27
Sorry, that's interesting.
24:28
No, this is good.
24:29
No, I think we should, I think we should talk about him behind his back even more, okay?
24:32
Because he is the forging tabler that Joby loved, which he loves to remind us all the
24:36
time of.
24:37
But yeah, he was like vehemently anti-dragon.
24:40
And I think it was just because he's like, yeah, Moody commentary doesn't say it was
24:42
a dragon.
24:43
Well, he's in good company.
24:44
Jesus is anti-dragon too.
24:45
So and he kills the dragon.
24:47
So no, he's anti that.
24:48
No, I know.
24:49
There was a dragon.
24:50
I know.
24:51
I mean, Jesus here, but where's everyone's thoughts here on dragons and dragons?
24:56
I love dragons.
24:57
I'm in for dragons.
24:58
You think it was a dragon?
24:59
Absolutely.
25:00
Yeah.
25:01
I think I don't think I could say there's definitive proof that it was a dragon, but the context
25:04
clue there of like, now you will, you know, crawl on your belly does it does give some
25:11
clue as to, okay, there was a pre-existing appendages that he was right.
25:17
He wasn't dragging around on his back.
25:19
I've said it before, but the first fossil discoveries were not until like the 1600s.
25:23
And yet you had all of these cultural histories throughout the world who had dragons depicted
25:30
in various stories, books, wall paintings, whatever you want to call them.
25:35
Dragons are everywhere all across the world with people in the same renderings, correct.
25:39
Right.
25:40
And you're kind of going, okay, well, um, I don't know how all of them could have such
25:46
a vivid, similar imagination.
25:48
It just seems, I mean, a lot of the things that we take on faith in the Bible, a lot
25:54
of times you could just kind of start going like, Oh, you know, just the idea of creation,
25:58
the odds of the entire world being created from nothing, the odds of that would be astronomically
26:05
small.
26:06
Okay.
26:07
Well, let's play this same game with dragons, astronomically small that all these different
26:12
disparate cultures who don't share very many things in common have that in common.
26:18
And nobody discovered any fossil records that they could have said, Oh, well, we found
26:23
these bones that look like giant lizards.
26:25
And let's make this character.
26:26
Let's talk about giant bone lizard things.
26:28
Okay.
26:29
There is a school of thought.
26:30
I've I've gone way too far down this.
26:32
Did you just look at me like a disappointed father brings that taught in this conversation
26:36
because he looks at me that way all the time.
26:38
You know, it's like hanging out with Zach Todd.
26:40
It's like that.
26:41
I'm like, I can't believe I have such dumb friends every time I open my mouth, but that
26:44
would be a lot of them.
26:45
discussion.
26:46
Yeah.
26:47
Well, you know, so one of the theories as to why we have not found, you know, winged
26:51
lizard like dragon things is for the same reason that you don't feed your dogs chicken
26:55
bones.
26:56
Right.
26:57
Why don't you feed your dogs chicken bones?
26:59
Split.
27:00
They split.
27:01
They frayed too easily.
27:02
And so they'll get into their, you know, digestive tract and they kind of come to pieces,
27:05
but you can give them, you know, bones of, you can give an antlers, you can give them
27:08
like hand bones, you can give them all these other different things and it doesn't come
27:11
apart the same.
27:12
So a lot of people are like, if a dragon were to die and it was kind of more in like the
27:16
bird, you know, whatever kingdom, final class order, family, genocide, species, whatever
27:20
thing, right?
27:21
It was more on the bird side of things.
27:23
There's no way those could fossilize to where we could find them because they would have
27:26
been too big and they would have just like split the pieces over time or something like
27:31
that.
27:32
And so that's why we haven't found any evidentiary basis fossil wise, the wings are made of cartilage
27:35
primarily.
27:36
Those wouldn't preserve.
27:37
Yeah.
27:38
Those wouldn't preserve.
27:39
But haven't they found like ancient birds?
27:40
Yeah.
27:41
Yeah.
27:42
Yeah.
27:43
There's a pterodactyl right there.
27:44
That was my favorite of all the dinosaurs.
27:45
There were arcterics.
27:46
Gets their logo.
27:47
Is an arcterics a thing?
27:48
Yes.
27:49
That was a thing, right?
27:50
A thing.
27:51
That was like a dinosaur bird.
27:52
Yeah.
27:53
It's a dinosaur bird.
27:54
Which by the way, if you're going to name your cartilage.
27:55
Yeah.
27:56
Hey, if you're going to name your company after something that no one can spell and no one
27:59
can pronounce unless they go into some sort of like super duper dude bro, like outdoor
28:03
shop and hear someone else say it like, you know, come on guys, like help.
28:07
Even though most people can't spell on daunted, I've found.
28:09
So there's that as well.
28:11
Yeah.
28:12
That's surprising to me.
28:13
Very surprising.
28:14
Yeah.
28:15
Well, it kind of is what it is.
28:16
Shout it out.
28:17
Shout it out.
28:18
Is this your phone?
28:19
You just knocking on the ground?
28:21
No, I found.
28:22
I touched it with my foot.
28:24
There.
28:25
Like I have my feet under my own chair.
28:27
And why is your phone?
28:28
I don't know.
28:29
Is that where you put your phone?
28:30
You're like, all right.
28:31
I'm definitely not going to be tempted to look at it.
28:32
If it's under Kyle's feet.
28:33
This has been derailed too.
28:34
Yes, that's right.
28:35
This is one of the worst ones.
28:36
I don't think that we've done.
28:37
But hey, guess what?
28:38
Guess what?
28:39
We can save it.
28:40
We can save it, guys.
28:41
Anything else?
28:42
On Genesis 20 before we move on.
28:43
I think 21's on deck.
28:44
Oh, wow.
28:45
Yeah.
28:46
Excited?
28:47
Well, I want to hear your guys' thoughts on this.
28:49
So like, he says, he's going to give your, I gave, he's saying, talk to Sarah, Abimelake,
28:55
is I am giving your brother a thousand pieces of silver as a sign of your innocence in all
29:01
who are with you.
29:03
That's interesting, just the opposite being true, obviously, for Judas.
29:10
I don't wonder what your guys' thoughts are on there.
29:13
I haven't looked into this at all.
29:16
Is there any significance into silver being looked upon as something like that?
29:23
Isn't silver more useful than gold?
29:25
Because gold is what we see as most valuable.
29:27
It's basically worthless as a metal.
29:30
It's very pretty.
29:31
As in use, you don't have golden tools, you don't have golden stuff, it's too soft of
29:37
a metal.
29:38
So I think silver is more usable, more valuable.
29:41
Yeah, I just found that really intriguing.
29:43
The silver, you having silver, will be a sign of your innocence.
29:47
I don't know if you guys...
29:49
I did not pick up on that.
29:51
Me neither.
29:52
I did find out that apparently on Neptune, it rains diamonds.
29:55
Do you know that?
29:56
It's raining.
29:57
We're just going to rain on that stuff here.
30:02
What does that have to do with Matt discussing that?
30:03
The human head weighs in pounds.
30:05
Hey, do you know the man with the longest gestation period is an elephant?
30:09
22 months?
30:10
Did you know that?
30:11
No bees and dogs can smell fear.
30:13
I think Eric is just trying to tie into the fact that Neptune is obviously a very stressful
30:19
place.
30:20
It's not a pressure on Neptune, the pressure makes diamonds.
30:25
Pressure makes diamonds.
30:26
So, just like us, God will bring us through our stress and pressure.
30:32
Tie it into 21.
30:33
Keep going, Matt.
30:34
Keep going.
30:35
And he will tie into 21.
30:36
He will crown us with thousands of pieces of silver because in Christ we are viewed as
30:38
innocent as well.
30:39
Tie it into 21.
30:40
I would tie it in.
30:41
Oh, because that's the promise.
30:42
That's the promise.
30:43
Speaking of promises, that is so interesting that you would say that, "Hey, Eric, if you
30:48
don't mind, I don't know if you're diamond researcher, are you good at the moment?
30:52
If you look at it, he's on zales.com."
30:54
So, hopefully Lady Browning is going to be getting something out of all this from Neptune.
31:00
From Neptune.
31:01
From Neptune.
31:02
She's getting diamonds from Neptune.
31:03
It would be amazing.
31:04
Holy Moses.
31:05
Okay.
31:06
How about we go ahead and do Genesis 21.
31:08
Let's just do the first seven verses.
31:10
Just start singing.
31:11
Let's do it.
31:12
Let me do it.
31:13
The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.
31:19
When Sarah conceived and bore Abraham, a son in his old age at the time of which God had
31:24
spoken to him, Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whose Sarah bore
31:29
him, Isaac.
31:31
And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded
31:36
him.
31:38
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
31:42
And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me.
31:46
Everyone who hears will laugh over me."
31:48
And she said, "Who would have said Abraham and Sarah would nurse children?
31:54
Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
31:58
So I thought I was old when I became a dad at like 33 years old, so slightly different
32:02
circumstances here.
32:03
But one thing that I would point out before we really dig in, because I mean, obviously
32:07
there's a whole lot here, and a lot of secularists and other people, Jordan Peterson's point
32:12
this out.
32:13
But some of them, the deepest stories, right, and why I use the word story, meaning like
32:17
a description of a historical record, those types of things, where we get some of the
32:22
deepest and most most meaning in terms of even how we look at things today, come in some
32:27
of the shortest passages of the Old Testament, right?
32:31
So look at Cain and Abel.
32:33
Cain and Abel, that entire story I think is four or five verses.
32:36
I mean, what all is in there, like the depth of just the Cain and Abel story is almost
32:43
hard to wrap our minds around.
32:44
Same thing here.
32:45
How much is just in seven verses and kind of look at what God can do.
32:49
And so I guess for me, like I won't speak for you guys, I'll speak for me, the significance
32:54
of what is in these verses is for what it points to.
32:57
It's not all encapsulated in these verses, but it's the same thing like when people are
33:01
like, don't look at the early part of Genesis as a taxonomy textbook or chemistry textbook
33:06
or a biology textbook, it's not describing everything, but it's describing kind of the
33:10
ultimate clarifying points about, hey, where do we get meaning and stuff, right?
33:15
Redemptive history is what we're going for here.
33:18
And so like Cain and Abel is an interesting one because right after God says through your
33:23
offspring, basically the servant's head will be crushed and then Cain and Abel happen,
33:28
you're like, wait a minute, dad, come at what?
33:30
If you're like rooting against the story, you're like, yes, ha, there's strife.
33:34
And then God's like, no, but there's a student named Seth, he's going to be the dude that,
33:39
you know, continues the line.
33:40
And so there's a lot of, like you're saying, like there's a lot of like meat in there.
33:46
And I think sometimes we miss it, but so it's good.
33:48
It's good to call that out.
33:49
And here's one of those examples as well.
33:52
Just as God has promised.
33:53
Well, guys, I know you're, yeah, you were excited to talk about it.
33:56
So let's get into the.
33:57
Well, Isaac.
33:58
Well, I was going to say the brevity of the actual discussion, because you got to think
34:03
about how long have we been talking about waiting for anticipating the birth of Isaac
34:10
throughout Genesis, since it's first, since the first covenant was made with Abraham,
34:16
how long have we been waiting?
34:18
And then we hit chapter 21 and it's literally given a sentence.
34:24
And I go, I started thinking I could, the brevity of this almost just makes it like it's reinforcing
34:30
how easy this was for God to do.
34:33
I don't need to go on and on about how I did this because I can do it.
34:39
And I read this last night in one of the comedies.
34:41
What God does should never cease to amaze us, but that he consistently shows himself capable
34:46
of doing what he does without a parent effort is strikingly commonplace and entirely unremarkable.
34:52
He is God enough said, why should we be astounded?
34:56
The text for its part is appropriately nonchalant.
34:59
Are we impressed?
35:00
By all means, yes, surprised, decidedly not.
35:06
We shouldn't be surprised.
35:08
God came through.
35:09
I mean, it's just go outside and you look at creation and you're going, we just see
35:14
it all and it just works and everything.
35:16
But do you ever marvel at it?
35:19
I brought this up before.
35:21
When we make these scientific discoveries and we're just like, whoa, look at this.
35:25
We just discovered this new star, new planet or whatever and yet it's been there all along.
35:31
We just didn't know and we think we're remarkable for discovering it.
35:35
And yet the person who actually created it and did everything did everything.
35:40
That's what's remarkable.
35:41
That's the remarkable part of it.
35:43
But should we be shocked that all of this stuff just works?
35:46
No, not God can do whatever he wants.
35:48
I like the, like Alsera response, you can tell it just has a deep impact on her.
35:54
You know, that she's just laughing.
35:57
Yeah, of course I've done Isaac's name, mean laughter, is that right?
36:01
It reminds me also of David, whenever they're bringing the arc back in, he just was so overjoyed
36:07
that he went around dancing in the streets.
36:10
The thing about the experience, you know, when I was telling this to somebody the other
36:14
day, like we can, you can have apologetic discussions with people and eventually you
36:19
get to kind of like just a, there's just an end point.
36:21
It's like, you guys are just going to agree to disagree on certain things potentially.
36:25
But one thing that nobody can ever take away from you is your experience with the Lord
36:29
and what God has done in your life, whether someone believes it or not, that's their thing.
36:37
But I know, and certainly Sarah knew, and David knew what God had done and it was amazing
36:43
to them.
36:44
Yeah.
36:45
Yeah, I think like to Jake's point, like, A.W.
36:48
Tozer, I think he said, what we think about God is the most important thing about us.
36:53
And if we believe that God does what he says he does, we'll do what he says he's going
36:57
to do.
36:59
We shouldn't be surprised.
37:00
But to your point, like I'm going to say, is we should be in awe of that.
37:04
And I think sometimes we can, you know, just be distracted or let ourselves or not be intentional
37:12
to see those things.
37:14
And so I think this is a good call to that of, hey, yes.
37:18
We believe that God does and can do all these things, but we should, we should marvel at
37:22
that.
37:23
One here, before long, we're going to be really digging into the psyche of Abraham whenever
37:27
God calls him to do something that's just hard to even realize.
37:31
But even in these verses, what's up?
37:33
Don't spoil it.
37:34
Yeah.
37:35
No spoilers here, guys.
37:36
You know, don't don't go to season two yet until you finish season one.
37:39
But I just, as I read through this passage again with its brevity, that's what I like,
37:44
right?
37:45
So it's like, no, let's get to the point.
37:46
Let's get to the high points.
37:47
Let's move on to verse eight, like, Bob, all this, keep this train moving.
37:50
But like whenever I do sit in this verse, in this group of verses here for a little bit,
37:55
I'm just like, man, what, what was he thinking when things were quiet, right?
38:00
For all these years and like the level of doubt that he had versus the faith and the
38:07
wrestling and the whispers that he's getting about, Hey, God's not going to pull through.
38:11
You got to take care of this yourself.
38:12
Obviously his wife has a brilliant idea that she is later mad about herself, which is
38:16
just like the most chick thing ever to where it's like, this was your idea, it goes up
38:20
in your face.
38:21
And now you're the one that's mad at me about it.
38:22
That's interesting.
38:23
And so like all of this has happened, right?
38:26
And I mean, we're talking about decades at this point, right?
38:29
Because we're going to talk more about Ishmael here in a second and you know, this, this
38:32
kid has been around for a very, very long time.
38:34
There's going to be some tension between him and this, this new kiddo and that type of
38:38
a thing.
38:39
But that's what I just got stuck on with this first part here.
38:41
It's like, well, what was he thinking when it actually did happen because there's got to
38:45
be some level of disbelief.
38:47
I mean, even in church this morning, we had a, one of our other preachers, not Marquecchock
38:51
preach.
38:52
And he was just talking about when you take your first baby home for the first time.
38:55
And it's like you get inside your house and whether you have a dog or whether you have
38:58
anything else like that.
38:59
There's a new thing in your house and you're just like, this, this isn't, this isn't real.
39:03
Like I've got a new human being that if they die, go to prison, like this is like, how,
39:07
how did I get here?
39:08
And like, I just wonder what Abraham was thinking in these moments, like how did this happen?
39:13
How did I actually get here?
39:15
It's like the real tangible part about this.
39:17
Sure.
39:18
Man.
39:19
Well, now there was a point in there.
39:20
This is the first circumcision, isn't it?
39:23
Is it right?
39:24
I think it's the first circumcision in the Bible.
39:26
How about Abraham?
39:27
What?
39:28
The circumcised himself?
39:29
Did he?
39:30
I think before that they talked about a group of people that were maybe circumcised, the
39:34
first individual person?
39:35
Maybe it was the first individual person.
39:36
Let's see what the internet says.
39:37
You keep going.
39:38
Yeah.
39:39
Yeah.
39:40
I would just making note that that was a sign of the covenant from Genesis 17.
39:43
Maybe that's where you find it.
39:46
And then I wrote down, that was to set them apart and it was a shadow of the new covenant.
39:51
And I liked this because I was thinking, why did I get this circumcised when I was a kid?
39:56
Is that necessary?
39:57
But here's the.
39:58
Anyways, wondering if Browning was circumcised or not?
39:59
Now you know, Romans 8, 28, 29 says this, "For no one is a Jew who is merely outwardly
40:07
nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is
40:14
a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter.
40:18
His praise is not for man, but from God."
40:20
Looks like Genesis 17 is the first time circumcision is brought in.
40:24
That's when God is telling him, right?
40:26
Yeah.
40:27
Genesis 17, 10 through 11, this is my covenant, which this is King James, y'all, which ye
40:31
shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee.
40:34
Every man, child among you, man, child, love that.
40:37
Every man, child among you shall be circumcised and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your
40:41
foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you."
40:47
So Abraham was circumcised at the ripe old age of 99, and Ishmael, his son at the age
40:51
of 13, and then all the males of Abraham's household, that was described a little bit
40:55
later in Genesis 17.
40:56
Yeah.
40:57
It's the first baby.
40:58
Yeah.
40:59
It looks to be the case.
41:00
Interestingly, after eight days, and this was, I think I brought this up on a previous
41:04
podcast, but eight days is still the standard, like you're supposed to, and believe it or
41:11
not, in the 1960s, they discovered that a child's blood clot, their blood clotting is
41:20
at its peak at eight days old.
41:22
So he circumcises him at eight days.
41:25
There's literally, like, if you wanted to go, when would be the best time to do this?
41:30
God told you it's eight days, eight days old.
41:32
It's when he did it to Isaac, because that's when their blood clot will actually, it'll
41:37
clot faster, so they will heal faster.
41:39
Yeah.
41:40
That's so interesting.
41:41
That army would have loved to have known that before they circumstances themselves and
41:44
got to feed it, right?
41:47
Probably right.
41:48
I bet they wish they could go back to when they were eight days old, and I get that
41:51
all squared away.
41:52
Hey, guys, anything else on the birth of Isaac before we move on, chapter 21?
41:56
I think, again, I just would call to the redemptive history that God tells us in
42:02
chapter three of Genesis that through you, I will crush the serpent's head like it's
42:11
coming.
42:13
And I mean, Isaac is a monumental birth in God's redemptive history for us.
42:22
And so yeah, that is something to just celebrate and just be so thankful for.
42:28
No better way to put a bow on the birth of Isaac.
42:31
So Eric, shut up Winkler, shut up.
42:33
But hey, Winkler, don't shut up for too long because you got to read now.
42:37
So let's get into verses eight through twenty one of Genesis twenty one and the child grew
42:41
and was weaned and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
42:46
But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham laughing.
42:52
So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son for the son of this slave
42:56
woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac.
43:00
And a thing that was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.
43:04
But God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave
43:09
woman.
43:10
Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac, show your offspring
43:15
be named and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your
43:21
offspring.
43:23
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar,
43:28
putting it on her shoulder along with the child and sent her away.
43:32
And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
43:35
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes.
43:39
Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bowshot for
43:43
she said, let me not look on the death of the child.
43:48
And as she set opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept and God heard the voice
43:52
of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles
43:58
you Hagar fear not for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is up, lift up the boy
44:05
and hold him fast with your hand for I will make him into a great nation.
44:11
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the skin
44:17
with water and gave the boy a drink and God was with the boy and he grew up.
44:22
He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.
44:25
He lived in the wilderness of Peron and his mother took a wife for him from the land of
44:30
Egypt.
44:31
So you bow hunters out there, you love this section, but there was something here that
44:34
I don't know if this was a distraction for me from the section because there's certainly
44:38
more to get from it.
44:40
But you know, in this section, you know, Ishmael, he's, you know, probably 16 or 17 years old,
44:44
but Ishmael is seen as one of he's on the Mount Rushmore of patriarchs of the Islamic
44:51
faith.
44:52
Okay, and so every time I see I see this here because if you're not aware, obviously when
44:59
we get to this Christian, the Christian and Jewish belief is that Abraham took his son
45:03
Isaac up and that was a sacrifice he was going to make before God before God, you know, stayed
45:09
his hand.
45:10
But the Muslim faith maintains that it wasn't Isaac that it was Ishmael.
45:15
And so Ishmael is a, you know, the Islamic tradition comes right off of Ishmael's line.
45:21
And when you hear people talk about how they're saying the sum of the same characters in,
45:25
you know, the Old Testament and in the Quran and stuff like that, like Ishmael is one of
45:28
them.
45:30
So I'm, I'm a little bit confused here at God's protection over Ishmael because the ultimate
45:37
battle that I think that we're coming to is not, it's not a worldview of, you know, conservatism
45:43
and liberalism or, you know, conservatism and wokeism or, you know, leftism, any of that
45:49
type of stuff.
45:50
But it's Christianity and Islam, right?
45:52
Like that, that is the, that's the ultimate battle that, that we're all going for.
45:56
And it's like the ultimate false God versus the one true God.
46:00
And so I don't know if any of y'all have really looked into that any further because that just,
46:03
it kind of hung me up a little bit and I didn't really come to a place of, of understanding
46:07
as to, okay, God, why do you keep, you know, doing something knowing that, you know, he's
46:11
going to create this line of people that are going to eventually cut off your followers'
46:14
heads.
46:15
I mean, if you really want to go down the sovereignty route, I mean, interestingly enough, I think
46:23
the, the Savior of, in times, I believe the Islamic like Savior is supposed to rule for
46:36
seven years.
46:38
I believe.
46:39
Oh, like in, like in their in times.
46:40
Yes.
46:41
In their in times.
46:42
The Imam?
46:43
Like the one that's been waiting for?
46:44
No, I don't.
46:45
Nothing like that.
46:46
Like essentially it, it syncs up with what we would call the Antichrist.
46:51
And so there's like some synergies there.
46:53
So if you wanted to go, okay, why?
46:56
If you wanted to go into the great plan and the sovereignty argument, you could say you
47:00
could make a pretty distinct line there.
47:04
I mean, I kind of looked at the same thing, Kyle, because I started going like, okay,
47:08
well, you have Isaac, who's literally the stump, you know, the stump of the Jewish faith.
47:17
And then you have Ishmael, who's the stump of the Islamic faith.
47:22
And then you just kind of see this grow over time.
47:26
And it's all rooted in the polygamous relationship of Abraham.
47:32
It's all rooted in his sin.
47:34
Right.
47:35
It's all rooted there that essentially we have been embroiled in centuries eons of conflict.
47:45
And that predates even the founding of the Islamic faith.
47:48
It's not like the Persians were super friendly before the before Muhammad came along.
47:55
There's been conflict forever.
47:56
And yet it's all rooted in this one act, one act of Abraham could not just look at God
48:05
and believe him.
48:06
Yeah, it was, it was bigger.
48:08
That's the ultimate point.
48:09
It was bigger than just he went outside of his marriage because his wife suggested, hey,
48:12
you want to bring in third lady, and he's like, how'd he do like it was that he just didn't
48:16
believe in the promise.
48:17
And I looked up a little bit here.
48:19
Islamic eschatology does include the expectation of a redeemer figure commonly known as the
48:24
Madi who is foretold to appear before the day of judgment to restore justice in some
48:30
Hadith.
48:31
So the Hadith is the trans or traditions that come off of the Quran.
48:35
So it's more Muslim traditions in some Hadith narrations that has mentioned that the Madi's
48:39
period of leadership or rule will last for seven years.
48:43
However, there are a few important points of note anyway.
48:45
There's different schools of thought with eschatology and the different dogma there.
48:49
But that's kind of what you were getting at.
48:50
And so I'm again, I don't know how to weave all these things together.
48:54
Maybe that's a Mark Hitchcock thing that he can come on and kind of weave that all together
48:57
because there are people that see no connection with the end times and the battle of good
49:00
and evil being between Christianity and Islam or Jesus and Muhammad or however they want
49:05
to couch it.
49:06
But anyway, Matt, you look like you're ready to fire off this go.
49:08
Not on that.
49:09
I think there's a lot to be discussed there probably need a lot more time and probably
49:13
people who like have studied revelation like thoroughly like Pastor Hitchcock.
49:17
I think one one thing that's interesting here is Ishmael is not punished for the sin of
49:27
his father.
49:29
So he is a obviously a sinful birth in the in the in terms of like he happened outside
49:37
of what God had ordained as this covenantal marriage between Abraham and Sarah.
49:42
Promises to make Abraham a great nation in his offspring to be a great nation.
49:49
Is it an interesting that Ishmael is not killed because of what David did?
49:59
I don't know.
50:00
That just stuck out to me as like as someone who is very pro life and you know as we you
50:04
know, kind of run in some pro life circles.
50:06
I'm not David, but sorry.
50:08
Thank you.
50:09
But keep on.
50:10
Did I say David?
50:11
That's just an interesting thing that he's not killed because of.
50:17
It's weird that you said sorry.
50:18
It's weird that you said David because literally sitting in church this morning, I was thinking
50:21
about Abraham and Isaac and Ishmael and then I was thinking about the tribe of Judah and
50:27
then I was thinking about David and Bathsheba and that's in the line of the tribe of Judah
50:33
and then at the end of that line is the lion of the tribe of Judah, which is Jesus and it's
50:37
like, you know, if you look through Jesus's family tree, it's nasty.
50:44
There's some there's murderers and rapists and horse and like it is like it's not what
50:49
you would expect right because it's like, Hey, who do we all want our sons and daughters
50:52
to marry?
50:53
We want them to marry nice boys and girls and nice families and you know, all that type
50:57
of stuff and it's just like, you just don't get this clean story.
51:01
That's another one of the appeals of the Christian stories.
51:03
It's like, no, it wasn't the it wasn't Peter.
51:05
That's all the empty tomb and told everyone about it.
51:07
It was the ladies who had no rights at that time and no one would have taken them seriously.
51:11
It's all this stuff that you wouldn't have put in there if you were trying to make yourself
51:15
their faith.
51:16
You definitely would have put these people who did everything right, who never messed
51:19
up who I'm sorry, never sinned, but whatever, you know, like you would have just had these
51:25
perfect people and God is like, I'm going to take these crooked pencils and draw straight
51:31
lines and that's just all throughout the Bible and Abraham, I mean, he does some dumb stuff
51:37
and we can look back, you know, through our modern lens and go, man, what a dummy.
51:43
But isn't that all of us?
51:44
Yeah.
51:45
We do some dumb stuff.
51:46
I had a thought, you know, from the very beginning, imagine the dragon turning into
51:51
the snake and, you know, going away and be like, I am literally going to wreck this world,
51:55
you know?
51:56
And from that point on, just trying to strategize in all these different ways and try to even,
52:02
you know, as early as Abimelek, you know, getting into his mind and being like, you need to
52:06
take this woman and have sex with her and God, having to then come in and restrain Abimelek
52:13
from doing that thing so that he can preserve that line that he wants, right, and preserve
52:17
the promise that he's given Abraham.
52:19
And I think it goes on and on and on.
52:21
We see that all the way through Jesus.
52:22
And now it's just kind of, I imagine like Satan's just trying to delay the return of
52:26
Jesus as much as he possibly can because he knows that when that happens, I'm going to
52:30
lose.
52:31
Right.
52:32
One of the most helpful things.
52:33
I think it was Joby who may have been the first one.
52:35
So no sorry, Joby here.
52:36
This one's just shout out Joby.
52:37
But I think he may have been the first person that, uh, where it clicked with me, Satan is
52:43
not omniscient because I guess I had always thought of him as, I wouldn't have used the
52:48
word omniscient, but I would have described how he attacks us, me specifically as omniscient.
52:53
Like he knows exactly what's going to happen.
52:54
He doesn't.
52:56
He is just an expert at my game film and he has all of it, right?
53:00
So he can't, you know, read what I'm about to do.
53:03
He doesn't really know the future, but man, he knows exactly what's gotten me off my rocker
53:07
in the past.
53:08
And I've talked to some of you guys here recently about, you know, Satan gets really crafty.
53:13
And you know, I kind of become a bit fearful when I feel like the, you know, things get
53:17
ramped up a little bit.
53:18
Cause you know, I felt like, you know, the attack on my voice a few years ago for some
53:21
of you that are new to the show a couple of years ago, I had to have two vocal cord surgeries
53:24
for a class vocal cord and in between surgeries, I couldn't talk above a whisper.
53:28
And I'm talking to some of you guys about, you know, Hey, what's, you know, anyone that's
53:31
a UPS driver?
53:32
Are there any jobs where you can make a good living and not talk because those are the
53:35
things that I have to consider now, cause I can't talk about whisper.
53:37
Mime school.
53:38
Yeah.
53:39
It's like, how's on Donna life going to survive?
53:40
Oh, God, that would be.
53:41
Oh, man.
53:42
I'd rather go to clown college.
53:44
Well, Thompson is a mime.
53:46
Wouldn't that be the worst?
53:47
I mean, it would just be me flipping people off eventually because I'd be so frustrated.
53:50
I'd be like, here, Hey, do you understand what I'm trying to learn?
53:54
Yeah.
53:55
You just exist, you exist as a gender.
53:59
That's how you mime anger.
54:00
You just wake up and start breathing.
54:02
Well, Hey, we're, we need to kind of put a bow on Genesis 20 and 21 here, but we do have
54:07
one more section to read.
54:08
So we're going to read this last section and then we're going to get some final comments.
54:11
So I think we go to your red lasso, Matt, bring that sultry voice into Genesis 21 starting
54:16
in 22 and finish out the chapter.
54:18
At the time of Bemelek and fecal, the commander of his army said to Abraham, God is with
54:24
you in all that you do now, therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely
54:30
with me or with my descendants with my posterity.
54:34
But as I have dealt with kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where
54:39
you have sojourned and Abraham said I will swear when Abraham reproved a Bemelek about
54:44
a well of water that a Bemelek servants had seized, a Bemelek said, I do not know who
54:51
has done this thing, you did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today.
54:55
So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to a Bemelek and the two men made a covenant.
55:00
Abraham set seven u-lams of the flock apart and a Bemelek said to Abraham, what is the
55:06
meaning of these seven u-lams that you have set apart?
55:09
He said, these seven u-lams you will take from my hand that this may be a witness for
55:15
me, that I dug this well, therefore that place was called Beersheba because they are both
55:21
of them sworn oath.
55:23
So they made a covenant at Beersheba, then a Bemelek and fecal, the commander of his
55:27
army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
55:30
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord the
55:35
everlasting God and Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.
55:40
Our Philist, last thoughts on Genesis 20 and 21, again, for some of you out there like
55:46
you're wondering, hey, why aren't we digging more so into this verse or this chapter or
55:49
this story or whatever, at the forging table, we're just trying to give you some background
55:53
as to what this would look like if men were just getting together going through scripture
55:57
like this.
55:58
So yes, we can always go deeper on certain stories, but sometimes we're just kind of
56:02
trying to kind of get through to keep this narrative going because we do have to have
56:04
a flow to this.
56:05
So any thoughts as we wrap up, Genesis 21?
56:08
I think I know this is not part of the last section that we read, but I think God's sovereignty
56:15
to fulfill his purpose is really present here.
56:19
And this is a really good example, like Sarah calls for Ishmael to leave several chapters
56:25
before 21 and Abraham basically is like, well, she's your servant.
56:30
You do with her what you want.
56:32
And you know, researching and listening to some sermons on culture of the time.
56:40
The idea is that if she had sent him out, it was illegal, according to some ancient documents,
56:46
it was illegal for the wife of the husband to send out a slaves or to like excommunicate
56:53
a slaves son.
56:57
But if the husband did it, it was okay.
57:02
And so the speculation here is that had Sarah kicked Hagar and Ishmael out, he could have
57:09
then come back as Isaac is weaned and they're celebrating him and they're, you know, probably
57:15
he's an heir.
57:16
He's the heir of this, you know, all of Abraham's possessions.
57:20
Ishmael could have come back and said, that's rightfully mine.
57:23
I'm taking this because it was, it was illegally taken from me.
57:28
So God in his sovereignty, staved that off.
57:31
And then at the, at the appropriate time said, all right, now, now he's gone.
57:37
Cause the son of promise is here.
57:38
The son, the son of promise has been born and he is weaned and he is ready to be the
57:43
heir of this family and my future kingdom, like what a cool thing.
57:49
Like God is just incredible.
57:54
So that was one thing that I just really stuck out to me was like, man, Sarah tried to get
57:58
rid of him and God said, no, no, no, no, not yet.
58:01
Not yet.
58:02
I like the, I mean, I look at verse 19 and I look at that and just kind of marvel at
58:06
the grace of God is from a commentary I read yesterday.
58:10
But, um, it's remarkable to see in verse 19, the grace of God, then God opened her eyes.
58:16
The same God who divides the red sea and makes the Jordan dry up also opens a poor woman's
58:21
eyes.
58:22
The same God who came with all his chariots of fire to parent with all of his holy ones
58:26
to Sinai and made the mountain utterly to smoke in his presence is he of whom we read
58:32
and God opened Hagar's eyes.
58:35
Uh, it, it's just so simple and it was literally just to save ishmael.
58:42
That's it.
58:43
One person.
58:44
He's doing all of these things.
58:45
He's capable of all of these things.
58:47
And yet here's the prayers of one woman and Hagar's the only part, Hagar's the only person
58:55
in Genesis where you actually have, or only woman in Genesis where you actually have
59:00
two encounters with God.
59:02
She's the only one that had two separate encounters with God.
59:05
Um, and there was nothing special about Hagar or nothing special about her at all.
59:11
Slave woman, you know, concubine didn't matter.
59:15
And still had mercy and grace on her.
59:17
So I'll, I'll, I'll just similar note, um, just very practical that that one action by
59:25
Abraham with Hagar has had millennia of repercussions.
59:30
And so just from a, you know, day to day thing for myself, you know, in a, in a culture
59:36
where there's a whole lot of, um, get what you want right now, no delayed gratification.
59:42
Um, it's easy for, um, people like myself to just make decisions in the moment, uh, rather
59:50
than to, to delay things, um, but even when I'm teaching kids, um, it's like there, there's
59:57
great worth in delaying your gratification, um, putting things off and not just in the
1:00:02
moment doing this stuff because a lot of this stuff has some big ramifications, um, if you
1:00:08
go and mess up and do this one thing.
1:00:11
So I don't know, just a thought on that guys, computers made noises.
1:00:15
Water got spilled on laptops, cell phones ended up under other people's feet.
1:00:19
But somehow all those things had to do with Eric Browning and we still made it to the
1:00:23
end of the episode.
1:00:24
And Eric gave us the last bit of commentary.
1:00:27
So guys, we made a congratulations to us, but we're going to have to leave it there.
1:00:30
But come back here next week where we're going to be digging into Genesis 22.
1:00:34
And I know everyone at this table has been very much so getting excited about that.
1:00:37
That's going to get into the sacrifice of Isaac.
1:00:38
So guys, make sure you're a red through Genesis 32 or sorry, 22 Genesis, 22, so you can be
1:00:44
ready for next week.
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But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost out and off to life
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