Egypt

Yeah.

We're gonna go, we're gonna go see the Sphinx in Egypt.

Also, there's something off about you.

Yeah.

When He, the Supreme One, gave the nations their inheritance after the flood, and when He divided the descendants of Adam after the Tower of Babel into separate nations, He did not destroy them on account of their misdeeds.

Rather, He firmly established the boundaries of the peoples according to the numbers of the descendants of Israel who descended into Egypt.

In other words, He split the nations into seventy nations, which is similar to the seventy Jews that arrived in Egypt with Jacob.

He didn't-- He did this because Hashem's portion, meaning His people, the Israelites, was latent within these nations.

They were gonna come out of these nations.

He instructed them, He guarded them from house, style, animals, and nations as if they were the pupil of His eye.

As an eagle awakens its nest mirfully-- mercifully, hovering gently over its young so as not to startle them, so did Hashem reveal Himself to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, manifesting Himself in four directions in order not to overwhelm the Israelites with intensity of a direct revelation of only one direction.

Similarly, just as an eagle spreads its wings when picking up its young and carries them on its pinions in order to protect them from birds of prey, so Hashem did interpose His cloud between the attacking Egyptians and the Israelites.

But he refused, the Bible says, to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

"Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward." That is, he looked to the bottom line.

He looked to the conclusion of the whole matter.

Now verse 27: "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king." Now here's the verse I wanted: "For he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." One more time.

One more time we see that in time of trouble, you have to see the invisible.

In time of fear, you have to see the invisible.

Regionally, Gulf reaction to the weekend's events remains split.

Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Egypt had already condemned the pipeline attack on Iraqi territory when it first happened, according to Saudi state media, and that position held through the weekend.

Bahrain's refusal to even attend the now-canceled Salalah meeting stood out as the most pointed Gulf reaction, underscoring how differently individual Gulf states are choosing to engage with Tehran even as they share a common interest in reopening Hormuz.

In Lebanon, the eighth round of Rome talks between Lebanese and Israeli negotiators remains postponed to October, a delay reconfirmed over the weekend when Lebanese President Joseph Aoun made a surprise visit to the country's south, where he repeated his call for a full Israeli withdrawal from the security zone Israel continues to occupy.

And again, we could look at the records that we have from the Constitutional Convention, and we could point to one of the founding fathers saying i as a good christian believe that i have to treat my neighbor as myself and that god created us all in the same image and therefore we have to do this but you can't find that you cannot find that in those records because the founding fathers did not point to the bible or their christian beliefs to do this they looked back to ancient greece and to the romans and to the enlightenment for all of the principles when they were devising our government And you, by the way, can find the golden rule in Greek, in Confucian, in Roman.

We have the Roman rule even going back to probably two centuries BCE in Egypt.

I mean, this is, again, a very common universal human.

I mean, look, Andrew, I'm not trying to be that guy, but we all know that the book of...

Let me show you that.

When Joseph was in Egypt, he had two sons.

The firstborn was Manasseh, the secondborn was Ephraim.

When he brought his two sons to his father Jacob to bless those two boys, it says Jacob was blind, he couldn't see very well, and he crossed his hands knowingly to bless his grandsons.

And the scripture says she was halfway back.

Egypt is the place of bondage for us as believers, right? That's where Israel spent however many years, and then God delivers them.

But she's like, I'm going back to this thing over here.

I don't need all this garbage.

He says, I'm the God who sees.

And she's blown away by that.

She's like, you saw all that, so surely you're going to tell me Go back to Egypt and I'm going to make your life easy because I saw all that hard stuff that they did to you.

And he goes, yo, I saw it all.

But now, ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh by the blood, the blood of Christ.

The blood of the lamb on the lintel and the doorposts of the house of the Israelites in Egypt saved them and spared them.

And the one sign that is looked for on all who would approach and draw nigh unto God is the mark of the blood of the Son of God.

Is it honest? If it is, you have a free right of entry and no one can stop you into the holiest of all.

And yet let me say that wonderful as God's works of creation are, a person who has come to know of God's goodness and grace in Jesus Christ can hardly stop there because the greatest of all God's works are His salvation works.

In the case of Israel, this was God's delivering them out of Egypt from their bondage physically as well as spiritually, bringing them to Sinai where they were given the law and then eventually leading them into the promised land.

In our case, living on this side of the cross, those saving works are what God accomplished in Jesus Christ where he bore our sin on the cross that we might not have to suffer the penalty of the sin.

And which because of that enables God also to offer us the righteousness of Jesus Christ in his place.