InVerse 3rd Quarter 2025: The Book of Exodus

Justin Kim

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Hope Channel

06 Pharaoh’s Heart Hardened

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now, here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Greetings to each 1 of you out there as well, whether you're watching on video or listening on podcasts or radio, we wanna say hello to you all.

And we wanna welcome you to comment and leave your feedback on our social media channels.

You can look at Inverse Bible and you can also study with us if you go to inversebible.org.

For previous episodes, you can go to hopetv.org slash inverse, and we are studying the book of Exodus.

There are so many awesome things that we've gone through.

It is sad that we can't go through all of it, but we're trying to get to the main themes as much as possible.

I think we're not gonna be, Joel, correct me if I'm wrong, we're not gonna go through the entire book of Exodus, we're going through the narrative part, right?

Because there's a lot of laws in the second half that we just can't get into.

I think we have 1 lesson on the sanctuary.

And that's predominantly found in the second half of Exodus, so very good.

All right, so hey, let's go to Exodus chapter 9.

And Jo, if you can pray for us, and we'll get into it.

Heavenly Father, we are so glad to be able to open your word, and as we study the history of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, we ask that you would give us soft hearts to receive your Holy Spirit.

And Jemima, we're in chapter 9 of Exodus, verses 29 through, I don't know, 35.

So Moses said to him, as soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord.

The thunder will cease and there will be no more hail that you may know that the earth is the Lord's.

But as for you and your servants, I know that you will not yet fear the Lord God.

Now the flax and the barley were struck, for the barley was in the head and the flax was in the bud.

But the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they are late crops.

So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and spread out his hands to the Lord.

Then the thunder and the hail ceased and the rain was not poured on the earth.

And when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more and he hardened his heart, he and his servants.

Neither would he let the children of Israel go as the Lord has spoken to Moses.

Felicia, if you can help us, maybe some people are onboarding right now.

We've got Barrel Hardening, so I'm anticipating.

I look over at her and she's like grinning at me.

Can you give us, for some people who may be onboarding right now, maybe this is their first episode watching, or this is their first episode on Exodus, and just kind of fly high from episode 1 to episode, we're on, what, week 6 here?

Yeah, where have we been and where are we going?

We have a Pharaoh who commands the baby boys be killed.

But we have this 1 baby boy who was saved in the same river that's killing a lot of the baby boys.

And then we have this baby boy who grows up and he encounters God, but God appears in a bush that's on fire.

And God tells this man who can hardly speak very well, go and set my people free.

And this man who is a shepherd who cannot speak well, goes into Pharaoh with his brother, who is a slave, and just tells the most powerful man in the world to let my people go.

And this Pharaoh is like, you all have a lot of time on your hands.

And so God says, listen, I'm gonna send these plagues so that you will know that I am the Lord.

So now we have this part that is so confusing for a lot of Christians.

And it's also an argument for those who are not Christians.

How do you have this God who is supposedly so good and trying to save people, hardening a man's heart so that it seems as if he doesn't even have the choice to repent even if he wanted to and God is still judging him and that's where we are.

Wow, we need to take notes on what you just did there.

I want to, I want to, for, for, for Exodus.

You did conclude on a, on a very solid point that this is a theological hurdle for a lot of people.

Whether they're theologically bent or not, people deal with theology on a daily basis.

And God, this is the phrase, God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

And we have a whole episode just dedicated to that.

We see here in verse 34, when Pharaoh saw the rain, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he didn't repent, but he sinned yet more.

How can we, how do we, let's answer this first question.

How do we respond to people say, does God allow?

Oh yeah, so the text, There's more than 1 phrase.

So it states both that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

Evening Plenary

Jim Micheff

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

He Must Increase

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp, held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, as we bow in your presence, we recognize that you are our God.

We recognize that you've given us the Holy Spirit to teach us, to bring Jesus into our life so that He can live in our life by faith.

So tonight, Lord, we want to echo that prayer of Paul, that You would strengthen us with might through your spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith being rooted and grounded in love.

I want to start tonight by telling you a little story.

When my wife and I started our ministry, we started in Wyoming.

As we were pastoring in Wyoming, we of course met new people.

I'd never been to Wyoming before, And I met some of the first ones, of course, as a pastor, you usually meet your leaders.

And so I met 1 of the elders, Chuck Martin, who was married to Rita.

So every week we would come together and we would pray.

He ended up being transferred, he actually moved to Montana.

So a few years later, I was going through Montana and stopped by to visit with him, and we spent the night with him, and he said, Jim, he said, let's go white water, or let's go white water, not rafting, but canoeing and kayaking.

He says We I take my family on this all the time and he said you've canoed You know how to canoe don't you I said well yeah, we can do it camp And we even go down a fairly fast river, the Asobo.

And every once in a while, you know, there's a little bit of rapids.

He said, you'll have a great time with this.

So he said, you know, I have enough canoes and kayaks that we can all fit in it.

And he said, and I have enough life jackets.

So we made our way to the river in Montana by Kalispell.

And so we unloaded the canoes and the kayaks and we divvied up the canoes to everyone, made sure everyone had a lifejacket.

And so we all were assigned, you know, the places where we were going to go.

And he says, now listen, I want you guys to all come up and I want to give you a crash course on how to navigate down the rapids.

Oh, OK, that sounds like it'd be a good idea.

So we got together and he says, OK, I want you to.

And he started to tell us some very things.

He says, now listen, When you're canoeing, he says, the first person, as you're going down the river, you better be watching out for the sleepers.

A sleeper is a rock that's just under the surface and you can't see it, but if you watch the water, you'll see that the water moves a little differently over that rock and that means you better stay away from it because if you hit it, you could tip over.

Oh yeah, we want to stay away from those.

And he said, and then when you hit the ramparts, There's several different positions that you can take when you hit the rapids.

I don't remember all of the ones he said, but I do remember the 1 he called the prayer position.

And that's where you hit your knees, you slide your knees to the side, and you know you're on your knees and you're ready for whatever action that comes.

He said now when you hit the rapids you want to make sure that you work as a team.

The person in the front can help keep the canoe going straight by hitting off the rocks that you come, so you don't get sideways.

So that person in the front is going to be pretty important.

And then he said, now listen, I just want to add this 1 little thing.

If you should get separated from your canoe or kayak.

You fall into the river, make sure you navigate, turn yourself around so your feet is going first and that way your feet can help bounce off the rocks and not your head.

Well, now that sounds good, but I didn't like this idea getting out of my canoe.

And then he got into his canoe, and Dan, you're an expert at canoes, so you probably know what I'm going to say.

He gets out in the canoe in this fast-moving river, and he turns it side, he's at an angle, and he's just paddling, he's staying right in 1 place.

He said, well, this is how you paddle to stay right here if you got into a little problem.

So then he comes back over and he says, okay now I think we're ready to go, but let's have prayer first And so we had prayer that God would give us safety and and we would have a good time going down this river So off we went now the experienced ones went first and then my boys followed and then my daughter and her friend, and then Chuck and Rita were in a canoe, and I said, no wait a minute, Jodi's our youngest 1, And since you have the most experience, let's let her ride in your canoe." So she was in the middle and then Gail and I followed and we were heading down the river.

The water was a little higher than normal and it was running a little faster than normal.

And we didn't even have to paddle very much.

And Gail and I were just, wow, look at this.

Look at the mountain over there and look at this over there.

And then we came to a bend in the river and we heard screams.

Now we couldn't tell if those screams were for fear or from excitement.

And then we turned the bend and there was our first falls and Gail took 1 look at that and she says I don't want to do this.

There's a little problem because there's no reverse on a river and it is moving.

And I quickly could see that the kids that already made it through safely and so that gave us courage that we could come through safely too but you know there's something different about a rapids when you experience it yourself.

There's something about the sight and the sound and the spray of water.

Now, I had never experienced anything like this, And so I was trying desperately to say, what do I need to do?

And I was trying to remember all of the training that Chuck had given us prior to coming in.

And I was thinking, the only thing I could remember was praying position.

And so I hit my knees down there on my, you know, on the canoe, and I'm getting ready to go into this rapids.

My mind is trying to take in all of the sights and sounds and it's new and it's not knowing what to do with it.

Gail was so afraid that she had her canoe over the top, her paddle over the top of the canoe and she was holding on with both of her hands and she was just screaming.

We came into the rapids and we bounced off our first rock And I hollered to her, I said, push off the rocks!

And she just screamed, petrified, and she couldn't get her hands off her canoe.

And then we hit another rock that I didn't even see, and I thought for sure we're gonna fall over.

But then I remembered something Chuck had told us.

He said, if you're going down the rapids and you feel like you're going to tip over, immediately push your body the opposite way and try to counterbalance.

I pushed my weight the other way and we stayed afloat.

And then we bounced off another rock and we still stayed afloat.

And right ahead of us was Chuck and Rita and Jody was in the middle and Their canoe was riding so low that as they were going by all these rocks, it was filling full of water.

And then it lurched a certain way and Jody fell out.

And when she came to the top, she was moving her hands and arms and she wasn't quite sure what to do and I didn't know what I could do to help her so I just hollered feet first and then it was over we were out of the rapids And he had told us if that happens, there's a little eddy on the side.

It's a little quiet spot in the water and then collect yourself over there.

So we paddled over and helped Jody into the canoe.

John Bradshaw

It Is Written

How to Have Faith

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

The Bible says that people are saved by grace through faith.

Underscoring that faith is really important.

According to the Bible, you can't be saved without it.

I heard recently from a woman who shared the experience of her friend.

She said she doesn't understand faith and she doesn't know how to get it.

She's let me know that she doesn't trust God with her life.

There are people who aren't sure how to exercise faith or want to have more faith.

And what if you weren't raised to accept the Bible as the Word of God and then you hear about a man being swallowed by a great fish, maybe a whale, who then spent 3 days and nights on the most incredible submarine voyage in history?

Or of a time when there'd never been rain and Noah builds an ark because God tells him the world is going to be flooded and only 8 people get on the boat and are saved.

Or the idea that our earliest ancestors lived for almost a thousand years.

But you can understand why someone would find that hard to believe.

And there are people who believe creation and the flood and the virgin birth and the story of Jonah and water from a rock and manna on the ground, and they struggle with having faith.

And that can be for a variety of reasons.

Your friends challenge your beliefs, or a science teacher tells you you're unwise for believing creation.

Remember, we are saved by faith, by grace through faith.

Jesus once asked this searching question, When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?

He knew that in our secular world, faith might be a challenge due to people being bombarded or overwhelmed by opposing secular ideas.

Romans says that we are justified, made right with God, by faith.

So, we want to know what faith is, and we want to know how to have faith.

In fact, the book of Romans says, whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

I want you to know that you can have faith, and that your faith can grow, that you can have strong faith.

The Bible says, "...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That's Hebrews 11 verse 1.

Faith is believing you have what you hope for.

It's having evidence for something that you can't see.

We talk about God, but we've never seen Him.

I can tell you God exists, but I can't claim to have spoken with him face to face.

I couldn't tell you what his voice sounds like.

Now, I will tell you that God makes impressions on my mind through a variety of means.

But someone might think that I'm just imagining things.

So, Is faith simply an excuse for being able to believe in a God that we cannot see?

Is faith a convenient excuse for believing in a God we don't have any evidence for?

The Bible writers were so confident that they said, faith is believing you have it, even when you don't see that you have it.

Well, yes, absolutely, especially when you consider that some Bible writers communicated directly with God.

Moses, who most likely wrote 6 books of the Bible, spoke with God, spent time with God on Mount Sinai.

The prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit.

If that's the case, if the Bible writers interacted personally with God, then faith in God doesn't sound irrational.

Paul is discussing a story that took place back in the book of Genesis.

Here's what he says, Romans 4, starting in verse 13, "...for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." We're talking about the man known as the Father of Faith.

Paul is in the midst of explaining that salvation comes by faith and not by the works of the law.

He's already said the law is good and he'll say so again, but his point here is that salvation is obtained by faith.

Speaking of Abraham, we read, "...who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be." Now, what's going on here?

Abraham, who was not a young man, was told that he would be a father, even though his wife Sarah was close to 90 years old.

If I told Abraham his wife was going to have a baby at 90, he should not have believed me because I cannot guarantee something like that.

He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

As huge as this was, Abraham was fully persuaded that God could do what He promised.

And verse 22 says, "...and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." Why is this such a stirring example of faith?

Because, humanly speaking, this was impossible.

Yet, in spite of appearances, Abraham believed God.

Even though he believed against hope, he believed.

Abraham expected the Word of God to do what it said it would do, simply because it said so.

Well, when God says, I will provide for your needs, faith says, I believe you will.

I know folks who are missionaries and they never, ever ask anyone for money.

They're in the mission field and they've chosen to say, God, you have promised to provide for us and so we believe you will, just like George Mueller did in England in the 1800s.

Oh, I'm not saying everybody should do that, but they choose to, and God is providing for them.

Well, it could, I guess, and we'll talk about that in a moment.

But in Abraham's case, God pledged that Abraham and Sarah would have a baby.

Abraham had a choice, believe God or not believe God.

In other words, Abraham chose to have faith.

This example of faith was so powerful that Jesus said He'd never seen anything like it.

And because we're in Matthew 8, well let's look at another faith story, right at the beginning of the chapter.

ASI 2025 Conference: Investing in Eternity

Plenary

Andi Hunsaker

The Power of Words

First of all, I want to thank my dear friend Pastor Mark for that undeserved introduction.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

06 Pharaoh’s Heart Hardened

29m

He Must Increase

1h 7m

How to Have Faith

28m

The Power of Words

46m

A Call for Urgency

39m

Pass-over: Divine Judgment Passes Over You

48m

06 Through the Red Sea

28m

06 Through the Red Sea

28m

Faith-Driven Business: Blending Ministry with Entrepreneurship

1h 4m

To a Land I will Show You

55m

Pressure Points

1h 12m

Light as Medicine

1h 18m

Sound Doctrine