Ep 75 The Real Story Beneath The Red Sea - Exploring Theophanies and God's Power on Display

"Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

Join us on a voyage back to the ancient sands of Egypt with Pastor David Squyres and my wife, Selena Cruz, as we uncover the echoes of Exodus 14 that still ripple through time.  As thunder rumbles in the background, reminiscent of the biblical plagues, join us for a conversation that's as much about the spiritual journey as it is about the literal path tread by the Israelites.

Have you ever felt the hairs on your neck stand up during a thunderstorm, sensing something greater at play? That's the awe we tap into as we discuss theophanies—those rare moments when the divine breaks into our world. We'll circle around the burning bush and stand shoulder to shoulder with Moses at the Red Sea's edge, exploring how these ancient theophanies mirror our modern experiences of the divine. We'll also delve into how Jesus embodies this divine presence, and how each ripple of water or gust of wind in these stories speaks to the meticulous nature of God's care.

Don't miss this episode, where history, faith, and life intertwine in an extraordinary tapestry of discovery.

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Transcript

Imran: 0:00

Ready. Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories. Join us as we deep dive into the historic, religious, cultural, political and emotional context surrounding the real lives of real people in the Bible and the stories we've all grown to love. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Real Bible Stories. So it's been about a month now and, oh, I guess, before we even get into that, I'm your host, emron Ward. We're joined by Pastor David Squires.

Pastor David: 0:37

Hello.

Imran: 0:38

And my wife and true love, true love. I don't know. Love, it's true love. Selena Cruz, how does that work? What's like true love? Like Disney came up with that True love is your love that's truer than your love.

Selena: 0:52

What.

Pastor David: 0:53

I have no idea. You're right. I was like my true love.

Imran: 0:57

I was like wait a minute. That's like a concept that Disney came up with. God never said True love's Chris. You're like true love, because love's love.

Pastor David: 1:03

Yeah, God is love.

Imran: 1:06

And love would be true Anyway.

Pastor David: 1:08

You love Selena.

Selena: 1:09

That was the whole point yeah, exactly, I love you too, thank you, and we love Pastor David.

Imran: 1:13

We do so much love from you. Truly, agape love, I guess, is love for a pastor. Yeah, man, all right. So now that we're here and we've introduced ourselves, we've been going down this rabbit hole of about four or five weeks of story behind the story with Pastor David, and so the first four we did were all in the New Testament, and now we're going to switch things up. We're going to go and jump into the Old Testament and actually jump into the book of Exodus and start looking at the parting of the Red.

Pastor David: 1:43

Sea. I hope that the recording picks up a little bit of the thunder that is going on around us.

Imran: 1:51

Oh yeah.

Pastor David: 1:52

We're talking about parting the sea in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Imran: 1:56

Absolutely, and it was like really crazy right before we hit go Like the lightning flashed brighter than the lights in this room.

Pastor David: 2:02

It looked like the lightning was coming into the house for a good solid six or seven seconds, phenomenal, like all right, all right, god, come on.

Selena: 2:09

We're trying to worship you right now.

Imran: 2:11

We get it, we get it, we get it. God got loud. Yeah, exactly, it's like all right, all right, so we're going to be in the book of Exodus, starting with chapter 14, right. And then we'll also tie in a bit of chapter 15 as you go through.

Pastor David: 2:26

So, before you get too serious, how old are you? I'm 29 now, so Imran had a birthday. I did Happy birthday.

Imran: 2:35

I did. I barely celebrated it. So my problem with my birthday and it's not like a real problem. I was born a few days after the Marine Corps birthday and actually Pastor David was born on the Marine Corps birthday, so he's a pastor of a church that primarily leads Marines. I was born on November 10th which is super awesome, but my birthday is November 14th, so typically my celebration, my birthday, in my head is just the same day as the ball.

Pastor David: 3:00

The same day as the ball, yeah.

Imran: 3:01

I just get it all done there. So when my birthday actually came on this Tuesday, it was the day I woke up from my 96 and went to work. It was just another day of work for me.

Selena: 3:11

Yeah, this is even. Let me get on you another cake.

Imran: 3:14

Yeah, I didn't even want more cake because I had already had cake at the ball. It was good, I was already taken care of by the Marine Corps. Yes, my wife bought me Snickers, and so we have that now. And T and T. She did make tea, she did take care of us, because we we were a coffee drinking podcast and now we're trying to be a tea drinking podcast as we go through life. How's that going for us, it's going for me, just fine. How's it going for you, I?

Selena: 3:39

still drink coffee once or twice a week.

Imran: 3:43

Once or twice a week. Yeah, I had to get my. I had to get my union mandated. Oh sorry, I don't have the withdrawal symptoms anymore, so that's a plus yeah those a few weeks where she's just like splitting headaches and, oh yeah, couldn't get out of bed because of anything but um. But now we're doing a lot better, doing a lot better, starting to see the benefits, waking up, working out more. It's actually really crazy.

Imran: 4:11

Like when, when your sleep schedule evens out without the weird spikes of coffee you actually get more done. It's interesting.

Pastor David: 4:18

So what we're going to do today is we're going to kind of read the story and go over the story of the Red Sea, just so that we're drawing this out of the Bible, and then we're going to jump into the archaeology and I just want you all to be so excited that there is real factional. This is not. These stories of the Bible are not mythical. These are the stories of a true God acting in history and we're just going to like the earth is scarred by the movement of God.

Imran: 4:43

Absolutely. So we're going to read through the whole of chapter 14, right? And then dive into some of the nuanced concepts. So I guess, Selena, you want to read the whole thing or you want to break it up. How do you want to do it?

Selena: 4:54

Wow, yeah, let's, let's do it.

Imran: 4:59

You want to break it up or you need to take it.

Pastor David: 5:01

Well, just interrupt her as we go. Oh my goodness.

Imran: 5:03

Now, let's not do that. That'll get all derailed. We'll get it one time through. Let me know if you want me to jump in, selena.

Selena: 5:08

With thunder background noises.

Imran: 5:10

Yes.

Selena: 5:12

Then the Lord said to Moses tell the Israelites to turn back. And a camp near Pyro Roth, between McDowell and the sea. There are two in camp by the sea directly opposite Baal Baal Zayfan. Pharaoh will think the Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. So the Israelites did this.

Selena: 5:48

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said what have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services. So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took 600 of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so he pursued the Israelites who were marching out out boldly.

Selena: 6:22

The Egyptians, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camp by the sea near Pyro Hyroth, opposite Baal Zayfan. As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses Was it because there was no graves in Egypt that he brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt Leave us alone, let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert.

Selena: 7:13

Moses answered the people, do not be afraid, stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see, today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.

Selena: 7:28

Then the Lord said to Moses why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them, and I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians would know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.

Selena: 8:02

Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Through the night, the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side, so neither went near the other all night long. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on the right and on the left. Do you want to continue?

Imran: 8:50

Yeah, I can.

Selena: 8:51

We are on verse 23.

Imran: 8:53

Yep. So verse 23. The Egyptians pursued them and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night, the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud and the Egyptian army and threw them into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving, and the Egyptians said let's get away from the Israelites. The Lord is fighting for them, against Egypt.

Imran: 9:20

Then the Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and at daybreak the sea went back into its place. The Egyptians were fleeing towards it and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground and with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians. The people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses, his servant.

Pastor David: 10:12

There are so many great lines in that Some of them just funny.

Imran: 10:18

There's a great roast in there too. That guy said was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die, man? That that growth was so good that that became the first insult they draw? They're like write that down, write that down.

Pastor David: 10:34

Well, because Egypt was the land of graves. And so to go. Oh, you couldn't find a grave in Egypt, you have to bury us out here.

Imran: 10:41

Oh yeah, I guess I did so right there. It's a good roast, absolutely.

Pastor David: 10:45

I also, like Moses says, just look at the faces of your enemies, because you'll never see him again.

Imran: 10:51

And then they turn around and it's like, oh, there they are.

Selena: 10:52

Yeah.

Imran: 10:54

I love that. Oh man. Well, I'll say one thing right off the bat I did not know that this happened at night.

Pastor David: 11:00

Oh, that's not exciting To me, yeah.

Imran: 11:03

Yeah, when I learned this growing up, they did not mention that this all happened at night and when daybreak is when the Israel saw the dead Egyptians. Like the sea opened up at night, they crossed at night with light on one side of the cloud and the other side was darkness and confusion for the Egyptians. So they were able to cross without the Egyptians being able to pursue until after they were all across. I was killed at night as well.

Pastor David: 11:29

I always think of it. In the past I thought of it is happening in the daytime and I was, you know just, it's probably because of that. Details Like no movie ever projects this happening at night. Can you think of one that?

Imran: 11:39

shows us at night. No, no, I don't think I've seen a picture Film during the day. I don't see a picture that does it.

Pastor David: 11:46

It's incredible there's light coming from this pillar of fire. It becomes a wall of fire To one side. It's shining down light To the other side. That same wall becomes a wall of darkness and it stirs the Egyptians into confusion, because they're just looking at this solid black mist of what do we enter that? What do we do?

Selena: 12:07

That's great yeah, mm-hmm.

Pastor David: 12:10

God got scary. Psalm 77, verse 19, says your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters. Though your footprints were not seen, that God was the one that led them right through the Red Sea. He took them through it like, hey, come on, guys, come on, it's going to be okay. Did you notice also, the angel of the Lord moves and he stands in front of them. He was standing in front of them and then he moves behind them and I thought that was cool.

Imran: 12:42

I'd like you to explain the angel of the Lord. You've explained to me multiple times, like in, like Bible study, but I don't know if you've explained it here the angel of the.

Pastor David: 12:48

Lord is what we would call a theophany. It is the physical manifestation of Yahweh, and so it is when God comes down. A theophany is anytime God expresses himself in a field. It could be a burning bush.

Imran: 13:03

So Jesus himself would be a theophany for the time he was here.

Pastor David: 13:06

We would say that Jesus is the ultimate theophany or expression of God, and so when the angel comes down, that is a theophany. The presence of God is there. The presence of God was fully manifest in Jesus Christ and often we believe the angel of the Lord is Jesus himself, expressed in the Old Testament, I see. So Jesus is not an angel but this is the theophany and is God himself, having come down to earth, Because when it was written they didn't have the full context of Jesus Christ.

Selena: 13:34

So when Jesus was baptized and I said, like God came down like a dove. That would be another theophany.

Pastor David: 13:41

Yeah, the dove coming down would be a theophany, in that case, of the Holy Spirit. So God, god expressing himself in him. And it happens throughout the Bible. God expresses himself on earth and in different forms.

Imran: 13:53

Yeah.

Pastor David: 13:54

And so so, whether it's a dove, a fire often fire burning bush. All of those things are things where God is expressing himself there theophanies. But the angel of the Lord again is the ultimate theophany, because it has got expressing himself in human form and we would say the incarnation that Jesus God became flesh is the fullness of the theophany. After that we don't see that happen so much.

Imran: 14:17

I see.

Pastor David: 14:19

You imagine what it was like standing. I mean, we're sitting in a rainstorm and there's thunder, there's lightning and it is scary. It's a little scary and we're in.

Imran: 14:28

Yeah, we actually like pause like the flash was so bright that we're just like all stopped and stared out the window. Imagine for the thunder.

Pastor David: 14:35

The scene that you're out there, there is no building to protect you and there's the wall of fire on one side blazing down. There's the, there's the saltwater Can you imagine as the water itself parsed and you could smell it, you can feel. You can feel water moving and the wind comes down, is blowing through your hair and you've got. Kids are like what is?

Imran: 14:55

that I something interesting. This is like a kind of a unique experience of me being able to go over to that, that part of the world. The desert is different there. So the desert here still has a lot of vegetation in it, so as a lot of trees, so as a lot of animals, and all that when I was over there. And Kuwait and I don't know if Kuwait stuff is exactly the same as as Egypt, but what I've realized out there is that the desert is like there's nothing you look out and the landscape is extremely flat and there's no vegetation for like for like, hundreds of feet or miles, whereas there's a lot of shrubbery in 29 palms the desert.

Imran: 15:33

Really. You can't really just drive your truck off into anything because you're going to have hit a bunch of shrubbery that's in the desert, but out there was like it's just nothing. There's no covering.

Pastor David: 15:42

There's no change in the elevation.

Imran: 15:43

It's just really fine thin sand and nothing grows in it. You can just look out. So they probably saw the Egyptians from a ways.

Pastor David: 15:51

They got scared. I like that. It says in 1429 that there was a wall of water, a wall of water. They're right and they're left. That's an architectural term. When it says a wall of water, it's the same word used for the walls of Jericho. So your picture these kind of giant walls yeah, physical walls on either side of them. Imagine what it was like to step down into the water, into the part of sea and you can smell it.

Imran: 16:16

What was that? That was?

Pastor David: 16:16

1429. 1429.

Imran: 16:20

How did it read? 1429 went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water. Okay, I was like does it say a wall holding back the water? Was that different in my? No, the wind somehow moves the water in a way that it appears to be like a wall holding it back.

Pastor David: 16:39

You imagine what it would have smelled like you can smell salt water, but just step down into that.

Imran: 16:45

I've been in a hurricane, oh really.

Imran: 16:47

Yeah, because I grew up in South Florida, so I've been in multiple hurricanes and I remember we opened up the door during Hurricane Wilma and this was really bad because we got a lot of water in the house because the house. It was like part of the reason the house flooded because we opened the door and we struggled to close it back because of the water. But the wind is incredible, like trying to close your door when the wind outside is like over 100 miles an hour is it? And it's physically pushing the water, because that's what storm surge is. I don't know if you understand that when people say the storm surge is two or three feet or whatever, it's because the wind is pushing that water onto the land and that surge is the water being pushed onto the land. So I can't even imagine how much force that must have felt like for the wind to push that water back like that.

Pastor David: 17:30

So, speaking of the word surge, and what exactly happened, look at chapter 15, verse 8. It's going to be. At least the ESV uses that same word surge.

Imran: 17:39

The surging water stood up like a wall. And then it says more.

Pastor David: 17:43

It says the deep waters could gild in the heart of the sea. It tells us what happened, so this water stay parted. It describes it that they could gild. I don't know what congealing is. I looked it up because I didn't know either. To congeal is like it's liquidy but it's thicker. It's just soupy. It's like think jello. It just kind of stands firm and we shouldn't really assign a single physical property to it, because there's a miracle, so there's something supernatural about it that we don't totally understand.

Pastor David: 18:12

But, something became liquidy solid out in those waters. We don't understand what that is, but water can change properties, like it can be ice, it can be steam.

Imran: 18:23

It can be liquid.

Pastor David: 18:24

In this case it congealed somehow out in that sea and became rather thick.

Imran: 18:30

Yeah, that makes sense. I like that.

Pastor David: 18:33

There's something I really like about the entire scene, and that is that they step down into the water and they find, or they step down into the parted sea and they find that the ground is hard, that it's that it's soft, it's good to walk on. The ground was was dry. I always say that what I like about that is I would have forgotten to dry the ground.

Imran: 18:56

Like I was thinking.

Pastor David: 18:57

I could think of big things like oh, we'll part it and it'll congeal out there, and everybody has all these ideas. But God thinks of every little detail, yeah, and he goes. You know what? When they step down there, they're going to sink, unless I dry that ground.

Imran: 19:09

Yeah.

Pastor David: 19:10

And I would just to me that's very personal. But God doesn't just create the stars. He cares about us down here in 29 Palms. He cares not just about making sun, moon, moving the the universe as he wants it. He cares about a mom watching her kids.

Imran: 19:26

So God that's very.

Pastor David: 19:27

he dries the sea in front of you, All of the details of your life. Does God care about my car? Does God care about my kids? He cares about the little things, not just the big things.

Imran: 19:36

One of the one of the ways and you correct me if I'm totally wrong off base, when I I think about this, but I conceptualize God as one that is outside of time, because they say he's omnipresent, omnipotent.

Imran: 19:47

It's like well the only way you could really do that if you existed outside of time and you could really go into it at your own will. So I always think of God as experiencing all time, at all time, because he's outside of it. And so when people say, like God doesn't have time for me, it's like, well, god has all time to go into time and care about every little part of it. So, yeah, he takes some time to worry about the big stuff, but also he has just as much time to worry about the small things, because it's for him. It's all. I'm sorry, from our perspective, it's all happening all at once. From his perspective, he's just kind of and always will reaching in.

Pastor David: 20:18

Yeah, so like yeah, we will always be linear creatures and God stands above time, but how he experiences that we don't know.

Imran: 20:24

Yeah.

Pastor David: 20:26

But it's like the way my brain has all the time that he wants.

Imran: 20:28

Exactly Because he can just reach into time at any point and care about the smallest things in my life I never rushed.

Pastor David: 20:33

Yeah, he goes. Oh, I didn't have time to get that done. No, he had plenty of time, exactly. You know Another thing Isaiah 5110, I just like this. Isaiah 51 says 10 says that God made a road for them in the depths of the sea. Imagine that, just like a road in the Prince of Egypt, just imagining what it was like you talking about the Disney movie.

Imran: 20:54

Yeah, did you see it. Yes, I saw it.

Pastor David: 20:57

It wasn't Disney, that was DreamWorks.

Imran: 20:58

It was DreamWorks. Yeah, was it. Yeah, it was, do you?

Pastor David: 21:03

remember when they parted the sea. One of the things I loved about that was they showed?

Imran: 21:07

the fish. Tell me the Shrek people made this yeah that's awesome, one of those.

Pastor David: 21:12

Come back, cameron.

Imran: 21:12

Come back come back to the Red Sea. He went, shrek there it went, yeah, exactly.

Pastor David: 21:18

I loved it that you could see that they had whales, they had fish, they had. I love that that they just had all of that stuff going on.

Imran: 21:27

Yeah, but I do remember in that movie that the ground wasn't dry. I do remember in the movie that it was kind of like little puddles on the ground and they probably thought from a thematic perspective, like of course you're going to be in the puddles like no, no, no, no. It says in there. He dried the ground actually.

Pastor David: 21:42

The bigness of it is rather overwhelming. Think about this is a congregation, a group of people, about a million people so, and they have just plundered Egypt. They've got stuff, they've got animals, there's children there's old people, about a million people About a million people, we think went out of Egypt into the wilderness, and so this massive group of people old, young, everything is going out there into the wilderness. I always picture the precocious little kid.

Imran: 22:08

The precocious little kid.

Pastor David: 22:11

Probably you when you were a kid, probably, and going along and he's got his thumb in the water going as they walk along his mind, his mom's, like don't touch the wall. Don't touch the wall, I would. You're absolutely correct. Yeah, this whole thing's like cave in on us because of you.

Imran: 22:25

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry.

Pastor David: 22:30

We just read it. What stood out to you? What just kind of sweeps you away over this?

Imran: 22:35

Over the entire story.

Pastor David: 22:36

The fact that it happened at night.

Imran: 22:38

The fact that, like everything about how I conceptualized this day, I thought it was during the day, and it probably is because of how Prince of Egypt portrayed it.

Imran: 22:49

Yeah because that was kind of like my foundational exposure to that story. My understanding of Pharaoh's relationship with with Moses is completely based off of how the Disney movie made it seem, and I will say that that's like a gap in my own knowledge. I haven't gone back and like verified that it was not Disney. Sorry that that Dreamworks portrayed everything as it was in the Bible. So it's like now I just know I have to go back and get some more.

Pastor David: 23:20

Imagine the light coming not from the sun, but it's coming from that burning wall of fire, yeah, and it's pouring down light as those sea parts and there's a little bit of darkness. You step down into the shadows. It's scary to step into that. That's interesting.

Imran: 23:34

There's wind, you can smell it. Do you know the depth of the Red Sea? Like what they would have gone down and come out of.

Pastor David: 23:40

Yeah, well, look at it when we do the archaeology in just a moment, a little bit of that. But it says there's a wall of water on either side. So imagine it's above their heads, they're going down into something and it's deep and I don't know. I imagine water is making sound. Water is not a quiet thing.

Imran: 23:56

When you're near water you can feel the power of water. It says the wind swept up to make it happen Like so the wind is loud, water is loud Like.

Pastor David: 24:06

That whole experience must have been insane, god controls wind and waves and when he wants to you can direct that wind just right to part. That doesn't happen all the time. So sometimes liberals will say you know the wind just kind of part of the water. Well, wind doesn't normally do that.

Pastor David: 24:20

And that's not enough for a million people to walk through it no and does not create a wall of water on either side, and so something miraculous is going on here. You know, the Bible says he commands the winds and the waves. Can you imagine like, 2000 years later, Jesus is in a boat. There's wind, there's waves, there's a storm. They come to Jesus and they go don't you care that we drown? They wake him up. He gets up, he stands up and he yells at the wind and the waves, quiet. Knock it off and it all gets quiet, Almost like the wind and the waves. Remember him and go oh yeah, it's you.

Imran: 24:52

Yeah like sorry, sorry boss, we were just doing nature, Right.

Pastor David: 24:57

Right, robert Morgan in the Red Sea Rules wrote some stuff that I just thought was phenomenal.

Imran: 25:04

You have my attention because Robert Morgan was the name of my high school. Oh, that's it. Yeah, I was like Robert Morgan Educational Center.

Selena: 25:11

We were the pirates, yeah, anyways, different, different Maybe no idea.

Selena: 25:17

The Israelites stalk, still and silent, watch in unbearable suspense as the old man raised his rod over the obstructing sea. An eastern wind suddenly gusted from heaven, tugging at the beards and cloaks of the multitude, who were mostly skeptics. They watched slack jawed as a down-draft intensified, hit the water and slowly plowed through the sea. The waves rose in foam and fury, forming translucent walls that became an avenue for them and later an ambush for their enemies, a gateway to the one and a graveyard to the other. It was the Old Testament's most dramatic object, lesson one of God's greatest miracles.

Pastor David: 26:00

I just like the way he imagined it. Can you imagine, like the words that he plowed through the water, that these people stand back as the staff raises, the water comes or the wind comes down, just goes, and it's just tearing the water open in front of them?

Imran: 26:14

I like that. The call back to verse 11, back to my greatest roast I've ever read in the Bible.

Pastor David: 26:21

What's it? Because of the old graves in Egypt. The sea is about to become a grave.

Imran: 26:26

But maybe it wasn't for you, but it was going to be for someone.

Pastor David: 26:29

Well, remember Moses, like look at their faces. You won't see them again. They're about to disappear from earth because they're going to the grave. And you're not going to the grave. There's something called the West Car Papyrus. Yeah, papyrus, it's just a document of an Egyptian legend of Sonufru, and the Egyptians have this legend about a board king. His name was Sonufru and his his priest, and he said name, that's, I was going to let you try that name Deja, deja. There's too many consonants and not enough vowels there.

Imran: 27:04

I don't know to put this together. It's spelled D, j, a, d, j A, e, m, o, n, k, h, if you want to take that down and try to figure it out.

Pastor David: 27:13

So he says to his priest hey, what can I do to find pleasure? And so the priest says well, take a boat, row out, rowed by many beautiful naked women. So out he goes, his heart's happy because he's on this boat with all these naked women, until one of the rowers drops her little fish shaped charm into the water and the king calls on the priest. He says what do I do? She dropped her, her charm. Well, the priest uses his magic arts and through all these magic scenes, incandescent incantations, the priest places one side of the water, on the other, he folds the water and they find the charm and they give it back to him and put the water back.

Pastor David: 27:52

That's an Egyptian legend. I think that this is answering that Egyptian legend. It's like God goes hey, that thing you talk about in legends, I can actually do it your little pretend stories about guys going out in rowboats with naked girls. Let me take a million people, I'll drop them down into the sea. I will part the sea. I won't just fold it on its side to grab a charm, I'll move people through the sea and on the other side I will drown you people because you thought I wasn't real. You believed all your stupid myths. I can knock your myths out of the water.

Imran: 28:22

Yeah, that's wild.

Pastor David: 28:24

Isn't crazy.

Imran: 28:24

Yeah, this is an Egyptian legend.

Pastor David: 28:27

Yeah, and so Ryan. Ryan does this often, where he explains that often the Bible is responding to the legends of the world around it.

Selena: 28:36

Yeah.

Pastor David: 28:36

And so it brings to reality the true God, whereas there's all these fakes trying to try and just speak. Speak up. Yeah, and so God answers the fakes. Makes sense, yeah, and so we're going to talk a little bit of archaeology that we were wanting to get to. This is stuff. I think that's kind of fun.

Imran: 28:56

I like it. Yeah, you got to tie it. Tie in the real with the real, the real Bible stories. Exactly there it is.

Pastor David: 29:03

He said the name, the, traditional site of the Sinai Peninsula. I think is wrong.

Imran: 29:10

And so traditional site.

Pastor David: 29:12

So you will see it on a map where you'll have Egypt. Then there's a little spot called the Sinai Peninsula, and often it's argued that the traditional Christian argument is that they went onto the Sinai Peninsula, barely crossed the Red Sea up there in the middle portion, and spent the next 40 years on the Sinai Peninsula. I think that that's wrong. The reason is the Bible says they left Egypt. At that time what we call the Sinai Peninsula was still controlled by Egypt by its military.

Imran: 29:43

That was part of Egypt at that time. That makes sense, so it couldn't have been that site. So then where would it have?

Pastor David: 29:49

been the traditional site. In fact the water would have been kind of shallow, so that site of choosing Sinai there and in particular Mount Sinai, all of that.

Imran: 29:59

That site was. It is.

Pastor David: 30:01

It's good. It's good for tourists. That site was chosen by Helen, who is Constantine's mother, in the fourth century. That's 400 years after Jesus, so long after it's based on the dreams of Constantine. In the sixth century a monastery was built there to kind of confirm this is where the Red Sea was. But I think we have the geography completely wrong, completely wrong. Mount Sinai, according to the Bible, is in Arabia, and so if you remember, in fact, there in Midian Arabia, when Moses goes up on the mountain and he encounters the burning bush, god says you'll come back to this mountain. This is the mountain out here in Arabia that you're going to come to. Paul said. This is let me put Bible to this Galatians 117 tells us that Paul studied in Arabia. Galatians 425 says that the mountain is in.

Pastor David: 30:57

Arabia. So Mount Sinai is in Arabia. That would suggest that what we're calling the Sinai Peninsula is what the Bible called in the Exodus story the wilderness of sin. So they only passed right through it.

Imran: 31:13

They go straight down.

Pastor David: 31:14

They go down to what we would call the Gulf of Aquaba.

Imran: 31:17

At the Gulf of.

Pastor David: 31:18

Aquaba. That's where this part of the sea would have happened, the sea parts, and they move from what we call the Sinai Peninsula or the wilderness of sin. They move across that, the cross, the Gulf of Aquaba, into Saudi Arabia and it's there in Arabia that they are there for 40 years and they encounter Mount Sinai and all of that. That changes all of the traditional locations, but it also makes some things make sense. It works with the Bible, with it being in Saudi Arabia, according to what Paul said. It works archaeologically, because there's no mountain that perfectly fits the site.

Pastor David: 31:54

And there's no evidence of a million people having spent 40 years in that spot. It's one of the reasons people will dig at this. There's no evidence of this. Well, yeah because we're digging in the wrong spot. Yeah.

Imran: 32:06

So what is found when people are digging at this spot in Saudi Arabia, or even allowed to do that?

Pastor David: 32:12

Yeah, they snuck in, and so there are all kinds of documentaries out there now about things that people have found. There is a mountain there that's burned. On top there are rock formations that look like they were set up to put gods on. If you remember, they built a golden calf and put their god on it?

Pastor David: 32:29

Why would the mountain be burned on top? Because the Bible says that the fire of the Lord came down on Mount Sinai and that Mount Sinai was on fire, and when they got up on top of this mountain, indeed, there was rock that had been severely burned and scorched, and so I think that Mount Sinai probably exists in Saudi Arabia, out in that, but it's all blocked off, like the government doesn't let you just go out there. These are people that had to sneak in and find these things.

Imran: 32:58

That's wild, it is huh. Do you know if that area is also holy land for the Muslims as well?

Pastor David: 33:05

I do not think it is. It's just a blocked off mountain Like we just don't. We don't want you out there digging around. I got you, I'm not Okay.

Imran: 33:11

I'm out Like not in my kingdom. Accidentally proving the Jews are right.

Pastor David: 33:17

What's more, what also I think is exciting the water there is deep. It's really deep, so you would have to have a way. If you cross it, how are you going to get across? If you part the water, you're left with a canyon. Yeah, so we part of the water. Well, great, who's going to climb down in that? Get across and climb back up? Yeah, at the Gulf of Aquaba there's a land bridge that sits under the water.

Imran: 33:40

Oh, interesting.

Pastor David: 33:41

And so if you part the sea, it just drops down onto the land bridge and then back up. And they've gone and studied this land bridge. In fact, it's about eight miles across this land bridge, so it would have been about an eight mile walk through the part of sea. If that is the. The site about um, and and on either side one who hikes a lot with the Marine Corps.

Imran: 34:02

That is very doable at night on especially if they have oxen and horses and we were able to, because I think they left with a lot of that stuff.

Pastor David: 34:08

Yeah, On each side there's a sheer drop of 5,000 feet. And so this thing is literally a bridge, but remember that would have been filled with water.

Imran: 34:17

Yeah.

Pastor David: 34:18

And so you're not looking down in the empty nets, you're just looking over at water on either side. Yeah, the water acts kind of like the guard.

Imran: 34:23

So the land bridge is eight miles wide, or it's eight miles across Long, long, so it would take it's eight mile walk to get across it. Got it? Yeah, how wide is it Do you know?

Pastor David: 34:33

Yeah, it's about 900 feet, 900 feet wide.

Pastor David: 34:36

Plenty of room to move a million people across there in a single night, yeah, so you got to get them. You got to get them out there. There's some elements on the land bridge itself that I think are pretty important. When you, when they went down to the land bridge and they started doing um dives out there, they found that there was art, that there was limited vegetation on it.

Pastor David: 34:56

There was no rock on this land bridge, um, there were no mountainous formations. In other words, you have a, you've got a clean path. If it was dry, yeah, you just walk straight across. There also were no steep slopes on the land bridge. It didn't go up and down and you could easily move people across it. It was extremely flat, it was broad, uh, and the seabed is covered in sand and gravel and stuff like that. Uh, leonard Moller, who was one of the people that went out there and studied it, he says this it means that if the water was removed and the sand dried, there is solid ground to walk on. So the the land bridge is not covered in mud, um, but a thin, a thin layer of silt that just sits there.

Pastor David: 35:43

The that could be dried very, very easily.

Imran: 35:46

So I just thought that was amazing, absolutely Wow.

Pastor David: 35:48

Um, the two sides are not even though, and so to cross from one side to the other is not even the. The uh land bridge itself has a grade to it.

Pastor David: 35:56

Now here's what's interesting the grade is the same slope that the American disabled people's requirement is for any slope, Like at the church, when we have to build a slope it's the same grade that is required for that that that land bridge is, so you can move old people across it, and they're actually moving at a slope but it's a slope that they're sloping down and sloping back out, but the gradient was uh would have been fine for any really anyone to stumble and all of that yeah.

Imran: 36:25

Isn't that exciting. Their carts, their animals, we could get across it easily. That's good.

Pastor David: 36:28

Interesting. Let's make it even more exciting. Here's what they found on the land bridge, not just like, okay. They got out there and they said, yeah, it's doable, they're silt there, it's it's not too steep, it's not too rocky. All of that is when they got on the land bridge and they started finding the coral. Coral is a sea, um, like the sea animal that attaches to things. The thing under the coral can deteriorate, but but the coral retains its shape. It retains the shape. Uh, have you ever seen this? I have.

Imran: 36:58

Cause Miami's big on coral and protecting them and stuff like that.

Pastor David: 37:01

There are on the land bridge. There's coral encrusted chariot parts. In fact, there's chariot wheels all over this. Um so it's as if, as if maybe. Why would chariot wheels be in?

Imran: 37:16

the river, yeah, yeah.

Pastor David: 37:18

Now the chariot wheel isn't there. It's disappeared, but we've got coral in the shape of and you can go look at this. This is something that anybody sitting there right now can open the web. Google it and you're going to see the same pictures we're all looking at.

Selena: 37:32

That's why I actually wanted to ask you.

Imran: 37:33

So I'm glad you mentioned learning about this um a few years ago when it all came out. Yeah, exactly Like it was like world news.

Selena: 37:40

So I was like is that, is that like for real, for real.

Pastor David: 37:42

So uh, there, there are horses on there. On there there were piles of human skeletons covered by coral. Uh, divers compared the distribution of stuff all over the land. Bridge as a junkyard. One person said it is like the aftermath of a disaster, which is exactly what happened. Farrell goes running down there and it didn't say he just took the best chariots. Wasn't it interesting when the things that stood out to me is it said okay, he took his best chariot, so he goes. Oh, and all the other chariots.

Pastor David: 38:14

He's like 600 is best chariots and all the other chariots I know why it didn't say they took all the chariots but, like I think, at first they gave them. Like, is that all we've got? Okay, get all the chariots. Get all the chariots that pull them out of storage. They got. This was devastating to Egypt.

Pastor David: 38:28

They did, they lost their pharaoh they lost their army their officer core and they lost their um, their fast moving um military units the the chariot, all of which had gone chasing down after the Hebrews, and are destroyed on that land bridge.

Selena: 38:43

Do we know what happened to Egypt after that? So they lost the pharaoh, they lost um, let's say I don't know how many slaves that is, if it's like a million people, which contains families, um their army, like what happened to some of it becomes complicated by what timeline we're working with and which pharaoh said.

Pastor David: 39:01

So there's arguments theologically over who was pharaoh at that time. It looks like, um, this is the timeline. I think it's true. It looks like the Egyptians were actually ruled by a group of people that were not even Egyptians at that time, and so the pharaoh was conquered at the time. Yeah, Um and then just, you know, sometimes other people rise to power, yeah, and so the group of people that were there were not the people look at Hamas in Gaza.

Imran: 39:28

Yeah, Just the they literally came to power in the last 20 years Did not exist before 1987. And then all of a sudden they're there they're party. Yeah, yeah, so stuff like that does happen.

Pastor David: 39:40

I grabbed. Just reading that, I grabbed about three things to see what else you guys have, but three things. God just shows us in this passage about himself. So what we would say is that every, every miracle isn't just there to wow us go. Oh, wow, that's cool. Is there to teach us something about God.

Imran: 40:00

Yeah.

Pastor David: 40:01

And you could probably come up with 30, 40, 50 things that this teaches us about God, because it is um, it is the most mentioned miracle in the Bible. So once this happens, it's not like it's kind of forgotten about. I can think of miracles that are mentioned once.

Imran: 40:17

This is one of those miracles that they sing about it constantly, book after book after book. They write about it the yeah, it's talked about Deuteronomy, it's talked about in uh. You said in Isaiah, you said in Isaiah.

Pastor David: 40:27

Um, the New Testament's referred a lot of revelation, uses imagery from the Red Sea, and so the imagery, the verbiage, all of that. This is the mega event of the Old Testament, this parting of the sea and the crushing of Pharaoh's army. Yeah, I love it. Um, just some stuff I think it teaches us about God. One is that God is salvific, that is, he has the power to save us supernaturally, and so those that are lost, those that are in desperate situations, satan pushing down on us, god is the one who's able to save us. It's important because first, corinthians uses the same verbiage of the Red Sea for our salvation. Here's the idea before we were saved, it's like we were in Egypt. Then God came to rescue us from our sins and it's like he parted the sea and he took us through the sea. The sea is like Christ's death. Christ died for us and he now carries us through the sea, and on the other side we find resurrection in a new life. Our enemy is crushed in the sea and on the other side we step into the promised land, which is the newness of life. Paul uses that same kind of imagery for our salvation. So here's the idea the same God that could part the sea is the God who rose from the dead, is the God who can save us from our sins. So the Hebrews could do nothing to save themselves.

Pastor David: 41:47

If, um, if you said to the Hebrews, okay time, guys, to part the sea, they'd be like we, we can't do that. That's how your salvation is. If you go, hey, are you guys worthy enough to have the sea parted for you? No, you're. You're a bunch of complaining idiots. You're standing out there going. We won enough graves in Egypt. They were. They were not deserving of the salvation they were given, and yet it was given to them by the grace and mercy of God. That's the way God found me. I was unworthy and I was incapable of serving myself. A death sentence was on me and the Egyptian army was coming down on me. But it wasn't the Egyptian army, it was the. It was the fires of hell. God, on his own, by his power, rescued me and brought me to the newness of life. I love that. So I would say you know, god is salvific that he saved us.

Pastor David: 42:31

Um. For me, I think it's kind of exciting that God cares about details. So just go back to that dirt.

Imran: 42:38

God.

Pastor David: 42:39

God cares.

Imran: 42:41

God cares about you. For me, it's actually the the light on one side and the darkness on the other, because it's like they didn't say like, and they were. They walked you with the light of the moon, they yeah, and by the starlight they were able to get across. Like the stars shine twice as bright that night. All right, it was like no God provided the light and provided the confusion on behalf of the Egyptians, so that the time was given for the For the Egyptians to go, sorry for the Jews to go across.

Pastor David: 43:08

You just made me think of something that if you were to go and draw even if, let's say, it's a full moon what you're gonna do? That when you step into the water is it's like stepping into a hole. Yeah, you're gonna go down into a hole. So God gives them something bright.

Imran: 43:22

That's close and that's the, the blazing fire yeah and that's just like fascinating to me and it also just shows. Actually it said something like the cloud went From being before them to be behind them. All right, and it's like okay, so they were already being led, that's right by this, by God. So, and then God is like, oh, sorry, I put this, see here. And he goes and, you know, moves it out of the way for him.

Pastor David: 43:48

He moved well, but the but the pillar of fire itself moves from moving in front of them to show them where to go, so it moves behind them, and now it becomes an enemy to their enemies. Yeah and so it's light to one side and it's just. Can you imagine God projecting darkness? He projects this pure black darkness of the Egyptians are completely terrified by.

Imran: 44:06

Mm-hmm.

Pastor David: 44:07

I would say there's a side of God you do not want to encounter Absolutely. There is God's love, god's mercy, but there is a side of God that to the wicked they will encounter. That you're like, I do not want. I do not want that.

Selena: 44:20

I mean, that's what verse, that's how it ends, verse 31. And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed, the Egyptians, the people, fear the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses, his servant.

Imran: 44:34

Isn't that beautiful yeah yeah, unfortunately, a lot of times you have to get knocked down before you realize who's actually in charge. Yeah, I've. It's so funny. I feel that with some of my Marines sometimes is one of the Many hats I wear as the Marines waiting disposition platoons of the Marines that are Getting separated from the Marine Corps for some reason. A lot of times is for like patterns of misconduct, and it's like I've had to do a lot of work too with the carrot and stick of like I can be good to you but I will also crush you. You will not step on like on what I'm trying to build here, because I'm trying to build a culture where you all taking care of each other and we're moving forward in unity and I'm not gonna let your you be a grenade thrown into a bolt, a china bull shop, and you're just gonna blow up all the things that we've been building here.

Pastor David: 45:20

Yeah, I won't let you do that exactly.

Imran: 45:21

It's like. I will show you this the stick I can't hit you with, but I will also offer you the carrot because I want you to be on this side. Yeah yeah, so trust me.

Pastor David: 45:32

Isn't it interesting also that God is unique and one of the things emphasized in the song that comes after is the uniqueness of God. Who? Chapter 15, verse 11, who is like you, oh, yahweh among the gods? Who is like you? Majestic and holiness, awesome and glorious deeds doing wonders. There's a lot of emphasis at the Red Sea that there is no one like God, so he's not a created being. In fact, to compare some to the other gods, meaning the fake gods, there's all these fake gods, but none of them could even come up with a legend. That's as often that says awesome as the truth of the real God.

Imran: 46:10

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

Pastor David: 46:13

Another thing I noticed I think this story emphasizes is that God is just and it's what you were just saying, emron, that God only puts up with evil for so long before he shatters it. Yeah, and so he gave Pharaoh chance after chance, after chance after chance, and then it finally says the Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he went down after the people and God said alright, that's enough, I'm gonna kill you now. You got 10 plagues, you got 10 warnings.

Imran: 46:35

I always thought it was fascinating, the the fact that God also wanted to make a point, because to us, to a certain level, my the way I read this, is that God took up, took away some of the autonomy of Pharaoh. This is God hardened his heart. God hardened his heart, which, hardening his heart, push him towards a specific decision that he would make and that he would bring his people out there, that he would chase after them. And it's like during the plagues, like he hardened Pharaoh's heart. So and and that allowed God to show his power in Egypt, before he ultimately Allowed Pharaoh to make the decision to send them away jump through that a little bit, because that you bring up something that's really important.

Pastor David: 47:19

I think that God hates a faker, and so Pharaoh was full of fake repentance, pretending to worship God oh, I'm sorry. Oh, and there comes a point where God hardens the heart that he will bring forth what's truly in the heart. And so it's not that God puts evil in Pharaoh's heart, but he squeezes Pharaoh so hard that the evil in Pharaoh will come out. And so go ahead, show us who you are. That way, god has proved righteous in his judgment. So the hardening of Pharaoh's heart is the forcing of Pharaoh to be Pharaoh Interesting. Carry it out.

Pastor David: 47:48

You have to do it. God allows us to some degree down here and allows the nations of the earth to carry out their evil, so that God is righteous in his judgment on that evil. But we have to do it with God. But we have to do it. We've got to carry it out in order for God to show us look, this is what you were doing. Yeah, it was there all along. Pharaoh's heart was evil and against the people, but every now and then he'd come out, he'd get scared, he'd fake it. And God goes no, we're faking. Let's bring out what's really in your heart. Either really repent or I will show people who you really are. And I think that's what the hardening of Pharaoh's heart means.

Imran: 48:18

That's interesting. I never heard that before, but that makes sense. I like it I do have a question.

Selena: 48:23

I guess more If we do have the history of it, or maybe I just completely missed it. How did the Jews Become enslaved to the Egyptians, like where they conquered people?

Imran: 48:35

Oh, they were getting conquered. Left and right they in under Joseph.

Pastor David: 48:40

Joseph brought his family there. And so there were only about 70 people when they started in Egypt. So they were given homes, all that. The only thing is they grow really fast and so they were this expanding nation within a nation. Imagine it's kind of. Sometimes what America scared of is the pace at which we pick up foreigners and go whoa, what are we doing?

Pastor David: 49:00

But imagine an ancient nation suddenly realizes we have a nation inside our nation and if this nation rises up against us, they could destroy us and they could take over the, the monarchy. The result was that they begin to enslave these people and and make them subservient to them to carry out their building projects, to clean their homes, to so they have been guest of honor. Then, once the nation grew and expanded, they became slaves until God would remove them from there and give them, bring them back to their land.

Selena: 49:31

So it kind of became like you Because, oh man, so so they came in through Joseph, yeah.

Pastor David: 49:39

Joseph brought his family there. His family grew. This is now by hundreds of years His family grew. Once his family grew, the Egyptians got scared and enslaved them, and Once they were enslaved, got to remove them.

Selena: 49:52

So the Jews were, in that sense I conquered by the Egyptians, but the Egyptians were also conquered by another nation.

Pastor David: 49:58

But we wouldn't really say conquered. They were oppressed by the, the Egyptians.

Imran: 50:02

You could say we do that, we did that for a long time. Like you could look at like the Jim Crow laws, so even after the slaves were freed and by the law oh, this is actually perfect example of that. So like right after the Civil War and right after all the slaves were freed in the south, the Black men were given like full citizenship, or Minority men were given full citizenship and they were able to vote. If you go back and you look at a lot of those elections that happened within maybe the first 20 to 30 years after the Civil War ended, a lot of the state Congresses so they're like House of Representatives and their Senate and their Governors and stuff were black because the majority of the population was black.

Pastor David: 50:56

And so then we are a lot of these, exactly, so it's like now we need to restrict there.

Imran: 51:01

We need to make it so that, well, you need to be able to read in order to vote, okay, well, you know you need to be able to.

Pastor David: 51:05

You need to own land, own land in order to vote you need.

Imran: 51:08

And so these and those Jim Crow era laws started getting layered on top, because they're like whoa, whoa, you're really, you're taking away our power. We now, we need to systematically oppress and restrict your independence so that so they weren't back to being slaves, but they weren't also equal and free in the same way.

Imran: 51:27

At least and I'm not saying that's exactly what happened in but I'm saying that stuff like that happens Became slaves, and then yeah, they were freed and in their freedom they started to vote and then that started to dramatic, dramatically change the government and If you look at this, at the, at the history, you have this big influx of black people in In congressional seats it being elected into office and then the steep drop-off and then, and then, absolutely none being elected again During that Jim Crow era and then, after like the 30s and 40s, when it's sorry, like the 1560s, when it's all getting challenged, then you start seeing that increase again after it's the fear of the people.

Pastor David: 52:09

What do we do when we have another people among us?

Imran: 52:12

and it is the same it happened in America.

Pastor David: 52:14

Gracious, we brought people over here. Then got scared oh no, we've got people over here that aren't us. Yeah you know? And that, what if they overthrow the power structure, which is exactly what yeah, cuz I mean you got in.

Imran: 52:26

The same argument Was with the Native Americans, cuz it's like, well, we will bring them in, but no, but they have to get. They have to learn to speak English, they have to accept our religion, they have to go to our schools. They have to give up their though, they have to live in like American style houses, and they wanted to oppress their culture and Make them more European. They couldn't, they didn't want to accept, they didn't want, like America's become more like the natives. They wanted the natives to become more like this concept of America, or become more European.

Pastor David: 52:54

All this right so well in a book I just read called killers of the flower moon. It's a movie right now. I read the book and it's so funny. Nobody who says this is comedy. But I'm telling you this is funny the. Osage Indians are driven to Oklahoma where they're gonna be confined by the government of the United States. So they're given land and they're given a treaty.

Pastor David: 53:15

But, wouldn't you know it, that government accidentally gave them land that was on top of oil, and so like, oh and so the Osage start getting incredibly wealthy and then they start dying off and I'll leave the. I'll leave that plot line there. I think that's so funny, like, like they tried to restrict me. Oh, we gave them the land with the oil.

Pastor David: 53:33

Yeah but it's often the problem of a nation, of what are you doing? We have another nation inside of us. It scared the Egyptians and they tried to oppress them and you still see it happening today to this very day that same Stuff that's being described there is not unusual, not uncommon.

Imran: 53:48

You can see it with the, with the Uighur Muslim nation in China, where they make a significant amount of the minority population, and China's like no, no, hon, hon Chinese is the only Chinese that matters, and they're suppressing their culture, their accusation of sterilizing the men and the women so that they can't reproduce, and and regulating them to only certain parts of society so that they're not going to Impact the Han Chinese concept that they're pushing. So Actually, the Han Chinese is the same thing to the Taiwanese that were in Taiwan before the Han On Chinese went over to Taiwan and established that government. So that's a whole thing to the history there's fascinating as well, because there were already people there on Taiwan.

Pastor David: 54:34

So our very long answer to how did they get there? They came there by Joseph. They came when there was a famine. They found food in Egypt and they found some rest and they found hospital Hospitality because Joseph was running their government that extended for a period of time. But once Joseph died, a new Pharaoh comes who's scared of these people, okay, and his only thing is it's hard to oppress them because they keep growing so fast. God keeps blessing them and he blesses the fertility Hmm of the Hebrews that they just are able to have incredible numbers of children, Mm-hmm.

Pastor David: 55:05

And so this nation just explodes inside the confines of Egypt yeah, because it was before this.

Imran: 55:11

They also had killed all the, all the babies. Right, there was a good try.

Pastor David: 55:15

So they're always trying to think of how do we get rid of this population? Well, maybe if we killed all the male babies we could cut them down, or maybe if we yeah.

Imran: 55:22

Mm-hmm, so it happens.

Pastor David: 55:25

It's still happening stuff like that, that's it most important thing we want you to know well, most important thing is that there's a great God who saves you. But I want you to know the stories of the Bible are not just stories that we make up, tell our kids and feel good about Again. The earth is scarred by the miracles of God. The earth is scarred by a worldwide flood.

Pastor David: 55:43

The earth is scarred by this sea that parted and the Landbridge is there, the, the coral encrusted chariot wheels are there the evidence lays all around us that A mighty God has moved among us, and he's no myth, yeah and I yeah, absolutely, and I love that.

Imran: 56:00

And I want to hang on one of the points you made. The evidence lies. I'm all around us. All right, do the work, go study, go read your Bible. I was so as we read through it today, I realized that you know that my understanding of the parting of the Red Sea was from a DreamWorks movie, and I had never updated that that understanding, and so I know I have some work to do personally to read through some more of Exodus and make sure I understand what actually happened, because I don't want to just have someone else's dramatization of the truth. I need to have the truth and have the truth first, and so make sure you're starting with with that. So, before you even go in and start diving down the Google webs, read the Bible, verify what's in there, and then make sure that your research is is centered around Making sure that the Bible is true, because the Bible will prove itself to be and every time I look at chariot wheels on the golf of Aqua.

Imran: 56:53

But yeah, there you go chariot wheels in the Gulf of Aqua, but because that's where I'll be after this, all right. So thank you so much, pastor David for that episode and that was a great discussion. That's a lot of fun. So thanks for coming on. We have maybe one more of these before we transition, so we'll we'll see how many more of these we can. We can drag out of him.

Pastor David: 57:12

We're having fun. We're having a fun story behind the story, yeah so thank you all so much for tuning in.

Imran: 57:18

I hope you enjoyed. If you want to leave a comment or you want to engage with us like, check out our Facebook page, check out our the church website and the church Facebook page as well and you can engage with us on there. And if you're in the 29 palms area, come check us out at Poms Baptist Church and we'd love to shake your hand and and get to know you and love on you.

Pastor David: 57:37

So not baptized. We'd love to baptize you absolutely. First you get saved.

Imran: 57:42

Yeah well, you have to get saved first. You have to go through that process.

Pastor David: 57:44

I'll stop you're wrapping the episode up and I got excited about.

Imran: 57:49

Being in 29 palms area, come hang out with us over at Poms Baptist Church. We love you and we'll see you next week.

Selena: 57:56

Thank you for tuning in to real Bible stories. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to leave a review, share and subscribe to be notified each week when we upload new episodes. Real Bible stories is produced in partnership with Poms Church in 29 palms, california. If you would like more information or want to check out archive sermons and Bible studies, please check out the church website at palms Baptist church comm or check them out on Facebook, instagram or YouTube. Real Bible stories can be found wherever Podcasts are found. Thank you again and we will see you next week.