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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

A Safe Joyful Path

All right, let's pray together and then share something this morning with you.

Father in heaven, Lord, we're thankful today for your blessings on us to be able to come here and worship together and study your word.

So bless us to that and we pray in Christ's name, amen.

So I'm gonna teach 2 songs today and also talk about a psalm that's related to the Exodus.

As some of you know, some of us visited Egypt and Jordan and followed the route of the Exodus.

And when we were in Egypt, it was really a study in contrast Because everything about that culture is actually addressed by the books written by Moses in the Pentateuch.

And Moses probably wrote Job first, but he wrote Exodus, and then he wrote Genesis while he was out at Mount Sinai.

But the Egyptians believed the Nile is the giver of all life, But in the Bible, God says, no, God's the giver of all life.

The Egyptian told us that the Nile River provides life for all Egypt even today.

But God said, well, let me show you something.

I'm going to provide water in the midst of a desert.

Because I want you to realize that I'm actually more powerful than the Nile.

Also, as we went along in the land of Goshen or Zohan or Tannis or Avaris is what they call it over there, on the land of Goshen.

And even the poor folks that live there, even though there's a lot of trash, I've never seen more trash on the streets than in Egypt.

Even though there's a lot of trash, There is a lot of things, there are a lot of things to eat, especially in the land of Goshen, right near where they believe, of course, Moses came out of the water.

They believe they found some places where the pharaoh at that time had a palace in that area and went right down to the river bank.

And they also believe that Joseph, who we talked about, retired there in Goshen for 16 years in a town called Avaris, which is under Pye Ramsey's.

And then we went to a place where they had collected a bunch of statues of Ramsey's in Zola or in Tannis.

That was probably 1 of the most fascinating places for me actually.

And then 1 of the pharaohs of scripture, Shishak, was entombed there.

But God said, look, you think that you're going to have your onions, your leeks, your garlic, all your food from Egypt?

He says, I'm actually able to feed you bread and make all your needs known in terms of food also where there is no food.

You think everything comes from Egypt, I can make you abundant even in the wilderness.

Also, many of the different hieroglyphics show Pharaoh slaying his enemies with his right hand.

You see him there, ready to get rid of his enemy with his right hand.

In the Bible it talks about God's right hand and how he was glorious in power with his right hand, and how he cast Pharaoh into the Red Sea using his right hand.

It's almost as if the entire book of Exodus is written as a rebuke to Egypt.

And this is why when Moses went back, his name, by the way, is Moses, and there were like 4 pharaohs in a row called Moses.

Tutmoses the first, second, third, and his name is Moses.

And All these were typical names of pharaohs at his time, if you date it correctly.

Must be, you know, the dating is an issue too.

And even now the Egyptians try and deny the fact that the Hebrews or the Israelites were even there.

And so the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph probably on Moses tried to get rid of every record and fairly successfully.

However, you go there now, it's stunning to see how much of what the Bible says is accurately depicted and it will actually build your faith if you ever get a chance to go there.

And then of course the pharaoh had a rod.

But the Pharaoh would carry a rod that looked like a snake, sometimes on their, many times on their headdress, they had a cobra, and the cobra was to protect them.

And so when Moses came with his snake, his rod that he threw down as a snake, and that actually ate the other snakes.

It was eating the protection, the very protection of Pharaoh and saying, you have no protection when my man Moses is here.

My rod and my staff is much more powerful than anything you can ever conjure up.

These were amazing things to actually see in Egypt and see the stunning contrast there.

You come up with your little fake mountains, I've got real mountains.

And looking at the pyramids was impressive but looking at the grandeur of the Sinai Peninsula which some believe is where the law was given and Some believe it's in Saudi Arabia, but both these granite rocks that go straight up.

They're much more impressive than anything that Khufu, Khaferi, or all the others came up with.

Although it was kind of impressive to see a bunch of rocks in the middle of the sand.

Then, you know, Ramses was 1 of the pharaohs which many times they try and date with the Exodus.

But He had a mobile chariot and he had a mobile temple that was set up with dimensions not unlike the mobile sanctuary of God, the only difference was you see all these people bowing to him there and then you see those 2 things in the middle, it's like a holy place, and it's a cartouche there in the middle, which is kind of a name tag.

Those are actually falcons, and they're supposedly protecting Ramses.

But God had his temple, and there was no personage sitting there, there were no idol, no, nothing that had to be moved around or carried from place to place like all of the different things in Egypt.

Egypt is full of idols that were not alive then and are not alive now.

Here's God's temple, what has a living presence in it and not an idol.

They also found reliefs of Ramses where he was at Kadesh and he was fighting with the Hittites and drove them into the river and they all drowned.

But God drove the entire army of Egypt into the river and they all drowned.

Of course, all the idols of Egypt, as I mentioned, that had to be, Someone gave me a book, Mr.

Fiers gave me a book before I went on Egypt.

And it talked about the practices, how the pharaoh would go in, And he would do all these incantations and then he had to lay down on top of the idol of God and wake the God up, feed the God, breathe on the God, because the God needed a lot of help, carry the God around and do all the stuff.

And then a stunning contrast to the Bible where you have God's presence as a cloud of air conditioning by day.

And by the way, when you're over in the Sinai Peninsula, you can really appreciate air conditioning.

And we would go out, you know, but man, it's hot.

But God created air conditioning for his people.

And this presence of God led them, this was totally different than the dead gods of Egypt.

And this really gripped me as I looked at those countries, that country.

I became less and less impressed with Egypt and more and more impressed with God, and so I was in Egypt.

And you know the point of the whole Bible is that if God could deliver from that most powerful culture at that time, He can deliver you from anything at this time.

Anything you're going through, He can do that.

If the Exodus is true, then it's good news for you.

The Lord revealed himself as a God above All human authority and greatness.

Pharaoh said, who is God that I should obey him?

Well, he's somebody that is much more powerful than anything you ever came up with, is the answer to that, right?

Signs and wonders he wrought in behalf of his people showed his power over nature and over the greatness of those who worshiped nature.

And the greatest of those who worshiped nature, and the greatest of those who ever worshiped nature would be the Egyptians.

God went through the proud land of Egypt, as He will go through the earth in the last days.

And so in other words, at this time in earth's history, as we near the end, people are more and more struck with idolatry, and the biggest idol people have is themselves.

They think what they say and their laws are more important than God's law.

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A Safe Joyful Path

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