He Who is to Come

Welcome to Verse by Verse. Thank you so much for joining us as we take a look at the book of Acts. We take things nice and slowly as we look and see what God is doing in the big picture of expanding the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. My name is David Humphrey, and I'm the pastoral care and missions pastor here at United City Church in Humboldt, Texas. We're excited to be your church family while you're incarcerated, but we're gonna be even more excited when you get out and you can come and be a part of our church in person. We love you very much. Please grab your Bible and a journal, perhaps a pen, and be ready to take some notes and let's learn together through the book of Acts. All right, yeah, thank you so much if you're joining us online one way or the other, and we're excited to be back in Acts chapter seven tonight. We got off to quite a start last week with Stephen's speech, and we're not going to read all 60 whatever or something of those verses tonight. I wanna encourage you, if you were not here last week, it's gonna take us several weeks to unpack this speech because it's just so amazing and really just kind of crosses the entire span of scripture. Oh, let me ask a question.

I asked you guys last week, had any of you tried to tell the entire story of the Bible in like five minutes, like one story, and y'all kind of looked at me funny. And then I said, well, you ought to give it a try this week. Has anybody tried it? Okay, challenge is still out there. If Stephen can do it and he has the Holy Spirit, you can do it, you have the same Holy Spirit that Stephen had the idea is the Bible is not a book of stories, it is the story, it is a story, one big story. And it's helpful for you as a believer to see it as one story. And one of the most helpful ways to see it as one story is actually to hear it narrated in the way that Stephen does. Stephen takes it as he brings it all the way back and all the way forward. And so that's just a good practice to see the Bible as story and as one unified story as Bible Project always says, that always points to Jesus, because it is Genesis to Revelation, it all points to Jesus. So basically what happens in this, I'm gonna give a little bit of review from last week and then we're gonna jump into some new verses. Of course, it began with Stephen saying, brothers and fathers, hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham

when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Tehran. Remember, we talked about Stephen as trying to connect with these religious leaders. He is calling them brothers, fathers, he's not calling them out, he didn't start out this speech by saying, you whitewash tombs, listen to me, you don't even know what you're talking about. He could have, and I think that's probably where part of his soul was feeling those things, but he starts out brothers, fathers, hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, right? We are family, he's trying to appeal to them as all the same family, hear me out. I feel he starts to then fill in these details from Genesis that we talked about last week, how God appeared to Abraham. Genesis says he merely spoke to him back in Genesis 12, but he actually, Stephen filled in a detail that says that God appeared to him before Genesis 12. So he's filling in a detail that we didn't know, it wasn't in the New, it wasn't in chapter 12, it was somewhere in biblical history, lost to us until this, it was when he was in Mesopotamia, which tells us it was not at the moment of Genesis 12. And that's a reminder that Yahweh is not just the God of one geographical area, which is part of the point Stephen is trying to point out that he is the God of the whole wide world. Then he goes into verse three,

go out from your land, this is what God said to Abraham, and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you. Then of course, Abraham went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Tehran, and after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. He covers a lot of ground in those couple of sentences, but you can see this, God was just literally moving Abram. Abram got a mission that required him to leave his homeland, didn't know where he was going. But then he says, into this land in which you are now living. Do you see, he's trying to bridge them together. This is not, I'm not telling you a story of history, I'm telling you about how you got to where you are. This is your story, this is our story. Hear me as I try to tie it together, that's what he's trying to do. They were living in the promised land. Then he goes in verse five, you gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but God promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. Listen, Abraham lived with a pilgrim mindset. What is a pilgrim mindset? Moving on. Moving on, yes. A pilgrim mindset is like, I love the idea of the sojourner, right?

It's like, I'm living in a place, but this is not where I belong. And so that's the children of Israel, he's trying to help them see this. And basically, it's a bit of a rebuke right there when he says you don't really have that same mindset as Abraham had. So then we go on down and we begin to see that the speech itself is divided into these five sections. Anybody remember verse two through eight? What section is that? Yeah, it's the Abraham section and then nine through 16. Joseph, we're gonna be there tonight a lot. 17 to 43, it's the Moses section, then 44 to 50, tabernacle, the temple section. And then 51 to 53, I'm gonna call that the climax, because that's when he's really, he's getting geared up and that didn't last very long. We all remember how it played out and we'll get there. But tonight, we're gonna spend our time in the Joseph section of his story. And so basically, that section is gonna run toward the end of verse nine, and we're gonna read all the way down to verse 16. So that's gonna be our portion of scripture tonight. So we'll just start there. And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with them, and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh,

king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob, his father, and all his kindred, 75 persons in all. Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, he and our fathers. And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Amor in Shechem. So we're gonna hit it verse by verse as we always do, but before I do that, who knows where this, he's summarizing a large portion of scripture. Where is the large portion of scripture where you find the Joseph story in its entirety? It's in Genesis. What part of Genesis? Yes, toward the end. So it's about, I don't know, I didn't look up the chapters, but it's somewhere in that 30 to 50. It's a big, big long chapter, a big long book is the book of Genesis. And of course, if you were here last year, Pastor Chris did an amazing, we did a long journey through the life of Joseph.

Joseph is one of my favorite Old Testament characters. I love the fact that we have the ups and downs and all this stuff, and that's what he's summarizing there. And so we're gonna summarize that as well, but I want us to look at the choice because as he gave a summary, I believe he was very intentional. He, Stephen, but we know Stephen was led and it was the Holy Spirit that was inspiring him and speaking through him to make specific choices of the portions of the story he would tell. Because we all know he did not tell the whole story. But what about this part and what about this part? Well, he didn't get into all that. Big summary things, but it was very careful, very strategic in what he said. So he calls it, he says in the very first verse, and the patriarchs, wait now, who were the patriarchs? Okay, in this case, he is speaking of the older brothers of Joseph. Okay, we could go through all the names and I will. They're how many tribes of Israel? 12. And Joseph was the 11th of the 12. So you got Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. I didn't have that memorized, okay. Although that would be great. So now if you think about it,

Benjamin wasn't involved in selling his brother because Benjamin wasn't even around. Okay, he's too little for all of that. So it was the older brothers and they were not even all in agreement. We're not gonna get into all of the details of that story. I encourage you, if you haven't read it lately, just go back and sit down and read the last 20 chapters or so of Genesis and read it like a novel. You don't have to pick it apart verse by verse, just let it wash. It's one of the greatest stories. I love the story of Joseph. So, but here, he, for context, is calling Joseph's older brothers, the patriarchs. Has anybody ever heard of Joseph's older brothers? Anybody ever heard anybody else in the Old Testament called the patriarchs? I've never heard of Joseph's older brothers. I've never heard of Joseph's older brothers. Abraham is usually considered one of the patriarchs. I've never heard of Joseph's older brothers. And what does patriarch even mean? I've never heard of Joseph's older brothers. Like father, like spiritual father, right? So that's what if you think most families, you'll say, well, he's the patriarch. And then who's who's beside the patriarch? The matriarch, right? So we would consider in biblical history, a lot of times if you hear somebody teaching, they're going to talk about the patriarchs. They're not usually meaning the brothers of Joseph.

They're usually meaning who Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's usually who they're referring to as the patriarchs. But in this case, he's considering these, these the patriarchs. And he says why they did what they did, which was what they were jealous. Many a sin has been committed based on jealousy, right? What were they jealous of? Joseph's dreams. Well, why would it be? Why would they be jealous? Because he had a dream. Because I see everybody's bowing down. Yeah, well, in this dream, you know, I mean, what younger what what older brothers would want their younger brother to say, well, I keep having this dream and all you're bowing down to me. I mean, it's just I thought we don't know how he was saying it. We don't know if he was saying it kind of picking out of like a lot of, you know, brother relationships are, or if he was just saying it just to someone like, I don't know, I mean, I just keep having this dream and like it or not. Of course, we know that God speaks through dreams and visions. And that was the perfect example of God speaking through a dream. And he had shared that dream with his dad. And then his dad, of course, made him the code and the whole thing. And he was the favorite. And none of you had favorite kids, I'm sure. But, you know, and, you know, that's just a real thing, right? There's a kid that sometimes just stands out a bit. And so that's who he was. And so it's just all of this brother, brother kind of drama going on. But so they are jealous. And because they were jealous, they sold him to Egypt.

Now, we're not going to get into the specifics of that. But again, go back to Genesis and see the story. It's a very interesting story. I mean, he's in a pit and then these guys come by and all of that. But God, you always look at that and those are always two of the best words in Scripture, right? They're all over Scripture. The but God. Right. But God. So for this one, Joseph is sold. But God was with him. He was enslaved. But God was with him. And it goes quickly here and we just jump right over it. But God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Well, now we have really jumped forward in the story, haven't we? I mean, we have skipped the imprisonment. We have skipped the years in prison that he spent. But we see the favor of God over him. OK. And so he experienced all of this. Always the best words to hear. What does it say happened as a result of the but God was with him straight from the Scripture right there? I find at least three statements. What are they right there? God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And he was made ruler over Egypt and all of his household. So remember, we've talked about in here when you are studying the Bible on your own, you're just reading and you're trying to comprehend what's in it. One of the best things to do is just if there's a list you can come up with, just make a list, make a list. Some of my precept people in the room that know precept Bible study know that's one of your main principles, isn't it right? Just make as many lists as you can in the Bible. What is the helpful? Why is it helpful to make a list? It helps you remember it. Yeah, it helps you remember. It also just helps you digest the material. So you're just saying, oh, yeah, OK, these are the three things that happened that are the result of God was with him. Those three things happened. So we don't really know why he chose to leave out some of the parts of the story. OK, we'll just we'll just leave that with the Holy Spirit. However, I think he chose some of these specifics. Because there are some parallels with Jesus between Joseph and Jesus. Many a great sermon has been made and Pastor Chris tied in a lot of those. If you if you didn't get if you happen to not be around or miss some of those sermons, just go back to our website. I will just tell you that was a great series. I've told Pastor Chris, I wish you would take the manuscripts of the series and make it into a book. I said, because that was a great series. So anyway, it's all leadership. So the point that I see at least one of the points I see is that Jesus like Joseph

Was rejected by his family Who is the family that I'm not? I mean mary and joseph didn't reject him who is the family that rejected jesus The jews right the israelites. He said he came to his own And his own received him not So kind of like joseph Not exact but but similar And yet jesus was carried forward by god's favor And jesus was certainly eventually exalted To power right to the right hand of the father. We've talked about that so that is a pattern that god establishes in the story of joseph that is just a a foreshadowing I think of jesus And so it's I think that's a where you can see the patterns of scripture there So then if you look at 11 through 15 Those verses really just kind of tell an overview of how the rest of his story plays out, right? He experienced all those things says Jacob heard there was grain in egypt Sent our fathers on their first visit. See how he notices again Our fathers by the way, just to put them all in biblical history How is jacob related to abraham? Abraham Grandson right abraham had isaac isaac had jacob jacob had the 12 sons That's where the 12 tribes of israel and it is no It's not just a coincidence that there are 12 tribes of israel and there were 12 disciples, right? You just there's another little rabbit trail you can run on one day is the numbers trail through the bible, right? The number 12 is a super significant number and so we won't we weren't we're not going to chase that one tonight Um, but it's a good one to chase down so you can see Jacob heard there was grain in egypt because they were dealing with famine He sent out our fathers again trying to connect them with the story. This is this is us together on their first visit So what happened somebody fill in the story there? What happened when joseph's brothers went on their first visit to egypt? Yeah, they didn't know their brother was there because they thought he was long gone

And he recognized them and remember had this whole thing and sends them back and all the proof and that was a really neat thing Then verse 13 on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers. Now. We have really skipped a lot of drama In the story here because now we're in chapter. I think 49. I mean like we have really jumped fast And this is one of the most dramatic this is like one of the highest points of the whole thing This might even be chapter 50 Um, he makes himself known to his brothers. And what what does joseph do when he is making himself known to his brothers? He weeps Yeah, because and what are they doing? That's good. Their eyes are about as big as saucers. They're like, oh my We're in trouble because he's in charge And we put him in you know, we sold him into slavery and we are sunk like we're out And then joseph shows compassion and joseph loves his enemies How about jesus? Do you see the parallels jesus loving his enemies jesus loving those that crucified him? Joseph is doing the same you can see there that joseph made himself known to them Then it says and joseph's family became known to pharaoh because he says hey pharaoh. This is like this is my family I'm, not sure that he probably told pharaoh the part about What his family had done to him? I think he probably just covered that right over And so he did that you're fine again All that's in genesis 49 and 50 then joseph sent and summoned jacob his father and all his kindred 75 persons in all Now, why do you think? that number Is important not saying this number 75 Has some spiritual number it may be But why do you think he said 75 persons in all I want you to think about the promises that we talked about last week in the What was the section last week the abraham section? So there's the hint Why would he say? All his kindred 75 persons in all

What was the promise to abraham Oh good Yeah, you're gonna have a lot of descendants These are literally the blood descendants of abraham Now god's promise to abraham was not just about people that would come from his blood Okay, because we've talked about this in the past and it's a beautiful truth that the new testament divulges to us we are sons and daughters of abraham Because we who believe by faith in the son of god jesus christ that is what the promise was not just about his kindred. It was about those who would believe in the coming Messiah. That's the family of Abraham. Okay. So that's a worldwide family, far bigger than the Middle Eastern bloodline that Abraham had. So they're true, like by blood, sons and daughters of Abraham. Okay. But there are those of us who are by the blood of Jesus Christ in the family of God. Remember the Gentiles. And I think my guess is probably mostly got Gentiles in here. Okay. And so that is, that is all super fun and exciting to me. Any questions before we launch forward? Yes. Was it, was it Abraham 7 times when God calls me? Yes. Yes. Uh huh. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I didn't think about that. There's a, there's a number. There's a, there's a number that's, that's, that's connected there. Yep. What about being adopted? We are adopted. Exactly right. We are adopted children of God. Rights are religious. Yes, we do. The bloodline doesn't necessarily help. Yes, that's quite interesting. Thank you for bringing that up. We can't, we can't be just sold. That's right. It is irrevocable, right? Yeah. That was literally when I stood in a courtroom in Brazil 16 years ago with three little Brazilians who were four or five and seven years old, a judge in Portuguese said, do you know that what you're about to do is irrevocable? And I said, yes, ma'am. And Danielle said, yes, ma'am. We know like this cannot be undone. You know what you're doing? I'm like, not really altogether, but nobody does. Right. I mean, you, it's the same way, you know, similarly with your birth children, but, but yes, you're right. This has a lot to do with our adoption as sons and daughters of God. And there's also a metaphors in the new Testament about us being grafted in. Remember that not a, not a natural branch, but like grafted in to the vine grafted into the tree where you get an, a different kind

of a branch that can be connected to the life of the vine and draw life from that vine. So there's just a thousand different metaphors that are just absolutely beautiful related to that. Anybody else have a question or a comment before we move forward on this here? Yes. I wonder when the Egyptians saw Joseph was this a believer and, and the true God, how many Egyptians said, well, I want to be like Joe. Yes. I wonder. Exactly. God was sending Joseph as a missionary to these and, and were the Egyptians Jews or Gentiles? No. Right. Yeah. So God is sending Joseph through this crazy way to get to this people group and to share the gospel. And I think you guys know our church has a partnership in Egypt. I've been there. I got to go last year. This year is not going to be a year for us to go for obvious reasons, right? This is not the year we can, we can pray and we will and send it and encourage with, with finances, but we're not going into that region right now. Um, but guys, I promise you the church of Jesus Christ is very much alive and well in Egypt today at the base of those pyramids. There's people that worship Jesus. Okay. The church is growing. Yes. Dave. And especially here at home, Stephen said 75. Uh-huh. But if you go back to Genesis 10, it says standard. Oh, they write here. It said, and all the persons belonging to Jacob, the thing he gets is on the Senate. Now he doesn't get that son. Some wives were 65 persons at all. And the sons, I was only the Josephus. Those that through us were born to him. And he did all the persons of the house of Jacob, who a, and to Egypt. And that is a great question that I don't have an answer to. There is an answer. Denise, what do you, what do you know of it? I will say that the grandson of Manasseh and Ephraim, the grandson of Ephraim and Manasseh worked. They were included. Okay. Okay. There you go. That's right. Okay. Yeah. But I think, you know, whatever the number, the most important thing about that is this is a hint and a nod quietly at how God had blessed Abraham, just like he said he was going to. And now Abraham and Sarah who at an old age had no children, God promised they're going to have a bunch. And then he kept getting older and older. And how old was he when he had his first 90, right? No a hundred. He was a hundred and she was nine. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's everywhere and so like wait like this is getting crazy okay but God's gonna keep his promises friends and when God makes a promise it's as good as I mean it's done and so he did he kept that and now we see here he comes in with all 75 of his of his kin and God is bringing them to a place of refuge and to what they

need so I think that's just a beautiful beautiful picture and we can see that you can also see in 11 through 15 as we were walking through this we see on the second visit of course he made itself known then they came in all 75 that's verse 14 then of course verse 15 Jacob also went down into Egypt and he died he and our fathers notice the our fathers and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem what's he doing here he's again reminding them this that we're talking about relatives of Abraham we're tying it back to our father Jacob and our fathers his sons of course Jacob's sons that is they went down into Egypt he died then carried back I would also say that implied in this this is my perspective I'll see if you if you see it as well Stephen is making a case for Jesus we know this right we're seeing this through the light of the New Testament lens he's not telling this story before the birth of the Messiah he's telling this story after the Messiah has died has risen and has gone to heaven and is exalted at the right hand of God Stephen is a he is a being martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ I think he also is relating this idea of the fact when he mentions you know Jacob he died he and after he died what what happened to him yeah they took him and then they laid him in a tomb and that's it like end of story yes Denise I think it's interesting that when Jacob bought Joseph or thought he did remember in the passages it says a moment wrong I'm gonna die and you know all three good and then and then you get to go to Egypt shit see just because nothing interesting to be mom you brought about these are top I know I know and then here we are we see he made it to Egypt he got to see his son I mean it's just like that the greatest joy of his life because I remember this is his favorite and he thought he was long gone I mean like decades we've got long period of time and here he is like the most exalted remember he's next to the Pharaoh in power in one of those powerful nations on the planet earth like this is amazing stuff and there he dies but the point to be made here is that he died Jacob you know the patriarch died laid in a tomb that was

the end when you look at this through the New Testament lens you see Stephen is making a case that Jesus is superior to Abraham he's superior to all of the patriarchs because Jesus died was laid in a tomb and then he rose from the dead and we know he was exalted so I that's just that's what I think he's doing there at least so he goes on to say that could not be said of our fathers of course now let's let's look let's let's look on to the very beginning we're gonna just touch the beginning of this Moses section which begins in verse 17 because he's again tying it back look at verse 17 and I'll just read through 19 but as the time of the promise drew near which God had granted to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king you did not know Joseph and he dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive now as we always do let's break it down word for word look at verse 17 as the time of the promise drew near there's a lot of promises that have already been made in the Old Testament by this time what is the promise that he is speaking of here you see it the time of the promise drew near which God had granted to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt so the time is there's a promise and this is on the wage of the promise he did he promised it and we see here that that great nation if you look at Genesis to in fact we just have to go to Genesis 12 we've just been dancing around it the whole time let's let's just go there Because I would purport that verses one and two of Genesis are among the most important verses in the whole Bible. I Think it ranks right there with John 3 16 Genesis 12 1 and 2 and you ought to just know where Genesis 12 1 and 2 is, you know, I don't know what it says Because there's so much that hinges on Genesis 12 1 and 2 would somebody read that for us This is the promise made to Abram Get out of your country from your family from your father's house to a land that I will show I will make you a great Muslim, I will bless you and make to be great and you shall be a select Okay they

they were enslaved sojourners in Egypt Right, that's that's the story that we read in the very first part of Acts chapter 7 Then God delivered them to the promised land and there's this great nation now and What did he say about that great nation? They're not only blessed He didn't stop it there. He didn't just say I'm just gonna bless you That would be they would be a blessing guys this This is why this verse is so important in Church we sometimes can become very inwardly focused on how blessed we are and Oh, I'm so blessed and I'm so blessed and I'm just so so blessed You are blessed and you're entrusted with whatever blessing you have To be a blessing. That's what the whole stewardship series has been about right? We took weeks to talk about stewardship and what that means and the reason why is because we're blessed Not just so that we can sit around and be blessed But so that we'll be a blessing to the nations and to this day the church who is Who's the flesh this is foreshadowing of the Church of Jesus Christ all those who are bought by the blood of the Lamb? We are left on this planet Earth to be a blessing to to whom? to others to the nations Why does our church focus on places beyond Houston, Texas Because we're blessed to be a blessing to the nations The church is left in the world to be a blessing to the nations Thomas And well in verse 3 just to make sure that that's absolutely The whole earth. Yes verse 3. It said and in you all the families of the earth All the families of the earth shall be blessed. Yes, and we Yeah, and there's so there's I mean the promise is so rich guys. It's not even just certainly not speaking only of the church It is speaking of the one that the church cherries Because you know Jesus came through the bloodline of Abraham So he is literally speaking a promise and a blessing that I mean like in the seed

Of Abraham, right? It's going to be a blessing to the whole earth So it's Jesus that certainly is the blessing of all blessings to the whole earth all the families of the earth But now we are carriers Right. It's like, you know we've always got worried about you know in kovat and everybody's thinking about viruses and germs and all the things and Somebody would get it and I'm a carrier and now I'm gonna pass it on to you. Well guys we are carriers of Jesus Not like a negative infection that's gonna hurt things but like as the as the hope of the world and so we are to Infect everywhere we go Like pass pass it out and and and let other people see how much you are Blessed by the one who has come to you and that is Jesus Christ So when it says as the time of the promise drew near if we look back at verse 16, we can see What had happened they were they're moving through this land as as sojourners They're stuck in Egypt. And then the time of the promise was drawing nearer and nearer I think there's multiple promises that could that can be that can be related to that Because they're always moving toward the promise. We're moving toward promises being fulfilled still We're waiting for the promises of Scripture to be fulfilled and by golly when we read in the Old Testament a promise made then we see It made see it fulfilled in the New Testament Doesn't that make you more convinced and more hopeful that every promise in here? It's all coming true Like we know the end of the story. That's why Christians can just Smile at the days to come because you know what? It's not all gonna be roses and everything perfect between now and heaven But guys we're going to heaven Jesus wins there'll be nations from I mean there will be a multitude of nations nations at the throne of God, worshiping Jesus, so we can go out boldly as missionaries because we know that Jesus is gonna call at least someone from every single people group on the planet Earth. And that gets me fired up, I hope it does you too, if you can't tell already. Okay, so, yes sir.

Can I interject? I'd love that. I need to take a breath. I could. No, no, no, it's like it's, it'll give you a rest. No, I'm gonna jump out of this seat over here. I agree with what you say, but I think there's more than one underlying promise you just wrapped up in this. I think the main one is that he is pointing towards the 400 years of captivity, that Egypt is gonna insulate Jews here. And it's the structure of the sentences that makes me think this. The people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there rose a king over Egypt. Now he's introducing, or he's taking us into the introduction to the Moses section, okay? And the whole focus of the Moses section is God choosing Moses to lead his people out of slavery. And if you remember back in Genesis, in the story of Abram, that God foretells to him, he tells him, I'm gonna make you a great nation, or from you a great nation I'm gonna make, but I got some bad news. In 400 years you're gonna be in captivity. And I can't remember specifically what it says, Egypt or not, but I think one of the promises that Stephen is alluding to here in his introduction to the Moses section is indeed the promise of the 400 years of captivity.

That's the audience he's talking to would be well. Oh yeah, sure, they're Old Testament people. Like these are the stories that they can relate to and that they love and they're excited about. That's why he keeps saying our fathers, and our people, and our land, and all of that. He's trying to not alienate himself from them, but help them realize, no, we're all a part of this same big story. Thank you for that, because not all the promises that were made to Abram are up and to the right, right? It's not like, you know, it's just gonna get better and better and better, and you know, no doubt. No, it's like, it's gonna be doing this and all around and it's not all gonna be great. It's gonna end up great, right? But we gotta go through the difficult season. So I want us to see real quickly, we're just gonna hit these last couple of verses and then we'll really hit Moses next week. We may be a while in Moses there, but if you look at this, again, back to 17. As the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt. Now you do remember that was the mandate given to whom? The first time. Yeah, let's just go back to the beginning, right? Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

So this is not just going back to Abraham. This is like, no, let's just take it all the way back. This is what we're supposed to do so that people have got to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. There's Rewi. The whole nother conversation that I could have about what's happening with population in the world right now. There's a lot of people in the United, I'm just gonna go there for a second. There's a lot of people bemoaning what's happening in the United States. And we have so many Muslims coming into our country and they're multiplying and they're having all these kids. And so their population is going up. I don't know if you've noticed, but they multiply faster than Christians on average right now. Well, you know what happens to those who multiply faster? They get bigger. That's what was happening to the Israelites in Egypt. And the Egyptians start getting nervous because these are people with the blessing of God upon them. And the Egyptians didn't understand the God that those people worshiped, right? They're over there worshiping their 1,500 gods that are doing this and that and the other. And there's, you know, you've got the plagues and all the stuff related to all those different gods.

But the Israelites were starting to intimidate them. I don't think they were trying to intimidate, but they're just growing. There's populations growing, growing, growing because they believed, let's just go to the Psalms. Children are a blessing from the Lord. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Well, we live in a time in 2026 that we in our, let's keep it organized and let's, you know, whatever. I'm not criticizing anyone in the room, so hear me. But generally speaking, the Protestant Christian mindset is not have a lot of children. The Muslim mindset is closer to this biblical, children are a blessing and we want as many as we can have. So do you see how like biblical truths are playing out in the world and we can complain oh well there's so many Muslims and they're multiplying faster than us but we're unwilling to multiply. So again that's just the sociologist in me going down a little bit of a rabbit trail but I find that interesting that's the world we live in today and there are consequences to every choice that we make. So let's just look at this really fast verses 18 and 19 they've multiplied they've gotten so big in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. Remember there was one king he thought Joseph was the greatest thing going and fate made him his right-hand man but over time Joseph died. Joseph is laid in the tomb and a few generations ago and these people are just multiplying multiplying multiplying and they're thinking wait what they're gonna take over. We can't do this and so that's what we know you know what happens when they're when they're in Egypt and so this king who the king who knew Joseph exalted him but the king who didn't know Joseph unleashed genocide. Call it whatever you want to but that's what it was and we're gonna

unpack more of that next week. He was trying to do what Hitler was trying to he is trying to remove the Jewish people from the face of the earth and the parallels are clear. Okay number one God's not gonna allow that to happen but number two this is the enemy who is against the multiplication of the children of God. Okay so but God's promises never fail the enemy thought he had the upper hand but our sovereign is gonna turn all of history to confirm his promises. All of history is going to work together for the good of those called according to his purpose and his people are those who were called according to his purpose. So nothing's gonna keep up down you can start to kill the sons yep that's what happened we'll talk about next week but God God is not gonna allow them to be brought all the way down. God is gonna bring them up and that's when we get verse 20 we'll just give the first six words at this time Moses was born. What a story what a God we have so so good I bet somebody else has a thought or something that's coming to your mind anybody got something okay yes Thomas. When the synagogue leaders were hearing him say remind them that the infants were all to be killed did they think of Herod when Herod wanted to kill the coming king of Israel. Could have been absolutely yep many many times in biblical history where we see this pattern. So I want you to take the last five minutes of our group we're gonna do what we've done for the last two weeks and I've been enjoying it I think you have too and I want you to turn to someone at your table or someone's y'all just take a few minutes and share something that stood out to you something that really blessed you encouraged you challenged you from tonight share with one another at the table because we want this big room to also feel small and we want to know each other and encourage one another so just take a few minutes with that and then we will be dismissed in just a second I'll wrap us up in prayer in just a second. Thanks again for joining us verse by verse through the book of Acts I hope that you have learned a lot more importantly I hope that you'll apply these things to your life this week share it with a friend great thing for you to just have some discussion with the other people around you share the

things that God is doing in your life again remember the Bible is a book about God far more than it is a book about us so let's learn about him let's grow to love him more and more here at United City this is not the only thing that we have on the Pando app we would love for you to follow some of our other content watch some of our worship services along with music and the messages as well as podcasts we've got a lot of great content we would love for you to to follow that and also if you would like to be in touch with us here at United City the best way to do that is by writing us a letter you can address that to prison ministry at United City Church one nine nine zero one Townsend Boulevard humble Texas seven seven three three eight we'll read that we'll pray for you and somebody will write you back God bless you and we'll see you in the word