Genesis 18 - 23

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to the weekly deep dive podcast on the ad-on education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly, come follow me discussion and try to add little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd here in the studio with my friend and the show's producer, Nate Fiverr. What's up, mate. Good to see you. Good to be back. Speaker 2 00:00:36 I am thrilled to be back. Can't wait to see what we're talking about today. Speaker 1 00:00:40 Genuinely excited to dive into Abraham a little bit more about what's going on and if I can deliver half as much as what I've been soaking in this week, I mean, it's going to be, it's fun. I love Abraham. Let's do it. Okay. Let's start first and you have to forgive me. I'm going to be bouncing. I know in the come follow me discussion, they've got like this delineation chapter 18 is the next lesson, but so much of the story with Abraham interweaves with all of these chapters, and there's so much play going on, I'm going to be going back and forth to some of the previous ones and just taking some free reign here to really dive into Abraham. We just want to get it right. We want to get it right. And so first the question I am going to ask is what does it mean to walk with the Lord? Mm. And we've seen that phrase a few times this year. First Adam walked with God in the cool of the day in the garden of Eden. Then we had Noah walked with God. Well EDIC before Noah and Enoch walked with God. Noah walked with God and now Abraham is commanded to walk with God, Speaker 2 00:01:48 Let me ask the question, Speaker 1 00:01:50 Ask away. Speaker 2 00:01:52 Did Abraham walk with God or before God in the wording Speaker 1 00:01:57 Before wording lift knee before? Speaker 2 00:02:00 Is that important? Cause I, I might have some thoughts on that, but continue. Speaker 1 00:02:06 Uh, tell me what, what, what, what do you think? Speaker 2 00:02:10 What, what, and again, like, I'm worried that I'm so far off on this, but, but what do you, what if you were to read the difference between walks with God or walks before God, why would those be separate? Speaker 1 00:02:26 That's a good question. So Enoch was with God, Speaker 2 00:02:29 Correct? Yes. And so was Noah Speaker 1 00:02:32 Let's, uh, let's pull up those verses. So if we go to Genesis five, you're absolutely right. There is a difference. And here we are, verse 22 and Enoch walked with God, the verb with his, at meaning with, if I pull it up with near together with together. And maybe that's where you're headed with this. Yes. Go for it, Nate. Speaker 2 00:02:58 No, I I'm. I'm too scared, dude. Just scared. Don't be scared. Okay. Let me, let me, I want it. Maybe I can just spur. Maybe I can just spur some thoughts for you because again, like you knowing the language better. I, and the only reason I bring this up is because I was remembering that it talks about Noah being like the righteous dude relative to his generation. Like, but like, but he was, he was, I think the word was, he was righteous. Right? You don't see that necessarily a ton throughout the old Testament, at least from the cross-checking that I can do. But I, again, I might be wrong on this, but we, we talked about this a little bit that after the, after the flood, um, Noah, and, and again, like there's so much of this, that's always lost in translation. That again, this is why I'm kind of nervous to talk about this and just correct me if I'm wrong and I will not be offended, but, but Noah, we talked a lot about like the trauma that Noah must've gone through. Speaker 2 00:04:05 Right? You, you basically, and, and again, like as kind of horrifying of a pictures of paints, I'm going, man, do you hear like corpses bumping up against the arc as you're floating around and the whole earth and all of the animals and all the people have been drowned and like, how do you, even when you land and start again, recover from this. Right. And, um, apparently with the vineyard, that's the key. And that's where I'm, that's where that's kind of where I'm going with this, right. Is that it's, is, is that kind of a clue into how, how crazy that probably was even for a prophet to go, we have to start this over again. Knowing every day you get up that it's like, you never know what you're going to stumble upon. Like as you're walking around. I don't think we normally think about that. Speaker 2 00:05:01 I don't think we think about that, but the aftermath of that is important because again, like, at least as far as the story goes, he's he is become a man of the vineyard and he's passed out wherever that is. He's he's uh he's and it, it just paints a little bit of like, oh man, that's intense. Right? And you look then you, and by the way, like I would not judge him for, for doing whatever it took, probably to kind of calm, whatever, terrible emotional trauma that must've been. Right. You look at Abraham, we've kind of talked about this and I know we're going to get more into this today too. And that's why, and that's why maybe we can, we can finish talking about this later, but think of the, think of the trauma that Abraham and Isaac and Sarah all went through, even throughout their whole lives, Speaker 1 00:05:59 Basically. And we can add Ishmael and Hagar Speaker 2 00:06:02 In the moose. And by the way, I think that a lot of that probably played a toll on Abraham. Also everything that we're going to talk about that goes down with them. But the, I guess the difference it feels like, is it the end of that? Does Abraham turn to the vineyard or does Abraham stand back up dust off his boots and keep going? Right. And, and realize that this is that with all of the tragedy and all of the trauma that he's going to see in his life, he, at least in the scriptures gets back up right. And, and keeps pushing forward. And so I'm wondering if the, if the language of walks with God or walks before God has anything to do with walking with God, for him to basically be, be, um, kind of like pulling you along or kind of taking you along with him, to, with God, to kind of help walk you through a lot of the tragedy that basically, and, and the insanity that you're about to see or have seen where with Abraham, he on his own understands his calling and is walking, walking with the faith that God is supporting him. Speaker 2 00:07:29 Even if he's not holding his hand through a lot of these things. Am I totally off on the Speaker 1 00:07:34 That's interesting perspective? I, I honestly, I don't know. I, I look at it, Adam, walking with God makes sense if God's physically present with them in the, Speaker 2 00:07:44 And by the way, teaching him and holding his hand through a lot of the things that have he has to learn. Right. Speaker 1 00:07:50 And if Anik has pulled up into heaven and again with God where he's residing, yes, he's walking with God. If Abraham is down here on earth, he's not dwelling with God and heaven, and God is not dwelling on earth with him. He is walking before the Lord is in the Lord is observing him and watching him from a distance kind of to what you're saying, this idea that he's going somewhat alone. Speaker 2 00:08:14 And he is well that, I mean, you have to assume that he's going with it somewhat alone. Because again, even remember basically God with God, with Noah is telling him exactly, kind of what's going to happen. Here's what you got to do. Here's what it is, build this thing. We're going to make some covenants together. You know what I mean? This is going to be crazy, but here's, it's almost like here's the plan. And with Abraham, so much of that in the scriptures, we realize Abraham may have not known exactly what he was being commanded to do when he was being sent up to sacrifice his son, Abraham had to, had to be faithful without God. They're right next to him, reassuring him through every step of the process. Because again, like the story that we're going to talk about of, of Abraham and Isaac, I don't know. Speaker 2 00:09:13 I'm just saying, I think that there's more to that story, even to then God said, Hey, you've got to go sacrifice your son. And everybody was just cool with it. And just went up to the mountain and was like, uh, oh, okay. And even if that was what he was commanded to do in the first place, or if, or if this was something that he maybe understood because of what happened with him and his father, but then the trauma of what happens even after that, it talks about like parallel timelines. This is when his wife, Sarah, who probably at least at some point figures out what's going on eventually dies. Whether, because of this or not, like, it's, it's a pretty crazy, it's not coincidence. Speaker 1 00:09:57 You know what I mean? There's, there's, there's a lot of people who suffer or are effected real. Speaker 2 00:10:04 Can you imagine if this is it, can you imagine if she figured out what was going on somewhere along the line and didn't understand obviously what the purpose tune was like, wait, is my husband going to kill our only son that we've waited 80 whatever years for, at this point? Like the, the traumatic experience that that would have been, that could absolutely have led to complications that could have led to her death, that Speaker 1 00:10:29 It happens there. There's, there's a lot of scholars that, that suspect that Isaac was 37 years old at the time that he was offered as an offering, simply because his mom dies 37 years after his birth. And they attribute the him going up and, and the sacrifice, the idea is what drops. Bri brings her down to the grave. And you look at very similar thing with Lehigh and Sariah when they send me Phi back to Jerusalem. And it says that her, she was, she was mourning their death and, and it almost killed her the thought that they were, and there's some good parallels there, because again, it's a three days journey from Jerusalem, just like it's a three days journey for them to get to Mariah where they, where they do this sacrifice. There are consequences impact on, on people far outside of just Abraham and Isaac hanging out on a mountain together. Speaker 2 00:11:21 And just to sum up the, then the, at least the thought then would be, I think it speaks to if, if we are to assume that this language is deliberate and it might not even be, but if it is deliberate in with God or before God, I think that there's something to be said for Abraham, even after all of this is going down and realizing that there's infinitely like more repercussions than just the angel being like, okay, don't do that. Oh, okay, cool. I guess everybody's cool now. Well, no, that's not the way that that ends. Right. Right. But then even after that, Abraham still finds it within himself to get up and continue through all of these things. He's willing to get up. Even not, not necessarily having God physically right there, hanging out with him to be like, Hey, look, we're here together. It's cool. It's all part of the plan. Instead of having to rely on the spirit instead of having to rely on, on, and obviously still communication with God, but still being able to, to walk before God in faith, through all of, through all of just the insanity that happens and has happened through his entire life. Speaker 1 00:12:33 Great insight. And it's impressive that he does. He does paraphrase what it says, a job, right? He does not blame God and die. He does not stop believing despite the test, the challenge. And it's summed up maybe a little bit quicker when you get to Jacob with his wrestle with God, and you just kind of glance over that wrestling with God. But in Abraham, that wrestle is drawn out much more significantly. And there is something to sometimes the greatest temptations, the greatest tests that we have to go through aren't because Satan is asking us to make clearly a wrong choice in our life is rather God proving us. It's rather God requiring difficult things from us. And wondering, are we still going to believe after going through what we're going to have to go through? Do we still turn to him? Do we still have faith that we still walk before him? Or, or do we need someone to, I don't know. It's an excellent question. And Abraham, more than anything, I think is the prime example of faith. I don't, I don't know if that quite what Speaker 2 00:13:45 You were that's exactly what I that's, that's at least what I'm proposing. That's at least what I'm suggesting could possibly be a reason, Speaker 1 00:13:53 The insight and dig to answer something that you had mentioned a little bit earlier when you said, I don't know if the language is deliberate or here, hopefully by the end of this episode, we all realized that the language here is extremely deliberate. There there is a lot going on here. When he, when he says going back to Abraham, walking before God. So this is chapter 17, verse one. And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto him, I am the almighty God. That's going to be important. We'll circle back to that walk before me. So lift knee, instead of it saying walk before me as you've pointed out and be thou perfect. And so when I, when I looked at this walk, I went to the Hebrew and the word walk is HELOC. W w which means to walk, but this isn't Halla. Speaker 1 00:14:54 This is Heath Halla and Heath HELOC. The Heath PL is a verb form in Hebrew. And it's a reflexive form. And you use it like dress yourself, feed yourself when you're doing action to yourself, that that's a reflexive. So when he says, he's not, he's not saying, go walk. He says, go walk yourself. Kind of almost pointing back to what you're saying, Nate. And it's not used extremely common throughout the Bible. It is used when referencing Enoch, he's Heath, a locking with the Lord. Okay. Um, it is used with, with Noah. I believe it's used with Mo Moses, this idea of Heath HELOC, but maybe the most interesting place is when it's used in the garden of Eden that says an Adam heard the voice of the Lord. He Hallock walking. He heard the voice of the Lord walking. That should disturb us more than it does. We just glance over this and don't really put much attention to it. Voices don't walk. Speaker 1 00:16:05 So how does he hear the voice of the Lord walking self? Yeah. Interesting. If he heard the, if he heard the Lord walking in the garden and then calling out, that's one thing, but he hears the voice of the Lord. And so in this case, it's not walking, but this reflexive idea of going back and forth or, or this action it's, he hears the voice of the Lord filling the garden and it feels the garden. And it's really cool. I was, I was reading as reading. I can't remember who it was. I'm sorry. He was interpreting this. And he gives us an interesting peek into the translation. If you have, if you have questions or want me to follow up, I can, I can, I can shoot back an email or a post or whatever. But his interpretation of this is fascinating because the, he says, the reason why the voice of the Lord fills the garden. Speaker 1 00:17:04 This is very profound is because the first person kicked out of the garden was not Adam and Eve. It was God. He walked with Adam in the cool of the day. But when Adam had transgressed, he could no longer be. He could no longer be in the presence of God. Whoa. The voice of the Lord feels the garden. It goes back and forth. This reflexive voice is feeling it saying Adam, and the way he interprets this, when he says to call out E there's a, there's another version that says to cry out. And so the way he reads this as fascinating, it says the voice of the Lord field, the garden, and God wept. And instead of saying Adam, where art thou, he interprets it. Adam, why? Why art thou, oh man, that's heavy. Yeah. Why did you do this? I can't be with you anymore. Speaker 1 00:18:05 And it's the voice of the Lord. That's talking to them because God can no longer walk in their presence. So when we, when we see this return, we've talked about the redemptive story of Enoch, going back into the garden. If you will, this idea of paradise seeking paradise or returning this restoration, this atonement, we see that with Noah. This is what we're going to be seeing with Abraham, because you look at this verse going back to verse one. And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abraham and he is commanded to walk in his presence. This is restoration. This is back to the garden of Eden. What kind of man was Abraham that God could be with him again? Speaker 1 00:19:03 That's, that's the, the purpose of this. But when you look at walking and this Heath Haluk, what, what does it mean to, to walk yourself, to go the way of the Lord? And, and as I was thinking about this, and I think about how Abraham conducted himself in life, because I think, I think when you're talking about doing it to one self reflexive, I think of this idea of conduct yourself, be thou perfect. Right? Abraham, we talked, we've talked about this probably to the point where you're you guys are going to turn off the podcast. If you keep hearing us say this, but one plan was an order to be like, God, it meant to take all of the power to care about yourself, to exalt yourself where the other part of the plan was to be a servant, to submit to God's will to, to learn how to be a God, not take the shortcut. So when you look at Abraham's dealings, he sacrificed, like you said, Nate, not one but two sons. Yes. The first he sacrificed because Sarah to make her happy. And the second to please the Lord, and he is playing the victim in this, because all he's ever wanted a wife in this scenario to yes. It all he has ever wanted over and over throughout all of these chapters is children, seed, press. And he is willing to give that up for the people he loves most he's sacrificed to wives in this. Speaker 2 00:20:48 Yes. Okay. Sorry. I was just saying, I'm Speaker 1 00:20:52 Sorry, I'm just Speaker 2 00:20:54 Throwing this in there. I'm just saying like, this is, this is the more you actually think through this. It's so heavy. Speaker 1 00:21:00 It is Speaker 2 00:21:01 Okay. Keep going. Speaker 1 00:21:03 And he's willing to short himself to please the other person, whoever it is when, when he goes and fights the Kings and frees the king of Sodom and Gomorrah, and they try to make this deal, you have the gold and we'll take the people. And he says, no, here's some other, here's some better terms. You take the gold and the people what's he doing? He's shorting himself. When he's looking to buy a cave to bury his wife, he goes to the Hittites and he asks to buy just the cave. And the Hittite says, I'll sell you not the cave, but the whole field and Abraham saying, no, I'm not interested in the whole field. I'm just interested in the cave. And he says, well, the whole field goes with the cave. If you're going to do it. And he sells it to him, not for the price of the cave, but for the price of the whole field. Speaker 1 00:22:03 And there's something going on underlying tones here. If you owned a parcel of land in the Hittite kingdom, then you owned allegiance to the king. You had to pay the taxes. You had to pay the service, the duties, whatever it was, you're obligated to serve the king. If you are leasing or bought a portion from someone who's a land owner. So you're just taking a portion of the field. You're not under those obligations. So this guy, it's not, it's not this super generous back and forth. This guy is trying to get out of his obligations and put them on Abraham because he needs some place. This guy who wants to be a nation who wants to have his own land, doesn't even have a parcel of land to bury his wife. And yet he subjects himself to the worst terms to it, to be overly fair, to the other party in everything Abraham does. He doesn't do things to get gain for himself. He does it to short himself and, and, and the Lord asking for his son. And he's willing to give that, which was most precious to him. And if you read Abraham story, there's probably another five or six examples. I'm not even mentioning. And I, and I can't even, I'm leaving out, not doing justice to the story, but he is walking before God by doing this. Speaker 2 00:23:35 Can I just jump in real quick here? This what you're saying? I think really highlights what we've been talking about all year and especially this, but again, that's the difference between even like Adam and Eve and Abraham in this circumstance, which is one of those one, one, uh, let's, let's just say, let's just combine Adam and Eve for the sake of this conversation. One of those two chose what they thought was going to be the easy way. And what happened was it, did it end up being the easy Speaker 1 00:24:12 Way? Yeah, no. By the sweat of thy brow. Speaker 2 00:24:14 That's exactly right. And this is again, just another, I just want to throw this back in there because, and I, by the way, I don't mind bringing this up every time, because this is the lesson. I literally just had a conversation about this with a friend while we were working on, um, a record this week, which is the life lesson is anything worth having and worth value. Longterm requires sacrifice, sacrifice, and, and it's, and it's funny because then again, in the garden, the plan was, or not the plan, but the temptation to Eve was, Hey, this'll help you become like, God, well guess what? This is coming from a person that clearly doesn't know how to actually become like God or maybe he does, and is just continually throughout this point in his existence, trying to tweak that. Kay, God, I want to just have you give me your power. Speaker 2 00:25:03 No, actually now I'm going to kick you out of here. Hey Eve, trust me. This is how you become like, God, no, that's wrong too. You know what I mean? And by the way, and by the way, it did the exact opposite at the time of get them closer to God, to your point, it alienated, alienated them. The shortcut became the, the long, the absolutely the long hard road. Right. And it's interesting because then you look at the language with Abraham who from the very beginning was like, Nope, this, this life is the long hard road. I accept that. Right. And then you look at the language of how he walked before God in this circumstance. You're like, this was a good, good dude. It was a great, great man. And he did it the right way. Speaker 1 00:25:54 And I remembered when his shepherds have a dispute with lots shepherds. Oh yeah. Speaker 2 00:26:01 And there's another great, this is a perfect example. Speaker 1 00:26:04 And how does it, yeah, he handles it by saying lot we're we're family. There's no reason for us to be disputed. Speaker 2 00:26:09 Even though he basically saved the dude's life and bailed him out of every bad situation to this same. Speaker 1 00:26:14 I moved them from famine saved and brought them into, brought them would where he was. He's raised this kid up his nephew lot. Look at here's the land everywhere you see, where do you want to go? What's the best land for you? The Greenland over there, you want it. It's yours. I'll take, I'll take the bare land over here and it, and God will make it good for me, a shorts himself to make this thing work. And when he sees three walking in the heat of the day and they're not walking, they actually stopped. They're standing and they're looking at them, but they're looking at them from a distance because it says that Abraham ran to them. You don't run to someone who's standing right next to you. And they've gotta be a little bit ways out, a little, a little bit of a ways out. Speaker 1 00:27:03 He runs to them and says, please come here. I will feed you. It gets the runs back. And, and the, the thing is it says hastens and runs over and over. He runs back to his wife, please get the bread ready for them. Runs over to the servant. Here's a calf. Will you kill it? And cook it and prepare it. Let me go get some water. Let me wash their feet. Let me give them everything. I have to make them comfortable and to serve them and to go out of my way, to put these strangers first, which he owes nothing to, but he does it. And the Lord validates Abraham and his decisions. One just simply right here in the verse. The fact that it's not the voice of the Lord, speaking to Abraham, the fact that the Lord appears to him one but two, when God commands Abraham, to make a sacrifice, to ratify this covenant, that he will braise up a nation through Isaac, his son and Abraham cuts these pieces of meat, these animal sacrifices. Speaker 1 00:28:18 And he lays them out. And it would be real easy if you were just about anybody to just, you know, I did my part, Lord, what are you, what are you going to do now? What do you want me to do? But Abraham throughout the whole day, because the Lord tarries almost going back to the parable of the 10 virgins, right? The Lord takes his time and Abraham guards, the meat to keep the flies and the birds away to protect this because this is going to be holy. So here he is. Again, being typical, Abraham, trying to slight himself, the Lord's late for this appointment. That's okay. He's willing to wait. He's going to do everything he can to make sure that the meat is pristine and special for when the Lord gets there. Then when the Lord comes a heavy sleep falls upon Abraham. Speaker 1 00:29:08 And when, when he wakes, what does he see the Lord himself? And a powerful message to Abraham says, this is why I'm God and walks through the pieces of meat rather than the covenant, rather than subjecting to Abraham here, Abraham is expecting he is the weaker party. He should be subjecting himself to the terms of the covenant that the Lord lays because the Lord is superior. He is God, he is king. The king is not the one that goes through the pieces of meat. It's the vassal. It's the smaller one. It's the weaker party. And God says, no, I'm God, because I always put others first. And he puts Abraham first. And he goes through and subjects himself to the terms of the covenant and says, see you get it. That's what it means to be a God. Wow. To be willing, to put someone else first. Wow. Speaker 2 00:30:06 I mean, we're going to talk about this too. And we talk about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but that's, that's a pretty powerful, that's a pretty powerful, uh, scripture there. Speaker 1 00:30:18 It's the story of Abraham is amazing. And if we go to his appeal to God for kids, I find this fascinating going back to what we talked about with the beginning in Genesis, this is Genesis chapter 15, verse two, and Abraham said, Lord, God, what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless. Let me pause. When he says, seeing I go childless, the word is not go. It is walk HELOC. And so we've seen that word when he's talking about his HELOC, right? A lock has two definitions. One means to walk. So, Hey Lord, what are you going to do? Is things that I walk around without a kid that that could potentially be what he's referring to here. But this is a play on words. The definition number two for HELOC is die or perish. So put that in here. When he says, Lord, God, what will give me seeings, IDI childless. Speaker 1 00:31:24 And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. Here I am about to die. HELOC die. What will you? And you promised me this, but the promise isn't happening, what, what, how are you going to fulfill your promise? God? And as he's referencing death and his, his coming up to about to die without having a child, it's interesting how he addresses God in verse two, when he says, Lord, God, we've talked about this title before. Lord is, he will cause to be, God is Elohim. He is the God creator of gods. But also as we talked about that, the Lord to cause to be creator, he is the God of creation of life. And then God Elohim as the preserver. So he is making his appeal. Remember how, how God appeared to Moses and said, I am the creator. I am the preserver. And I am the destroyer. Speaker 2 00:32:24 It is interesting that Abraham leaves out the destroyer and Speaker 1 00:32:26 Leaves out the destroyer, right? The destroying part is I am going to die. Speaker 2 00:32:32 I think, I think he did a good job of conveniently leaving out the destroyer as well. Speaker 1 00:32:36 But, and, and it's, it's a man coming with death. Who's making a plea for life. And so he's appealing to the God of life. The God of preservation. God, will you give me a child now look at God's response that we've already read, going back to 17. And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto him, I am El Shaddai. That was a good episode. All mighty God means El, should I is the destroyer. So here he is a man coming face-to-face with death, making appeal to the God of life. And in response, God says, I am the God of death, but we'll grant you life. And he takes that HELOC, which means to die or perish and changes the meaning of it to his HELOC, meaning to live, to go about, to be alive. You see what he's doing there? Yeah. It's to me, it's fascinating. It is awesome. A man coming face-to-face with death appeals to the God of life and response, the God of death promises life. And if that's not a sign of just simply thinking of Christ, who was supposed to be the one who brings life instead comes and dies, that we might live again, that, that death comes from life and life comes from death. That's I don't know. It's fascinating to see that place. Speaker 2 00:34:21 It's also fascinating to consider then to what the Jews were expecting, the chosen one and how he was, how the in their minds he was supposed to come, right? Oh, that's an excellent date. They kept waiting for the liberator. They kept waiting for the king. They kept waiting for the conqueror. They kept, they kept waiting for the God of death, right. Of their enemies to come to come to come and give them life. And instead a man born, you know what I mean? To the most hum in the most humble of circumstances came and granted the world life and they didn't recognize him. Speaker 1 00:34:59 And I'm so glad you brought that up because it w we can go to that right here. If you study the life of Abraham, you would know that was the plan. Speaker 2 00:35:09 I feel like if you've studied everything up to this point, you would know that that's the plan, but continue. I'm just saying it's like every sign points towards Jesus. Speaker 1 00:35:17 Well, we talked, we talked previously about how Abraham's journey into Egypt is a foreshadow of Israel going to go into Egypt, right? Yes. And then when he goes into Abraham or Abraham, when he goes into Babylon and the Babylonian king also takes his wife, we talk about how the Jews are going to be carried away, captive in the Babylon. Then it's how they fit that into the story. Because here, God's going to promise Abraham a child, and he's going to promise it to Sarah, a child. And she says, am I going to conceive? I'm over 90 years old, like, I can't, this is impossible. Right? Which again, you should be looking for a miraculous birth, but, but going back to the story, who's going to believe that Sarah being, being over 90 years old, who's past menopause who is now expecting a baby, going into Babylon. Speaker 1 00:36:15 The king is going to look at this, this over 90 year old woman with child and say, that's who I want for my wife. Interesting. That that doesn't fit. These, this story is not arranged. Crinod chronologically. It's thematically because Christ has to come after the Babylonian exile. Isaac has to be born after they come out of Babylon. Abraham's life is telling us that, Hey, that your people are going to go to Egypt. And there, the Pharaoh is going to try to get them to worship Pharaoh. Instead of God, they're going to come out. And by the way, when they come out, they're going to have to fight just like Abraham had deliberate lot. There's going to be violence in the land of Canaan. They're going to have to fight, to create a place in the land. Afterwards, they're going to be promised that a Messiah is going to come. Speaker 1 00:37:07 They're going to believe in this Messiah, but they're going to lose hope that that Messiah is ever going to come, because it's going to take a long time. It's going to delay itself. The groom is going to be late in coming. And then after it's promised, guess what? Instead of being saved, you're going to go into Babylon where again, the people are going to be pulled and asked to worship the Babylonian gods. But when you come out of Babylon and you return after some time, Isaac will be born. But when Isaac's going to be born, you're going to be putting him to death. And that death, by the way, if Abraham's wife represents the church, Israel is going to cause her death or her apostasy. That's right. She's going to go into the wilderness. She's going to disappear apostasy, and then what's going to happen afterwards. Speaker 1 00:37:58 Abraham's going to take another wife and have kids that Gentiles being brought into Abraham's family. Jeez, his whole life is telling us well, doesn't Isaac, even reunite. Doesn't Isaac is the one who brings back Hagar to Abraham. Yup. There's even, there's even, there's even the re reunion or reconnection there as well. That's I mean, it's fascinating and, and going to, so you've turned me on to a podcast, rabbi sacks, Jonathan sacks. He's great. And if he points out that thematically, as we're talking about the scriptures being arranged and Babylon fitting where it does in the timeline of these things, thematically, Isaac dies on that mountain. That's right. He's not actually dead, but from a literary standpoint, he's not included in the story when they reunite with the servants coming down from Mariah. Yup. He's not included at the funeral service of his mom. He disappears. The death of Isaac is the death of, of Christ. But then he's going to make return as he takes the gospel to the Gentiles and brings the Gentiles into the fold. If you want to know what's going to happen and how it's going to play out this, this whole story of Abraham, is it a microcosm of, of, of God's plan? Speaker 2 00:39:23 Will you just, cause the thing is like, I got, I mean, I'm getting chills, man, but will you, will you just briefly kind of, I think, I think that by kind of skimming over the literary death of, of Isaac, I don't know you and I know what that means because we're fans of, you know, this rabbi, but may, maybe just quickly explain what you mean there just really quick. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:39:44 Yeah. Isaac doesn't physically die on the mountain. Just like, I don't think Sarah being 90 years old with child is going to appeal to the Babylonian Kings to have her be their wife. All of a sudden. Yes. I think that the story is being told in such a way that from, from a standpoint of reading the story, it's telling a greater story, Speaker 2 00:40:08 But what you're saying is, is in the story, you would think that after this whole thing, Isaac would be playing a huge part. Like Isaac should have been included in the text when you're, when you're talking about his mother's death, which by the way was probably, at least you can assume may have been a result of everything that had just happened before that you would think that in the text, Isaac would be mentioned. He's not. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:40:35 I think that he would be a big role in coming and greeting the servants. Like, Hey, you will not believe what happened. I'm so happy to see you again. Speaker 2 00:40:45 One of the, one of the central character of the story is missing from that also like, like we talked about the reuniting, um, there's the there's I guess the point, the point I'm just saying to, to clarify Isaac is left out in the text in inexplicable ways. If you don't understand the context Jason, that you're talking about right now, which is it's deliberate, very deliberate. The thing is, as it is interesting too, though, from like even a symbolic standpoint, too, that like that, that would have been a, I mean, we've talked about Abraham's trauma from this situation, we've talked about Sarah's trauma from this situation. It's also hard to believe that a little part of Isaac may not have died that day too. Yeah. I'm just saying like, it's hard. It's when you look at the story, I'm just saying to be fair to everybody involved Speaker 1 00:41:38 A brother, dude. Speaker 2 00:41:41 Yes, Speaker 1 00:41:41 He did Ishmael being sent away. Speaker 2 00:41:44 He there's, it I'm just saying with how much even he had to suffer in this, in this circumstance or in, in these various circumstances, it's an explicit bubble that he would be left out of the text other than what, what you're saying, which is we know now the context of it, which by the way, it's funny because we look at these things and go it's right there. And it's so, so many times when I'm listening to a lot of these, you know, I don't listen to a lot, a couple or read through some of these, these rabbis, you know, kind of going through the Jewish, Jewish belief and understanding of the old Testament. I'm like waving my arms in the air, going, you're almost there. Like, you know what I mean? Like you're at the finish line, Speaker 1 00:42:23 Just cross Speaker 2 00:42:24 It. Like you're literally describing Jesus, just cross the finish line. This is another one of those circumstances where you're like, you've, you've brought up fantastic points rabbi about every single part of this story. Just walk right across the finish line. Anyways. It's funny. I get, I get a kick out of it every time because I literally out loud will say you're right there. You're right there. Just walk across. Just walk across that finish line, baby. Speaker 1 00:42:52 Well, it's almost like they've teed it up for you like here. I mean, I've done all the work. You just hit the home, run on this. It's cool. Speaker 2 00:42:59 Awesome. Let's keep going. And, Speaker 1 00:43:01 And maybe just a minor mentioned, we've talked about this so many times I go back to from a literary stand, Adam and Eve being, being heavenly parents. Right? You've got there. They had to have had multiple children. They had to have had daughters. How else did Kane have children? How else did Abel have children and Seth? They could not have been the only, and in some texts it talks about them having 60 kids or 30 kids or who knows how many, he lived 900 years. But from a literary standpoint, having one third of his children versus the two thirds of his children, it's like, God himself is speaking in the text saying, let me tell you my story story. Let me tell you what's going on here. It's buried in plain sight. Speaker 2 00:43:49 Let me ask you a real quick question. Yeah. We talk a lot about how, um, you have all throughout the old Testament, you have a type of, um, or a symbol right. Of Christ. Um, and I think that this again kind of goes, cause we've talked, we talk about Moses, right? Being at being infants Speaker 1 00:44:09 That are killed. Speaker 2 00:44:10 Yes, yes, exactly. Speaker 1 00:44:12 So we, it going to be offered as Speaker 2 00:44:14 A type of Christ. Yes. And we even see yes, exactly. And we even see, you know, and again, we've talked about Joseph Smith and a lot of other prophets that throughout time kind of representing or showing a type of Christ. It is interesting to now continue to kind of go back to what we started the episode with is, are we being told that Abraham is almost a type of heavenly father? Speaker 1 00:44:38 Absolutely. I mean, his name OV rom of means father rom means exalted. He is the exalted father. Who's going to offer his son as a sacrifice. I think Abraham feels this role. I think Adam fills this role. I think Noah fills this role. I even think Lehigh fills this role. Interesting. And maybe, maybe this is a good part to segue. As we talk in the book of Mormon. When you see Lehigh leaving Jerusalem and coming to his tent, I wrote a whole 19 page paper about one little verse and my father dwelt in a tent then. And why is that little verse in there? Why? I mean, Speaker 2 00:45:23 I have thoughts, but I don't know if they're right. Speaker 1 00:45:25 Where else is he going to dwell? That's yeah, it seems a little redundant. If you're, if you're scribbling on metal plates, do you think you have to tell people that my father dwelt in the tent Speaker 2 00:45:37 Only reason? Well, if that's the answer, then I'll totally be fine being wrong. Does it have something to do with the idea that attent was the traveling temple or the traveling tabernacle for a long time? And it basically is reminding us that God dwells in a temple. Absolutely. Speaker 1 00:45:55 In fact, the Hebrew word we talked about, we talk about deliberate here. The Hebrew word for temple in some instances is, oh, hell, Speaker 2 00:46:04 We just be stoked that I knew something, you know, a lot of things, but this one was kind of one of the things I shouldn't know, but come on. All right. I'm just patting myself on the back over here. Continue, continue, continue to tell people how I was able to nail this one. Speaker 1 00:46:18 Nate. Nate's pretty awesome. So the Hebrew word for temple at times is, oh hell. And the idea was that God has a permanent residence in heaven. So when he comes to visit his children, he tents among them. So the house or the structure that they build for him is a temporary structure, a temporary house for him to visit a tent. And it also goes back to the time when you're nomadic, you don't live in solid buildings, you live in tents. So you have a tent that you travel about. And if you're going to have God dwell among you, then you have a tent for God. And that becomes this temple. Speaker 2 00:46:55 And we formed to, to, into steaks, to hold down the tent to the ground, to ground the tent. We do. Yeah. I learned that from you actually in doctrine and covenants, I'm not even going to try to take credit for that, but I will say it was during doctrine and covenants that I realized why we call stake stakes. And so I felt like an idiot going, wow, that's pretty obvious, I guess, and took me 39 years to figure that out. But all right, Speaker 1 00:47:20 Well, when you talk about some of these Assyrian texts that describe where God lives and how God lives, and they put him at the base of a mountain next to a river of water, and you look at the imagery of what NiFi is telling. And I don't mean this to be a whole discussion in the book of Mormon, but I think it's relevant when we talk about Abraham here, him dwelling in a tent is significant in the idea that he is almost the God of the tent, the F the, the, and that's what the tent or the temple was, was a house of God where God resided. So there's a lot of imagery and symbolism here. Abraham, like Lehigh builds an altar right at the side of the tent. And altar building is very significant and you couldn't build an altar just anywhere and go worship and throw up a sacrifice. Speaker 1 00:48:08 As soon as the temple was established, you had to offer offerings at the temple and the altar was at the temple. So here you have a tent connected to an altar and not just an altar, but do you know what else Abraham has at this site that he is that he is residing with Sarah? Hold on the think, let me think. God, an altar. I mean, here's a question. Does he have some version of the Ark of the covenant? I don't know about that. Dang it. I was hoping that was going to be at all right. Keep going a Grove of trees. Yeah. I would have never guessed that he plants a Grove of trees at this site that he builds an altar and pitches. His tent, a Grove of trees is very important to religious belief. In the old days, they would always plant groves and go worship God in these groves. Speaker 1 00:49:02 And um, if you go to the early Greek temples, can you picture in your mind what these Greek concrete temples look like? Yes. And what do they have along the outside, along the sides, pillars, pillars, columns, and these columns, these pillars are shaped like trees they're decorating. Yes. This idea that the temple is in a Grove of trees. Why? Because a temple is supposed to embody Eden paradise. You're going back to steam, to Eden. So having these trees that surrounded there's trees in the garden of Eden, there's a tree of knowledge. There's a tree of life. And so you take Abraham's tent and, and here's, here's where I think it gets really interesting when God says that Sarah's going to have a child. She laughs right. But her comment after she laughs is fascinating. Let me, let me turn real quick to it. It's um, chapter 18. Speaker 1 00:50:11 Okay, here we go. It's Abraham 18 verse 11, verse 12. So verse 12, therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying after I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure? My Lord being old also? And that seems like, I mean, simple enough, shall I here's here's where it's interesting. Shall I have pleasure? My Lord being old also, and that makes it sound like, you know, as you get older, you don't have sexual intimacy anymore. Am I going to have intimacy the word here for pleasure though, if we don't translate it, this pleasure and go to the Hebrew, the literal word here is shell. I have Eden also. So here she is in this tent and she's saying, shall I have Eden? Shall I have the garden here's here? Where is the garden Eden? The paradise is with Sarah. I don't know if this, this might get a little bit interesting. Okay. Let's help. Help me navigate these waters. Now I'm going to help you navigate these waters, my butcher, this really bad. Okay. Um, when we talk about deliberate words here, one of the deliberate words is laughing Zaha because Abraham laughs, when God says, I'm going to bless you with the child, which by the Speaker 2 00:51:40 Way, wouldn't that be exactly what he asked for from Speaker 1 00:51:43 God? Yeah. So why would he laugh? And, and Abraham Abraham says, well, I wish you would remember Ishmael too. And God says, well, I'll remember Ishmael. And I think Ishmael, it kind of gets lost in the shuffle on this a little bit, because we're focusing so much on Abraham and Isaac. He doesn't get the credit that he's due. And we compare the sacrifice of Ishmael in the Quran and the Islam, faith. They believe that that Ishmael was the sacrifice, the chosen son. And it's interesting. This play because as Hagar gets sent off by Sarah at breaks, Abraham's heart, God says, I'll take care of him. But Hagar sets Ishmael under a Bush tree in the shade and walks off because she does not want to see the child die. It is the end. His death being sent out into the wilderness was just as real as Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac at the hand of a knife. And yet at that moment, God intervenes and saves Ishmael to, to raise a mighty nation from him. This is not just a sacrifice about one son it's Abraham sacrificing two sons, which by the way, over 50% of the world's population today, either claims Ishmael or Isaac as, as their descendancy in the world today, which is incredible. Speaker 2 00:53:04 So, so to that story though, God did basically say, Hey, don't worry. I'll take care of I'll. I'll also take care of Ishmael to Speaker 1 00:53:12 Yeah. He said, do you want me to read the exact words here? Yeah. And God said, unto Abraham, let it not be grievous in the sight because of the lad. And because of that bond woman in all that Sarah has said unto the hearken, under her voice, an Isaac shall thy seed be called and also of the son of the bond woman, will I make a nation because he is thy seed. But going back in this story, the Lord says, I'm also going to bless you with a son from Sarah. And he, he doesn't just laugh. He falls on his face laughing. Right? Interesting. So it is a very external outward motion and a very visible thing. Now, after they've prepared the mill, they've prepared the calf, they've prepared the bread and, and Abraham has sitted out the, the meals and, and it's very important. Speaker 1 00:54:00 He says three for each of the visitors. And there's three, two guys with Christ and it almost like a first presidency. And you, and you look at the image of these guys coming and giving him more information right there. There's some symbol, symbol, sym symbolism. There's some symbolism associated with them visiting him at his, his temple, his tent and, and giving him more information anyhow. And it's also interesting that if Christ is God, it says, Lord here, all caps, meaning Jehovah, he's not born yet here on the earth. He's not mortal, but he eats with them. I think that's kind of interesting. Okay. Anyhow, it says deliberately that Sarah is inside the tent. She doesn't come out. So she's veiled by the tent door. And not only is she veiled, but when God says Sarah shall have a child and she laughs that says here that she laughs within herself, how would we know that Sarah had laughed at all? Speaker 1 00:55:03 If God didn't call her out because she's not visible, she's not outside with them. And when she lasts, she's not like Abraham, she doesn't laugh on the ground, sprawl out and make a big scene of it. She's quiet. She subtle. And she laughs within herself so that nobody knows, but God sees right. The intention of his heart. And I think it's interesting as you're talking about man and wife, that here you have Abraham in a very outward action, putting out in, in, in expressing himself in an outward motion where Sarah's taking it in. Um, oh, it almost reminds me of Mary is she kept these things within herself, right? She's very quiet and calm, but, and, and she says, shall I have eaten or this paradise? So when you look at the temple, there is demarcation of sacred space. You have a courtyard outside of the Gentiles. Speaker 1 00:55:55 That means anyone from any nation can come in there. Then once you pass past that, you have another courtyard of the Israelites where only Israelites are allowed to pass. And then you have a section where the altar is and only the priest is allowed to pass. And then you go into the physical building itself and you have a holy place. So the Levi's can, can go around and prepare things and do officiate the work and whatnot. But as you get into the priestly place, and then inside the holy place, you have another room where you have a holy of Holies, which is the holiest place Abraham scurrying about and getting everything done is almost like a Levi's doing these outward ordinance is doing all of these things where Sarah inside veiled in the tent is almost like a priest in, in, in a more holy spot, but even whole year. So if the temple is the holy place, she herself is the holy of Holies. Speaker 2 00:56:56 Can I throw something out just to think about, please? Do Speaker 2 00:57:00 We, again, not to get into too many details, have, have part of a temple ceremony where, um, where avail is used before entering, you know, like the celestial room, right? Yes. There's a, I just, again, like I don't, I just want this to be something that you can chew on, but the thing is, is what I think you did is just fantastically perfectly illustrate even the sacredness of that part of the ceremony, which is sometimes it can be and has been misunderstood. And I've unfortunately seen a lot of people, very publicly, um, take shots at this part of a temple ceremony as if it's something that's, um, sexist or if it's something that's that's um, that, that is some sort of like a weird, like women aren't as awesome as men. And that's why, whatever, but like you just said in this story specifically, she was veiled while this part of the covenant or ceremony was taking place. Speaker 2 00:58:04 And I think you've perfectly highlighted, oh no, it's not that it's not that well, men get to do this without a valor and faces like, no, no, no, no, no. The women are very symbolically entering the presence of God. Yes. And very symbolically on such a righteous, holy place, moving into the presence of God in, and you, and you've just described into this. And it's like, when we, when next time you go through the temple, those that are have gone through the temple, consider that. And, and when, when there's parts of the ceremony, that, that are very similar to this, and it's, Speaker 1 00:58:44 It's important to note the covenant with God, God knows his people. Jada is the same as a husband knows his wife and they keep referring to this covenant relationship as a Virgin wife versus ones that don't as a non, this, this sexual intimacy between husband and wife. And yet it's being played as a covenant relationship between God and his people. And as we talked about the, the, the wedding ritual, when, when the husband went to the groom, went to the bride's house to negotiate the wedding contract, the Bowery, what he's going to pay her, how, all the terms, the legal, the contract part after they've agreed. And he goes back to his father's place to prepare a room for the bride, the bride veils her face as a sign that she is in a contractual relationship with the Lord, with the groom, and he is going to come for her. Speaker 1 00:59:40 And it is this going into the groom that I want you to understand about, about the temple ordinances. We look at them as three distinct ordinances, but they are in fact, one, you are washed and cleaned to go to the next step of the endowment. And the next step of the endowment, you go through the veil to take you to the ceiling stage. Ultimately, the capstone of this whole thing is a wedding ceremony to be sealed. And just as Moses and, and Aaron, when they, when they're talking to Pharaoh and God says, you know what? You will be as God to Aaron. And he will be as a prophet. He's temporarily elevated to this position where he is like a God speaking to Aaron. So the Aaron can be the prophet, the voice piece. Well, in this case, you've got Sarah and I can see how someone reading this curse literally is this is sexist. Speaker 1 01:00:32 She's left in the temple, out of the action. She's not part of it. She's sitting in the tent in the background and God calls her out for laughing. What? She doesn't say anything to Abraham, but that's not, that's not what's going on here. If she's, if she's filling the role of a high priest, if you will being in a sacred place. Well, when Abraham takes the role of a high priest to go in to her in order to have Isaac being born, she's being elevated to the holy of Holies on what's in the holy of Holies God, the high priest goes into the holy of Holies to go into the presence of God. She becomes the God. Abraham becomes the high priest in this relationship. She takes a higher stage, a higher role. It's interesting. Speaker 2 01:01:16 It's amazing. I mean, just the symbolism of all of this stuff is mindblowing. Speaker 1 01:01:23 It's, it's Speaker 2 01:01:24 Deliberate by the way, too, Speaker 1 01:01:25 Strangely deliberate. Uh, because you know, God, God mentioning that she laughs and laugh in this sense. I believe it's interesting. This word only shows up 13 times in the Bible and more than half of them are right here in these stories and, and it's to rejoice to have joy. Speaker 2 01:01:45 I wondered about that. I've always wondered about that because I think that our natural default instinct is to immediately assume that they were mocking God, I've just, I've never been able to buy fully into that. Like I've never been able to buy fully into, you know, and, and again, there, I don't, I don't know for sure, but all I know is that every time you see the, oh, they laughed. I'm just like, oh man, dude, I laugh every day when my kids do something adorable or when my, or they do something beautiful and sweet or touching, like I'm just saying like, I don't, I don't, I I'm going to say, I just don't personally immediately jump to the conclusion of oh, because they laughed that they were basically saying, yeah, whatever, God, you can't do that when you're like, oh, this is exactly what Abraham was praying for. Clearly he had faith that God could do this. Speaker 1 01:02:34 Yeah, Totally off base. No, no. It's it's it's in fact there's proof in chapter 21 that this laughing was not a mockery. It was not a, was not a terrible thing. It was actually a really positive experience. They rejoiced Abraham is, is on the ground beside himself with joy because that's what he's wanted his whole life. Speaker 2 01:02:58 That makes so much more sense to me in context of this story. Speaker 1 01:03:02 Yeah. And Sarah, they, they, this is joy. If you go to it, if it's not, then why, how do you explain Isaac's name? Speaker 2 01:03:12 Um, luckily I have no idea. I don't know how to explain his name anyway, so maybe you should do that. Okay. Speaker 1 01:03:18 Abraham laughed. Sarah laughed. And when Abraham was born, Speaker 2 01:03:24 Isaac, Speaker 1 01:03:24 I'm sorry. When Isaac was born, I'm looking at 21 trying to see where, where they give him his name, verse three and Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him. Isaac. Okay. Isaac means he laughed. So Abraham laughed. Sarah laughed. And in the end he laughed. Who's he who's left. Who's left in this relationship, this, this dealings, God. And, and Sarah says in first six and Sarah said, God has made me to laugh. So that all that here will laugh with me. Speaker 2 01:04:18 It's rejoice. Speaker 1 01:04:19 It's rejoice. I will name him. He rejoiced. So that all the, so, so Abraham laughed. Sarah laughed, Abraham rejoiced, Sarah rejoiced. And now God reached. Speaker 2 01:04:36 And, and with this, by the way, just really quick with the imagery now, like rethink of the imagery of this, like you just mentioned with it being rejoiced, instead of laughing, it paints the most wholesome thing I can possibly think of. Right? Yeah. Abraham is just like, yes. Right. He's probably on his knees weeping. Yes Speaker 1 01:05:02 He Speaker 2 01:05:02 Is. Sarah is probably also weeping, but, but being, you know what I mean? The Speaker 1 01:05:08 Very pain of her, I mean, this caused so much yes. Speaker 2 01:05:11 Heartache with what a relief. This probably was to her and why she probably used the word paradise or Eden within me. Right? She's like, this is like you just said, returning to the presence of God, which is what Eden is, right. Is what it represents. Speaker 1 01:05:29 This is a mint. This is bringing true. Speaker 2 01:05:34 I guess, I guess the, I guess the idea is, is that to her, she probably wasn't. She, she was just rejoicing in a, such a different wholesome way. That's beautiful. But even just saying, I am, this is, this is as close to returning to the presence of God as you possibly can. I mean, that's where her joy was at this point. Right. And that even when God was born and then when he was born and God rejoice to you just go, how stoked is every single person in this, you know? But I just love how each, each of them in their own personalities, almost rejoice about this anyways. I just think it's beautiful. I think it's a beautiful imagery. And I think it's a beautiful scene. Speaker 1 01:06:16 And if, and if Eden represents paradise or heaven or God's presence, I mean, here, you have God walking with them in the cool of the day, surrounded by trees and, and in the temple itself or the tent you have, you found Eden, Sara's found Eden and she is going to give birth, which is an act of creation. Again, you have Adam and Eve in the roles of Abraham and Sarah are this idea that God is creating life. That's going to spring forth from paradise to, to feel the Speaker 2 01:06:46 World, love it. Let's keep going. Speaker 1 01:06:49 Now we can contrast all of this joy. Well, just, just last emphasis. First six, when she says, God has made me to laugh so that all that here will laugh with me. I think of Isaac's role as the one, the son, that's going to be sacrificed that all that shall here. And the word here here is Shama, which means to obey, to be obedient, that all that will be obedient to all that. We'll listen to Isaac, to hear his words, to hear, to hear him shall rejoice. Also this idea that he is this image of Christ, that all that we'll listen to him. We'll also be able to laugh with Abraham, with Isaac, with God, with Sarah. Speaker 2 01:07:33 Awesome. Let's keep going. Speaker 1 01:07:34 Okay. We've got to contrast this now with the story of lot. And it's fascinating. Abraham is found in the door of his tent when, when, after this conversation that Abraham has with these three strangers, he goes with them out towards Sodom and Gomorrah. And two of the visitors keep going towards the city. God himself stops and says, shall I hide what I'm going to do to Abraham? Let me tell you I'm going to destroy those cities. And, and by the way, Sodom and Gomorrah is not the name. They are not the names of the original cities. The Sodom and Gomorrah is like dung pile and Ash heap. Like it's, it's describing what happened after they were destroyed. But anyhow, he says, I am going to destroy those cities. Then he sends the two angels down in to go and destroy it, which is why you have two messengers appearing to lot in the city. Speaker 1 01:08:33 But the Lord stays behind to talk with Abraham. And Abraham has this intercessory moment where, where the father becomes the son type kind of idea, right? Where he says, well, will you spare it for 50 or per adventure? I'm shy. Five people. Will you still spare it? And it gets down all the way to the 10. And maybe at this point, Abraham's counting how many people are in lot's family. And he's like 10 to do it. Will he save the city for 10? And the Lord says, I'll save it for 10, but, but jokes on Abraham, not all lot's family is. Yeah. Some of them are knuckleheads. Some with some of them don't work, but there's, there's some serious contrast to Abraham. And lot when the two angels show up to Sodom and Gomorrah lot sits in his, at the door at the gates of the city. Speaker 1 01:09:22 And, and you've mentioned this as in, in a previous talks, Nate, um, the role sitting at the gate of a city is what the elders of the city would do. And, and they sit at the gates to hear cases. They were the judges. So if somebody had a problem, they would bring it to the elder, sitting in the gates to hear the trial and, and kind of rule on it, which explains why Abraham sitting at the door of his tent, if any of his herds people has problems, they come and bring it to Abraham at the door of his tent. And as a judge, he can hear it and help decide it, which is why Abraham brings the issues to lot. Yeah, we know. Okay. So here you have these two men filling very similar roles, but lots doing it for, for an entire city. Speaker 1 01:10:03 Not just his own people, he's kind of serving on this board. And when the two men come, he doesn't stand up and run to greet them. He waits in the gates until these guys come. And then he says, Hey, come home with me. I insist on it. And they're like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna S we're gonna stay in the street. Then the word they use for street, this is important. Or at least it will be a little bit later when we get to this in old Testament is Rahab. Um, and, and does that name sound familiar? Rahab Rahab. It's the name of the prostitute in the city of Jericho. Oh, interesting. Her name means a broad street, which is a fitting name, unfortunately, for a prostitute. Yes. So they're saying no, we're going to stay out here. And he says, no, I am says, let's, let's come in. Speaker 1 01:10:52 But he is not compare the hospitality. I, we don't have time to go through all of the details, but compare Abraham with lot and all of these things. He's not, he's, he's not, there's a difference. There's a, there's a stark contrast. And it's cool that they, they put these two situations right next to other, so that you can contrast the nature of Abraham versus the nature of law who by the way, was a good guy. And he says, I'm going to destroy the city to lot. Let's get, get your family and get out. And law says, okay, I need to go find all my family and try to talk them into coming. But he goes to his sons who have married girls in the city and his sons mock him. And in fact, the word they use is lacking. Speaker 2 01:11:42 It's funny. I was going to be like, please tell me it's laugh because what an amazing contrast, Speaker 1 01:11:47 The contrast of the rejoicing, when God talks to them versus the mockery. And, and we've been talking about these, the, the, the imitation, the how close the it's, Speaker 2 01:11:59 It's almost the same word Speaker 1 01:12:01 And here's the same word, but it's to their death rather than to their life. Right. And so the angels say time's up and grabs them by their hand to take them out of the city and lot Terry's. So a lot of times we give lot's wife a hard time for turning back, but, but look at it in here, it says lot tries to stop because he's got family. Speaker 2 01:12:26 Well, he also has a position. Speaker 1 01:12:27 He's got a he's established. Yes. Speaker 2 01:12:30 He's sitting at the gates. Isn't the gold is the law. This was the, this was right next to the land that he chose when he choosing land from Abraham. Yes. I mean like, this is his, this is I it's. I mean, I can see why he's tearing, even though he's wrong. And Speaker 1 01:12:46 We've had maybe Nate, you want to just sum this up real quick. The difference between Abraham being a foreigner in a strange land versus someone who integrates into, into society. Speaker 2 01:12:57 Yeah. I, I, I know we kinda talked about this. I don't remember if we even talked about it last week or not. And if so, I'll keep it super brief. But I do love the imagery of Abraham being so respected, even by the Hittites. Like, I'm trying to remember the specific name they used for him, but it was something like a man of God or a son of God, or basically a God-fearing man. And they respected him for that. He didn't go, he didn't go to try to assimilate himself into these various places as one of just one of the guys. Right. He, he was, he was a man convicted. He was, he was truly, he was truly a representative of his God. And even when, even when it made him stand out like a sore thumb, again, like in this, where we read about it specifically in the negotiation with the Hittites were lot on the other hand, basically goes, his kids literally start integrating with the people of this wicked city start kind of marrying outside of their faith and things like that. Speaker 2 01:14:02 He, he becomes kind of a prominent figure in, in Sodom, right. Or whatever the name of the city was at the actual time. It's like, he almost, he almost kind of assimilates into the, even though he, yeah. He's, he's being a good dude. And you kind of, can, he kind of still found a way to kind of work himself into that environment. And I mean, there's, for me, at least kind of the obvious lesson from that is, is that, um, you, you see when, when the S when basically the, the heavily messengers come in to, um, Sodom and, um, basically the dudes from the town are like, Hey, we're gonna, the dudes from the town are, Hey, we're going to have our way with these guys. And law's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're like, yeah, no, we are. And he's like, no, no, no, but it's funny. Cause even then it's like, the guys from the town are like, Hey, don't, don't forget. Like, like you came kind of, you came into this town to be part of us. Like, don't tell us what to do. You know, where, where it's like, there's such little, almost respect for him even as like a judge in the city and you go, man, I feel like that that's a pretty, there's a lot of parallels again, you know what? I love the Speaker 1 01:15:18 Trash with Abraham and lot. And, and the idea that he still tries to placate them by offering Speaker 2 01:15:24 That's right. Which by the way, come on, dude. I mean, I know he's a good dude, but what get outta here lot Speaker 1 01:15:32 And, and contrasting his lack of his lack of hurry with how Abraham hastens to over and over again, to do what the Lord wants him to do. And law on the other hand is trying to make excuses for not doing what the Lord's asking him to do. And his life is on the line. He tarries and says, no, I kind of tried to talk my son's in the coming. No, you've got to leave. Well, give me a little bit more time to try to, no, you've got to leave now. And then when he goes to leave, they tell him, flee to the mountains and he says, well, I kind of liked that city better. Can I go to that city instead? Who does that? Who says, God says, I need you to go here. And you say, yeah, I get, you're going to destroy the city, but I'm not, I'm not fit to live on my own. Speaker 1 01:16:18 I need to live in another city. So is it okay if I live in this city instead? And so they're talking it over and, and God says, fine, just get out of your cars. The city is going to be destroyed. And, and you have this weird story of lot's wife turning around and getting turned to a pillar of assault, a pillar of salt. And he like, why? That, that seems super harsh. And, and when I read that and I go to the Hebrew and I read it, it's not that she turned around. It's that she tarried behind him. She stayed behind him. She stayed back. It was too hard for her to leave to where she stalled and it stayed there. And I don't think they necessarily targeted her. I think the whole city was turned to piracy. Yes. If you have an, a volcanic eruption similar to, and, and the w what's the, Speaker 2 01:17:12 Yeah, that was Pompei Pompei. Speaker 1 01:17:14 Thank you. Which, which is cool. They found fast food restaurants and Palm paper. Speaker 2 01:17:19 I saw that article and I was like, this is dope. Speaker 1 01:17:23 It was pretty cool. But you had this pyroclastic flow of Ash, just roll down through there super fast that just vaporized turned Speaker 2 01:17:32 Everybody into a pie. It turned the city into a pile of salt. It turned Speaker 1 01:17:35 The city into a pile of salt. And the word salt here is, is dust Ash. Yeah. That's what happened if she got vaporized? Not, not necessarily, because God said, Hey, you turned around, you die. But because she stayed back and the natural consequence of this thing going off, they weren't quick to obey the Lord. They always thought they had more time. And I take this back to the book of Mormon puts it so well when it says, do not procrastinate the day of your repentance. And it's cool when God finishes speaking with Abraham, the word they use, when it says in Abraham turned back to his tent, shew repent, he repented back to his tent. It's kind of interesting to use that he hastened to repent. He hastened to do what the Lord wanted. He hastened even at his own disadvantage to do things where Lott is seeking his own advantage and they're tearing and they're taking their time. And they're trying to negotiate better terms with the Lord for themselves, rather than trying to negotiate better terms for the Lord or for everyone else, Speaker 2 01:18:40 Which by the way, knowing that is so much deeper and more profound of an actual lesson to learn from the story than kind of the superficial version that, you know what I mean, that is kind of like weird. Speaker 1 01:18:54 God hates every act of disobedience. Speaker 2 01:18:57 That's your thing is like, well, the story means that it's like, if you look back at like, and, and have like, you know, a hard time leaving your old habits behind, God's going to just turn you into a pile of salt. And you're like, bro, that doesn't even make any sense. It really doesn't. You're like, you're like, no, if that's the story, it's like, man, she did a hard thing getting away from something, you know what I mean? Like give her a break well and give her a chance to actually like do something really, really, really hard that that is new and whatever. And so it's, it's again, there's so many of these stories that I've always had such a hard time in the old Testament because they just are the lessons that we're supposed to be thinking that we're taking from them are always so sideways that it's like, man, I don't, I don't know if that's really what we're supposed to be taken away from the story this on the other hand makes so much more practical sense. Now she wouldn't Speaker 1 01:19:52 Leave. She stayed behind. Speaker 2 01:19:56 That's a totally different outcome. And by the way, that's not even God being like, well now I'm going to turn you into a pillar of salt because you turn around and look, that's God saying, I told you to leave. Speaker 1 01:20:05 How many times does God try to save us? And we Terri Speaker 2 01:20:09 And that's God going, oh, this is such a bummer. But I told Speaker 1 01:20:12 You to leave, please. Don't procrastinate. I'm trying to say Speaker 2 01:20:15 Was trying to get you out of here. Like it's, it's it's like, sorry. Well, this is now the natural consequences of your decision and not necessarily a punishment from God for you having a moment of weakness being like, oh man, like there were some fun things about my old life, even though they weren't right. It's like, that's such a weird, it's just such an incorrect principle. Right? And this makes so much more sense. And like you said, God's being merciful saying, get out, get out, get out, get out. You really don't want to know what the natural consequences of your own decisions are going to be. Okay. I'm really, I'm glad we put that in there. All right. First of all, we're totally out of time, but I'm not stopping until you're stopping Jason. So let's keep going. Speaker 1 01:20:55 You know, this might be a good place to stop when you get to, I don't know if we'll cover everything next week. I think we have a little bit more Abraham, but maybe the story with a lot is, Speaker 2 01:21:05 And the actual lesson to take from this. For any of you listening to this that are going to be going to Sunday school in the next couple of weeks, is it, oh wait, is it, is it not Sunday school this week? And I don't know, it's not for us. Please do your part. This is the, we, we don't ask a lot of you as listeners. We, we ask you to help maybe write some letters to this one app, to get our, to get our podcasts, at least on like their resource app. That's like the only thing we really ask this may be one of those other ones, which is in your classes, please help correct the thinking of the class. If somebody raises their hand and says, or the teacher, whoever it is says, well, this is a story about lot's wife, not being able to turn from her sin. And so God turns her into a pillar of salt. Please raise your hand and say, Hey, there actually is a little bit more context to this story. That's that describes the nature of God that we know way better. You see where I'm going with this? That's all we're going to ask. Is that fair, Jason? That's a fair, that's a fair ask. Okay. Anyways, Speaker 1 01:22:10 Give me the story. For whatever reason I can't get out of this rut, this idea that how can you be like God, if you continue to put yourself first, if you continue to stay my will in front of your will. Abraham got there. The Lord appeared to him. You'll notice not all three messengers went in to go get lot the Lord tarried with Abraham and only the man went to get blocked. Speaker 2 01:22:37 See, you're going to sound like the smartest person in your Sunday school classes. What Jason just said, right there use that. And people will be like, you should be teaching the gospel doctrine class. He's just given you. He's given you the hits right now, what he just said, maybe the coolest part of this whole episode. Jason. That was awesome. Speaker 1 01:23:01 And do you know, what's crazy. Tell me the last, the last two chapters that we, we, we haven't really hit the death of Sarah and Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice. And you would think that Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice would be the meat of this lesson. And, and yet we've gone. I mean, we've talked about it in, in a general sense, but we haven't even Speaker 2 01:23:24 Well, like everybody kind of knows that story. I think so. And I feel like everybody can see that that's luckily one of the more obvious, not obvious, but a little more plain symbolisms and metaphors and types, right? Yes. Um, the, the w the one, the last thing I want to throw in real quick, the other one where Isaac has left out of the literary context was when his dad was sending the servant to go find him a bride to go find him a wife. Oh yeah. When Abraham, when Abraham, like Isaac's not even mentioned as he even being a part of this conversation, but it is interesting because it is though, also though reflective of how beautiful and amazing of a man that Abraham was, is even after all of this tragedy and all of these things, he is, he knows what he's supposed to be doing. And he is, he's already back on the job, even though Isaac's totally, for some strange reason left totally out of that, that story, which it seems like a weird one to be, to be not involved in is, is the conversation of going and finding your wife. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:24:31 And, and Abraham, maybe, maybe I'll just two or three quick thoughts and I'll end it. Cause I know we're, we're running late. Abraham is so much more than a tragic hero. He doesn't just resign himself to the death of Isaac and give it up and thrust the knife in knowing that he is suffering and God's going to reward him. He's much more than that because he still believes in God, he still has faith that God said through Isaac. He was going to have a great nation. Even if it meant killing Isaac, somehow the impossible was going to happen. And for Abraham to believe God, even though it seemed physically impossible, he still believed. And that's what made him great. The faith of Abraham is it's not about being a tragic hero. It's not about suffering. It's about believing when it believing becomes impossible. Speaker 2 01:25:30 I love it. Jason, great job this week. You, I, I'm so happy that we get to just let you loose in your playground of the old Testament has been a party. What are we, what are we talking about next week? Speaker 1 01:25:41 Um, w we'll talk about Isaac a little bit more and maybe we'll pick into some more things here that, that we could have hit. We didn't hit. I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll keep going on with, uh, with Isaac. Um, maybe we'll talk about when you put your hand under the thigh Speaker 2 01:25:57 Promise. I've been waiting for this episode because I have thoughts. Good thoughts on this. Yeah. I, I, I don't, I'm not even going to hint tab, but I will just say I have thoughts on that one. I'm excited. All right. Until next week. So yeah,