40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 82 (Exodus 17:8-18:12)

Episode Date: May 3, 2017

Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price talk about the Israelites being attacked by Amalek. What's up with Moses having to keep his arms outstretched with the Staff of God? We see one non-Israelite attack and another convert. What does this say about the vision of God for His people. They talk about it all and a little about missionary dating. Check it out!

welcome to 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel emery price joined by chad bird chad How's it going, man? Here I am. I'm good. I'm good. A little under the weather yesterday, but I am back and ready to roll today. A little injection of Hebrew this morning. I think that cured me of all my ailments.

There you go. It's a magical language. Yeah, it is. It's got healing properties. Takes care of, yeah, it has healing properties. Takes care of all my ailments right there. Is Hebrew the language we're all speaking in heaven? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That's right. I mean, that's the advantage of learning Hebrew here is that you won't have to take the remedial course when you get to heaven. You don't have to take the intensive? All right, right. Those first three weeks are tough. But, yeah, so at least learn the alphabet while you're here. Olive, bait, gimble, dollet, and so on.

You'll be a step ahead. There you go. This podcast has become very practical for the everlasting. Yeah, the podcast that prepares you to speak in heaven. That's right. Right on. Well, where did we leave off last week? We didn't get very far last week.

We covered seven verses in chapter 17 of Exodus. So we made a little progress, just not much. I thought we were going to cover the whole chapter, but I think we got distracted on something. We have a reputation for that. We do. But it's always good. It's always good.

Now we get to do battle today. So we're going to pick up with Exodus 17, verse 8. take us through the rest of the chapter and talk about Amalek and the battle that Joshua engaged in with him. And then we'll jump into chapter 18, which is all about some different stuff, Jethro and setting judges over Israel and things of that nature. So anyway, verses eight through 16 is what we're going to pick up. And this is the first time since leaving Egypt that Israel has encountered a human enemy, besides the Egyptians that met them at the shore of the Red Sea. You know, they've had lots of issues.

After they left Egypt, they had, of course, issues of hunger. They didn't have enough food, so God gave them manna and quail. They had issues of thirst, and so God gave them water. Or one time they had issues of bad water, so God sweetened the waters at Marah. so they you know they've gone through various kinds of struggles already on on their their journey even though they haven't been gone that long really encounter any kind of uh physical threat outside of the egyptians at the red sea but that's going to change now this is kind of i guess completing the circle if you will of all the stuff that israel is going to face not just

now but in the ensuing years as they work their way through through the wilderness they're going to have uh problems of kind of internal strife of various forms we'll see some of that later on and they're going to have ongoing problems about not having enough water and not having enough food but they're also going to have some situations where they encounter encounter enemies so this is the case of of a group of people called the amalekites and they attack israel now one little detail which i find which i find interesting that's not recorded here but that is recorded much later in deuteronomy 25 i believe it is yeah uh deuteronomy 25 17 17 through 19 talks about this as well but it it adds it adds a detail that we'll we'll get to in just a minute

these two in tandem so here's what happens so Amalek it says came and fought against Israel at at Rephidim so what are they going to do well Moses comes up with uh with a plan it's kind of a kind of a twofold plan first of all he uh he says to says to joshua now this is the first time that that we've met joshua we're going to see him of course a lot through the rest of the wilderness wilderness narratives but this is the first time that we're introduced to joshua so you know it just assumed that you know who he is that's why he's not mentioned earlier in the book of exodus so moses says to joshua for us and go out and fight against amalek and tomorrow i will station myself on the top of the hill with the staff of god in my hand

so joshua does exactly what moses tells him to and he fights against amalek but here's the second part of the second part of the strategy so moses takes with him his brother aaron and another guy named Hur, H-U-R, and they go on top of this hill, and kind of a strange thing happens. So Moses has the staff of God in his hand, and when he holds his hands up, then Israel prevails. They're winning the battle, but when he drops his hand down, then their enemy, the Amalekites, begin to prevail now i don't know if you've ever i don't know if you've ever held your hands like just try to hold your hands up in the air for a long time but it's you know it's pretty tough you can do it for for a couple minutes and then your arms get to hurting especially you're holding

moses is holding his staff in his hand he's an old guy you know he's in his 80s by now so this isn't going to last very long so his hands are heavy and so they come up with uh with a practical solution. It's a picture, really. I get this stone, and Moses sits down on the stone. I guess his legs were tired, too. And then Aaron gets on one side of him, and Hur gets on the other side of him, and they hold up his hands. And they do this all day long. It says his hands were steady until the sun set and the net result of this is that joshua was able to overwhelm amalek and his people with the edge of the sword now let's stop there's another couple of verses we'll stop there stop there for a second now i want to throw in first of all the detail that gives us a little

bit better picture from deuteronomy a little better picture what was going on here because So this wasn't just that, you know, the Amalekites saw the Israelites coming and they were about to go into their territory. They didn't like it. And so they, you know, they meet them head on and they have this ongoing battle that takes place. No, it was kind of a guerrilla attack because Deuteronomy tells us that the Amalekites came up behind them and attacked the stragglers at the rear when they were faint and weary, it says. This is Deuteronomy 25, verse 18. So you kind of have the picture of the Amalekites. I mean, they're taking full advantage of the fact that the Israelites are exhausted from their journey. They go around behind them.

They're not attacking the strong warriors. They're attacking the people who are bringing up the rear, the people who are worn out or exhausted. And it gives us a fuller picture of exactly what kind of people that we're dealing with when we hear about the Amalekites. Israel, of course, was there to take their land. They were simply passing through. But for some reason, the Amalekites decided that they would take advantage of the situation and attack the Israelites from the rear. So that's kind of the picture of the battle that takes place. Now, I think the aspect of this story is the means by which the Israelites achieved victory. I mean, this wasn't this wasn't necessarily due to Joshua's great military leadership, that the Israelites were, you know, kind of a special forces.

They were, you know, these top notch warriors able to take take on the Amalekites and beat them. The story, when you read it, makes it sound as if everything depended not upon any kind of military might, but it depended solely upon one guy holding a staff up in the air. yeah yeah i mean you have to assume that like i mean israel israel or there are a bunch of slaves that got set it's not like they're not like a regular people group that has like a military or something i did it probably work like carrying on military training exercises in egypt right you're ready for this you don't really train your slaves to fight that's not like nobody does that that's a bad idea nobody has like the uh the soldier section of slaves where They're like, yeah, we're going to teach these guys how to do formations and how to strategize in war.

No, that would be a really bad move to teach them that. And, I mean, you have to even wonder, you know, I don't know what grade weapons these guys, Israel has. I mean, the whole thing. I mean, they're not a nation in the standard sense here. Like, they're not, they have not fought wars or battles or anything like that. they're used to making bricks and uh yeah this is a large group of escaped slaves yeah who yeah they've been this is unfamiliar territory to them i mean obviously they've been uh suffering along the way they don't have enough water they don't have enough food

most of the people who live in this part of the world this that's their home i mean they know how to find food they know where the water is they've grown accustomed to living in this harsh desert environment but israel i mean they're just they're traveling and i mean they're they are on the way and so when you know when and when you're traveling that much when you aren't able to get enough food enough water yeah i mean it weakens you physically weakens you emotionally and certainly you're not ready to do any kind of great battle against uh another another nation yeah yeah and you have to wonder all of those things taken into account if that's not why the malachites are like it's just we can easily take these guys out yeah yeah like shooting fish in a barrel i mean i mean

it's got easy it's got to be part of the motivation just like look at these guys they got no army they have a data they don't look like they're not ready to like just let's just like go in there take their stuff it's gonna be easy yeah and we do know that was that was that was that's been part of the uh that was at least part of the the culture of this part of the world for i mean for generations uh in fact if uh if you if you read even the uh the beginnings of islam with uh with muhammad i mean they were doing this kind of stuff they were making raids on other people And this was just something that the folks did. And so the Amalekites, I mean, they're raiding this people group as they're passing through their land.

They just, they chose the wrong, they chose the wrong nation to do this to. Because these were, this is God's special people. This is his chosen nation. And so they messed with the wrong, messed with the wrong people. Messed with the wrong God, anyway. Yeah, they messed with the wrong God. Yeah. So here we have, you know, Moses goes up on top of this hill and he takes the staff of God in his hand.

I love that phrase. We saw it first back, I believe, in chapter four. After Moses leaves the burning bush, it says he takes the staff of God in his hand. I think that phrase occurs maybe three or four times in the Torah. Interesting thing about it. But I mean, I might steal your thunder. I don't know. So I was going to say those staff, whenever I hear staff of God, I always think of Psalm 23.

You know, when you have your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And, you know, if you ask what is it, it's weird. Sometimes people will be like, oh, your rod and your staff, you're comforting me. That's because, you know, that's how you like God, you know, he disciplines those he loves. And so he'll use that to chastise you a little bit. It's actually not what they used that for. That was like the shepherd's crook thing. They had like the thing that was shaped like that and the sheep's neck fit in that.

They could gently like pull them back on the set. But like if you see David, what he would do with that rod and that staff is like you hear him like beating back lions, beating back bears. I mean this is a weapon not to beat sheep with but to beat predators with. this is like this is a defense this is to defend the sheep and so i mean i don't know maybe i'm maybe i'm spreading the butter thin but when i when i hear like kind of like rod of god or staff of god um that's what i think of is like this this instrument this tool that god that represents god's defense of uh his flock yeah and that's exactly that's exactly what he's what he's doing here this the it's not the staff of it is the staff of moses but it's called the staff of god

They're one and the same, right? Moses' staff is a staff of God. Moses' shepherd crook is a shepherd crook of God. So this becomes the means by which he defends his sheep against these wolves. The Amalekites are the wolves attacking his flock, and so God uses that to rescue them. so i mean it's it's uh i think it's interesting to ask uh uh and we don't know the answer to at least to ask it and ponder what the answer might be as to why it mattered if moses hands were up or not i mean verse 11 says that when moses held his hands up israel

prevailed when moses held his when you know when he got tired his hands started drooping then uh amalek amalek prevailed i mean the the ancient jewish interpretation was basically that uh this was like the uh the emblem of prayer and that when moses's hands were up as he was praying to god but when they came down he was exhausted not praying and so israel began to uh to lose to lose the battle and there's you know magical explanations that some people some people try and give. The one I think rings true, at least for me, is that this staff, I mean, this was a potent image for the Israelites. They first saw this staff in the hand of Moses at the Nile River when he struck the Nile and turned it into blood. But they've

seen it in lots of other situations throughout the 10 plagues. It's a staff that Moses used to strike the rock that we saw earlier where the water came out uh it's the uh it's the staff that he uses to uh uh be the now i mean the the the red sea into so that israel could pass through so this staff probably for the israelites kind of was it was an icon if you will i mean this was like a a symbol of god's power for them because of all the things that god had done through it And so when it's lifted up and they see that they're on top of the hill, when they see that this is the means of encouragement for them as they're fighting the battle, the pledge of God's fidelity to them to give them victory as they're facing their enemies. Anyway, that's my spin on it. You have any other ideas?

Well, I always – again, I'm not saying this is gospel, but whenever I read this text, to me the whole thing seems very crucified. You're about to go early church on us. Yeah, it seems very crucified. And so, you know, if you're talking about like Moses with his arms outstretched, which with the instrument of God's defense in his hands. yeah it sounds very much like at least the image that you get in your head of Christ being crucified in defense of his

people you know at the very least the imagery is there where with his arms I mean it's very much like Samson when Samson goes and stretches his arms out

between the pillars and then like destroys all of god's enemies um which we know is ultimately done with the outstretched arms of christ on the cross destroying all of our enemies of sin death and the devil and and so i i do think that you know that the the old testament um just that's how god god is like that and he he likes to hint um they're like what why why must you have your armor stretched out? Can you just hold it with both hands and just hold it over your head? Why do you have to be

stretched out, man? Or is God just painting a picture and saying, ultimately, where victory against your enemies will ultimately be won will look like this? Yeah. Well, we know that God does that. I mean, he's dropping hints

throughout the Old Testament as to the crucifixion. And of course, unlike Moses, um jesus will not have uh his brothers there to lift his arms up hand no god will have those hands nailed yeah they're not going anywhere uh like that he will not uh he will not have he will be left alone to do that he will not be able to cry out for peter and john to come and bear him up they were all they'll all abandon him and so he'll do he'll do that ultimate work all by himself

So, you know, there was the second century church father or not, but an apologist is often called Justin Martyr, who is one of the one of really the earliest treatments that we have, the longest treatments we have of someone talking about the practice of the church and the arguments of the church for Jesus being the Messiah. And there's a long it's called the dialogue with Trifo. So the trifle was a Jew. Justin was debating back and forth. And like I said, this is one of the earliest, longest treatments we have of any kind of Christian apologetics. And Justin, Justin Martyr, he's usually called, he actually uses exactly what you were talking about, that example of Moses as a prefiguring of the cross.

It became a part of the early church iconography, their way of picturing exactly how the Old Testament was portraying what Christ would do for us already here in the book of Exodus. So, hey, you got like second century legitimacy there. That's right. That's right. And of course, I mean, Moses is a representation of the law. While being a Christ figure, he also represents, I mean, we see this in the Mount of Transfiguration where you have Christ there as the gospel, you have Moses there as the law, and you have Elijah there as the prophets. And so you have the law, the prophets, and then the gospel there.

But, so of course, the law would have to have someone come and lift its arms up, of course. Yeah, the law can't do it on its own, that's for sure. Cannot. So, yeah, I mean, the second half of Exodus 17, with that picture on one side and a picture of the crucifixion on the other, you put those two together, and that's what you have. You have a prefiguring of how God is going to give us ultimate victory, not in one whose hands had to be supported by two friends,

but instead one who held who held up by the nails on the cross good stuff good stuff man so Joshua prevailed and they wanted it to be recorded

that's how the chapter ends the Lord says to Moses write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua that I will utterly blot out the memory of amalek from under heaven so moses builds an altar he names it uh yahweh nisi which means the lord is my banner and he said the lord has sworn the lord will have war against amalek from

generation to generation so amalek really screwed up here i mean they like we said earlier they picked on the wrong people they picked on the wrong god and god held uh held true to his word I mean, it took a long time. During the reign of Saul, Saul went out, the first Israelite king, Saul went out and he did battle against the Amalekites and he almost destroyed them. There's a whole interesting story about that, which we don't have time to get into. But Saul, he destroyed the people, but he spared the king, along with the best of the livestock. And him disobeying what God had clearly told him through Samuel. Then the kingship was taken away from Saul as a result of that. And it was only much later, during the reign of one of the good kings, a guy named Hezekiah, that Amalek was finally, utterly destroyed.

So we're talking centuries later when this promise finally came to its fulfillment. But it did. The Lord might not always work fast, but he works faithfully. So he eventually was true to what he had promised here. It all goes back to this earlier episode. That was the reason for this ongoing conflict between Israel and Amalek. Israel, like an elephant, they've got a long memory. They don't forget these things.

That's why they wrote them down, man. yeah they wrote him down wrote him down taught it uh taught it to joshua and uh even built an altar at at the site so that's the uh that's the last half of chapter 17 i guess i'm ready to jump into 18 now let's do it we got there we're almost to uh the everything that happens at mount sinai that'll begin in chapter chapter 19 we got one we got one more episode that we need to get get through before we actually get to uh get to what happens at mount sinai and this actually is a it's a good counterpoint to what we just saw with with the amalekites because what's going to happen here is we have another non-israelite representing not the uh not the amalekites but

the midianites coming to israel and so what happens what we just talked about the very opposite of that is going to happen here when when a guy named jethro whom we've met before comes to visit israel so chapter 18 is all is all one unit it's not like a series of of one story uh with two main sections in it and it's all about the visit of jethro who is the father-in-law of moses and moses recounting to him everything that's happened to them and a sacrificial meal that takes place that's the first half of the chapter through verse 12 and then 13 through the rest of the chapter recounts how moses moses was able to receive advice and counsel from his father-in-law about how he could delegate some of the the work that

he was doing for for the people so we'll start with this uh this first half of the first 12 verses you may remember weeks ago months ago i guess really back all the way in chapter two i believe it was that when moses had to flee egypt he goes into the wilderness and he uh encounters some some some sisters at a well and uh one of those ends up being becoming his wife she was uh Her name was Zipporah. And the father-in-law was Jethro. Before, we met Zipporah before. And we know that Moses had a couple of sons with Zipporah.

Now, what we don't realize was that somewhere along the way, and we don't know where, but somewhere along the way, Moses initially headed back into Egypt. until now he sent his family back home to to live with Jethro so you know if you were just to read and maybe you were assuming this as you went along you know if you were just to kind of read the story up to this point you would assume that throughout all the stuff that went down in Egypt and leaving Egypt and everything else that's happened that Moses's family was there with him Well, they weren't. We weren't told that they left or when they left, but now we're told that they came back because the chapter starts out this way. It says Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel's people and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

So Jethro, Moses' father-in-law Took Moses' wife Zipporah after he had sent her away One of whom was named Gershom For he said I have been a sojourner in a foreign land And the other Named Eleazar

For he said the God of my father was my help And delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh Means Zipporah and these two sons To meet Moses in the wilderness so we you may remember there was that strange episode we encountered where uh god met moses on the way and and god tried to kill moses and support or circumcised her son remember that

kind of strange episode from back in uh puts the foreskin on the feet yeah the foreskin on the feet yeah we talked about all that and some speculate and i think with good reason that after that happened that uh moses sent zipporah and the sons back into eat back uh to stay with her with their with their father until he had completed his uh his mission maybe it was later on i don't we don't know i mean it makes sense if you're like heading you're heading into egypt and you're gonna go do this thing i mean i gotta i got a daughter i'm probably not bringing her with me for that especially i mean no matter how much i believe god i'm probably i'm still probably thinking like yeah it's probably a decent chance i'm gonna die yeah yeah yeah i mean it made practical sense

uh of all the things that moses had going on he was completely consumed and and uh in the work that god sent him to do he was uh his life was in danger and if his life was in danger then the life of his family would also have been in danger so maybe moses thought you know it's just best stay with jethro until this whole ordeal is over yeah chad if you like send me and you're like hey i want you to go uh negotiate uh some terms with vladimir putin like which is not the same as pharaoh but just picking a name i'm probably not gonna be like cool can i take my eight-year-old with me yeah let's make a family vacation out of it no probably not doing that probably gonna do that probably gonna go do that alone wisdom evidently wisdom prevailed with moses and he uh he decided

he would he would send uh wife and children back back home they're they're reunited now to uh to summarize those first few verses jethro brings him brings him back so they uh he shows up at the camp and uh he sends word to moses and says i'm here i'm bringing your wife and your two sons so Moses goes out to meet them and we have this, you know, this reunion. He bows down, kisses him as they do in that culture, ask about each other's welfare. And then the guys go into the tent and they have this conversation that takes place between Moses and Jethro. This is where I think it gets very fascinating because Jethro is not an Israelite. We knew that from the beginning.

He's part of the Midianite clan. He's a priest. Now, one thing we don't know, because we're not told enough, exactly what Jethro believes about God. I mean, did he worship the same God as Moses? uh did uh what did he think of of the name yahweh was he familiar with the name yahweh we there's just a whole lot that we don't know but uh most likely jethro was uh was a was a non well you know it was a non-israelite was a priest of whatever whatever god the many nights worship whatever they whatever they called their whatever they called their god so they have this conversation

that takes place and that's what i think is interesting here is because this is this is moses telling another family member his father-in-law in this case about the greatness of yahweh everything that yahweh has done for the israelites jethro confesses faith and and says that this in fact is is the true god so here's here's the way the conversation goes So Moses sits down in the tent with Jethro, and he tells them everything that God had done to the Egyptians for the sake of Israel. He tells them about all the hardships they had on the journey and how God delivered them from all of them. And it says in verse 9, Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which Yahweh had done to Israel in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians. And then we have this great confession.

It says, Jethro says, so this priest says, blessed be Yahweh, not just God, but blessed be Yahweh who delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh and who delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Verse 11, now I know, now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods. Indeed, it was proven when they dealt proudly against the people. I think that's pretty cool that here's a here's a priest, a non-Israelite priest who who knows what his theology had been. All of hearing the gospel, more or less, this is the good news of God's redemption of his people from from slavery. As a result of hearing this good news of God's deliverance, that in fact, Yahweh is the true God, that he is greater than all the other gods. And it was proven in God's deliverance of his people from slavery and from the hand of Pharaoh. So as a result of all this, Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, kind of wraps everything up, wraps up their conversation by taking a burnt offering and sacrifices for God.

And Aaron comes with all the elders of Israel and they eat a meal with Moses' father-in-law before God. So that kind of wraps up the whole conversation. Moses relays everything to Jethro that's taken place. jethro confesses faith in the true god and they have a sacrifice and then a meal based upon those sacrifices afterward as a way of celebrating their their unity as a way of celebrating everything that that god had done for for the israelites and probably also as a way of kind of sealing this bond between the midianite people and the and the israelites so that's uh that's the first it's first half of the uh first half of the chapter yeah man you gotta get you gotta be

cool with the uh the conversion of the in-laws yeah makes life easier makes a whole lot easier family reunions doesn't it makes life easier if you're worshiping the same god especially if your father-in-law is like a like a priest in another religion i mean that's like if your dad was your father-in-law is like a uh you know if you married some hindu girl and uh your father-in-law happen to be a religious leader of the hindus that makes things a lot easier if he if he ends up being like you know what i'm coming over i'm converting yeah all right good good well yeah this is this is a one of many examples in the old testament where something like this happens i think sometimes we get the we get the impression that the old testament is all about israel

and israel only and not really concerned with anybody outside of israel this is uh is like i one of many examples where that's proven to be false god always had a greater vision than simply only the israelites believing uh you know like they were quarantined off from the rest of rest of the world in fact we're gonna later on when we get to joshua we have the the great story of what happens inside the city of jericho and rahab and she she says something actually very similar to what to what jethro does she's except uh she's already heard it before the spies get there she's heard about everything that that god has done for for the israelites and she believes and she rescues the spies and she even though a non-israelite is is is uh is converted and joins

with the israelites and of course we have met the whole story of jonah yeah uh where of course god is concerned about the whole city of Nineveh, full of not only non-Israelites, but bloodthirsty terrorists. So God is always looking outside of the people of Israel, always eager to bring more people into his body of believers. He does that in various ways with various people. Yeah, I mean, this is why, I mean, Paul makes this argument pretty clear in Romans 4, where where he's basically saying like hey god has always been the god of those of the circumcised and the uncircumcised in fact god has always been about making people children of abraham through the shared faith of abraham more than the shared circumcision of abraham i mean

this is exactly what he says in romans 4 like yeah like circumcision is great but uh but ultimately like children of abraham are those uh the circumcised or uncircumcised that share the same faith and the same promises and word of god that abraham shared yeah yeah abraham we heard this back already in genesis 12 was a blessing to uh uh to the nations right not just the nation of israel but he was a he was the means that god was going to give blessings to all to all the nations and so god always had a universal vision for his body of believers god wasn't sort you know kind of a ghetto god back in the old testament only concerned about just this one little section of of humanity always had a universal vision for for the inclusion of many

peoples and it has happened probably more than we realize i was talking to my wife about this the other day you got this great story in the book of acts about this eunuch from ethiopia who has traveled to jerusalem and who's going along in his chariot reading a scroll of the prophet isaiah i just let that sink in for a minute i mean this this guy is from africa somehow he's got a copy of isaiah and he traveled all the way from ethiopia to israel you know bouncing along in his chariot reading the reading the prophet isaiah but i mean it's pretty fascinating to me that somehow the the faith of israel got down into ethiopia so that this guy believed believed to you know to such an extent that he traveled all the way to israel

and had the a copy of isaiah with him and this is just an isolated example of how many other examples are like this to where the faith of israel was spreading throughout the world we just don't we just don't have all those stories like we do here of jethro hey this is all the result of missionary dating i'm sure that's uh that is the case well i started at a well yeah missionary dating you go find some girl of a foreign religion i'm sure that's how the ethiopian unit got it uh you know someone someone dated someone they weren't supposed to and uh there you go that's probably how it all started yeah that's not me endorsing missionary that's a joke uh you know try to find a good christian girl or boy and uh enroll that way

but uh hey sometimes sometimes uh you know someone mixes it up with someone they're not supposed to and uh god works it out anyway oh what happens there you go all right man that's it we're we're out of time guys if you're listening to this right when it comes out you still have time you still have time to come hang out with us in detroit for the city event that we're doing there it is may the 6th that is the saturday forthcoming from the release of this podcast so if you're in the uh in the michigan area you know what you just show up at the door if you want man just show up and uh come hang out with us a bunch of us gonna be there i'll be there uh we're gonna be talking about the i am statements of jesus it's gonna be great

so uh yeah go over to you can go over to christholdfast.org go to the events page and get all the details and who's gonna be there and what the times are and all that kind of stuff but we'd love to see you there chad dude thanks we'll see you next week all right thank you dan see you © transcript Emily Beynon