And we'll start in Genesis 12, because we're getting into the life of Abraham. We know him as Abraham. He starts off as Abram. And from time to time, it's good to study something where you're ... I always talk about having an open hand. That is where there's been questions about it. And I'm going to start with Abraham for a few minutes this morning, and I don't know how far we'll get today, but the stuff I put on the board here goes with the idea that Abraham's relationship with God starts off in Genesis 12 as far as recorded. It says, The Lord hath said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Now, this would be what we would call a prophecy. God is saying something about the future. I put up here in that little area there a basic definition. If you look it up in Westerners, the idea is this. It's so that you and I have a foretelling, a prediction, a declaration of something to come. We are fascinated by that as humans. If you turn on sports radio, that's what 90% of it is about. 90% of it is about them all talking about what they think will happen. And that's what fascinates people, men, about sports. And they all like to be right. And they keep track of being right. I grew up in an industry that's all about trying to figure out what's going to happen. Cold horse racing. It works off of gambling. And in things where performance is involved, it's totally different than where things just were like chance, like say dice or roulette. You take cards, for example. Guys who are very, very good at playing cards, it's not just luck to them. There's a science to it. They're figuring odds and percentages, and they know. My dad, you could play any kind of card game with him, he could tell you what cards had already passed out of the deck that hand. I mean, just like that. And that goes back to that stuff Mark Twain said, a good pool shooter is a sign of a misspent youth. And I didn't read that until after I got saved, and then after that I didn't let anybody know that I knew how to shoot pool, because it was obvious I misspent my youth. But the idea is this. I want to talk about prophecy today, and we'll look at some scriptures on it, because there are some things that kind of get in people's minds about prophecy that are negative. They're counterproductive to learning your Bible. What they really are, though, is they're counterproductive to knowing the Lord and understanding things. If I get my understanding of prophecy wrong, I am susceptible to certain doctrines. For example, Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism. If I get the definition of predestination wrong and election wrong, I will not be able to understand my Bible the way it is written. It is a modern phenomena today, the rise of Calvinism amongst conservative fundamental people. A very, very big rise in it. It's connected with the more popular of the versions that's come out called the ESV, the English Standard Version, because it was basically translated by a bunch of Calvinists. And so prophecy is a very important subject in your Bible. Come to 2 Peter for a minute, chapter 1. And those things I've put on there are just kind of a foundational way of taking some notes around it. And if you feel like it, I felt like that would be there for you to do so. A couple of definitions up there, and I'll point to them here in a minute, but 2 Peter 1, he says, verse 19, we also have a more sure word of prophecy. More sure than what? In the context, he's talking about being on the mountain of transfiguration, and he's talking about the fact that they saw the Lord Jesus Christ and Moses and Elijah, and they discussed, and he said, we have something more sure, get this now, than standing on a mountain and watching Jesus talk transfigured. More sure than that. You know what that is? It's what's in your lap right now if you have a King James Bible. You say, why a King James Bible? Because all you've got to do is follow the history of it. If you had a big giant suitcase with a bunch of papyrus fragments, pieces of paper, okay, that's what that is, and a few little extant, what they call extant, in other words, pieces of manuscripts, how much lighter are you going to get compared to what God did when he put that thing together historically? You see, if you don't let God be God, You cannot know your Bible the way you should know it. Your Bible says that he made everything. If you don't let that be true about him, then he doesn't get to be who he is. But not just did he make everything, but everything's held together by him. For example, he says here in Hebrews 1 verse 2, he said, half in these last days spoken of us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. who being the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." You see, it's all held together by his power. If I let God be God and I come to the Bible and I say, Lord, you just teach me what it says, then I can accept some things and understand some things I won't if I take man's words first. Or if I make presumptions or assumptions. If I just take it like it's written, it is amazing. It requires the Holy Spirit of God. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him. He cannot know why they're spiritually discerned. But if you're saved, God wants you to know that book. So he takes Abraham and he said, I will, I will. He makes a prophecy. A prophecy is a foretelling, a prediction, a declaration. Now, there's a few statements I hope you'll get. One is this. Prophecy is not always predestination. If you want to write an abbreviation, write the word prophecy and an equal sign with a line through it. Remember that from math? Is not equal to predestination. In your Bible, there's nowhere that prophecy is always predestination. Nowhere in your whole Bible. Prophecy is based upon this thing right here. Now what we don't understand is how you can have foreknowledge. I can't get that, you can't get that. I'll tell you what we really can't understand is how we can know the future and not tamper with it. If I said to Brother David, on the way home today, if you take your usual route, you're going to have a horrible accident, he might just, unless he's stubborn, he might just, for the sake of it, take a different route. But if he knew for sure he was, haven't you ever said, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have. That's not God. Because God is righteous, and he is love, and he is wisdom. Just get this down. The righteousness of God is revealed in granting a free will. God said, I will give you a free will, and I will not tamper with the results of it. You and I wouldn't do that. We wouldn't do that with our own children. If we could control something, we wouldn't do that. but he's righteous. He's also love. You say, what does it have to do with love? He's love and carrying it through even at his own expense. See, God made man and he knew man was going to fall and he knew the only result to get him out of hell would be to send his own son and let him be cruelly treated and suffer the contradiction of sinners against himself. And he did it anyway. There are small foreshadowings of this in human nature. You see in men who decide, I will serve, and I will serve knowing that there's a high probability that I, I mean, we just came up on Normandy the other day, June the 6th. The day after that, I was in a home, and the fellow and his wife are Army, active still, he's SF, Special Forces. Between the two of them, they've done six years of deployment. They're both in. And we got to talking about it, and his mother happened to be there, and we talked about the intensity of today's soldiers' life, combat soldiers. In many ways, it's greater than it was in World War II. In fact, there's no question it's greater. These fellows are facing stress in one tour, never mind three tours like he did. That is amazing. The other was an event. This has become a lifestyle. And when we begin to think of all that, that a man says, I will go even if. In reality, he's already given his life. If he comes back, okay. If he doesn't, he has given it by virtue of signing up for service. And so God says, I know the future. You can't know that. There used to be the old joke about two guys sitting in the pub, you know, and one of them says to the other, they're about to show a horse race. And he says, he's going to, I'll take number three. And the guy says, I'll take number six and pretend, you know, $10. And they run the race. And the guy says, who took number three says, I can't believe it. He lost again. He said, what? He said, I saw that race earlier. That was a replay. He said, and you bet on three again? He goes, I just thought he might get up and win this time. And the old joke is, some people never learn, OK? But the point is, he knew the future. So let's say you had watched a videotape of a game, and you're going along, and you say, you know, I'll bet that guy's going to make the winning shot. Bet you 20. And this guy doesn't know it's a replay or a delayed telecast. Remember how you used to be on the racetrack? A guy would stand on a chair and he'd watch before the advancement of technology. When that gate would open, there was about a two second lag between that and the tote machines locking up. And on a short race, the first three horses out, 90% of the time win. And he'd flash three signs, three numbers, and he'd hit those things, and those guys were betting on the first three horses to come out of the gate. Now they're using post knowledge as foreknowledge is what they're doing. You get it? Three horses come, they got most likely. Now see, God has absolute foreknowledge. All prophecy in your Bible is based on foreknowledge. You've got to get that. That is not predestination. So there are then three elements, as I've drawn on the board here, starting left to right, three elements that end up culminating in a fulfillment of it. The first one is free will, or personal choice. God has always given creatures that were created such personal choice. He gave Lucifer personal choice. He gave the angels personal choice. You say, well, how come they can't still fall? Because just like you do, he takes them up to a certain point. What's your choice? They make it and that's it. Their fate is settled. And so personal choice is part of prophecy. God looks ahead and he sees the end. And you need to get a hold of this, that God is allowed to do that. Because he's righteousness and he's love, but he's also the wisdom of God in working things out called providence. We'll talk about that. So on the right hand, on the left hand, we've got personal choice or free will. On the right hand, what have you got? You've got a free destination. You've got Bible words like foreordination. He was ordained before the foundation of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ was. How could that be? Because of foreknowledge. Come to Romans 8, please. Romans 8. We will not hit all the verses today, and I don't know what we'll do about taking it over the next week, but if you get hold of these basic words, this is an amazing thing in your Bible, but also, listen, in your prayer life and in your surrender to Jesus Christ. It will have a profound effect upon your Christianity if you get hold of this. It will have a profound effect upon understanding your Bible. The amazing thing about Romans chapter 8, verse 28, and we know. And we know that all things work together for good. If you don't have a King James Bible, most likely it says all good things work together. Oh, that's a real marvel. Why wouldn't good things work together? This verse is about all things working together. This is about when Joseph's brothers sold him into Egypt. And at the end of it in Genesis 50, they come and say, now look, dad's dead. Don't hold it against us. Don't settle it now that the old man's dead. And he said, ye meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Now what? God did not predestinate those boys to sell that boy into slavery. You better get this. He didn't. There's a dozen ways he could have ended up in Egypt as a slave. A dozen ways. He did not predestinate Israel to reject Jesus Christ, but he did foresee it. God is righteous. God is love. God has wisdom. And so the thing that we get out of this is that on this side he has a will, the Father's will. These things work together through this middle word called providence. Providence is the act of providing or preparing for future use or application. It's foresight. It's timely care. In particular, it's active foresight. If you pick up a theology book, they'll call it the care and superintendent of God, but it's all those things together. In your Bible, mark this down, you came to the Bible, the word prevent. I've got it marked down here for you. The word prevent isn't to keep something from happening. It's pre-event. It's two English words brought together. It's to prevent. And I'm giving you some references there because when you prevent something, that's why we call it preventive what? Maintenance. Preventive health care. How do you prevent it? By going ahead of it. So the Bible talks about, and a few verses I'll read them to you, Psalm 21, 3, I've got it written on the board. In Psalm 21, 3, David talks about God preventing things. And here, what he does is he thanks the Lord and he says, for example, in Psalm 21, 3, he says, For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness. Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head. You know, he said, he said, when I get there, you've already been there, Lord. In Matthew chapter 17, verse 25, Jesus goes into the house, the guy thinks something, and the Bible says he prevents him, and Jesus brings it up before the guy brings it up. We call it beating him to the punch. He foresaw it. So the word prevent in your Bible defines itself. Listen, the King James Bible is a wealth of education and knowledge. I promise you. If you'll let this Bible define itself and read verses with verses, instead of us being... Let me... I've had an education, some of you have. Let me just tell you about education. The greatest danger of education is pride. Let me tell you what pride is. Pride is telling God he should have wrote this differently so I could understand it. That's pride. That's pride. Pride is the student. You ever had a student try to correct you? 90% of the time they're wrong. I sat in Bible student, had the guys try to correct my Bible teacher, and I just sat there and lapped my head. I was like, you idiot. You fool. Who do you think you are? You're still green around the gills, wet behind the ears, and this old man's been at this for 30 years, and you're going to tell him? You see, what happens is education makes us think we know enough to correct God. Now, is it good to get a right education? Amen. Listen, Psalm 59, verse 10. The God of my mercy shall prevent me. God shall let me see my desire upon my enemies. The whole idea is God goes before us. God goes ahead of us. Psalm 79, verse 8, Oh, remember not against us former iniquities. Let thy tender mercy speedily prevent us. Going ahead of us. Pre-event. Get there before me. How does God get there before me? Because he knows where I'm going, not because he made me go there. because he has this incredible thing called divine foreknowledge that I can't get hold of. So in Romans 8, let's get the context of that, verse 28, where he said, We know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them we were called according to his purpose. For whom he did, verse 29, look at it, foreknow, look at it please, them he also did do what? Predestinate. Now get this, watch. He foreknew them. So he predestinated. Did he predestinate him to receive or reject Jesus Christ in the context? No. Look at the verse with me, please. To be conformed to the image of his son. It's like this. You go to the airport, you buy a ticket. Or you go online, whatever, okay? You go there and you buy a ticket. That ticket determines where you go if you get on the right plane. Now, here's what they tell you. You pay $199 or $59, whatever, and when you get on this plane, you're going to go from here to there. In basic terms, okay? They have predestinated where you're going by your choice. By what button you hit. I've been on planes, and I don't know if you wonder why, you get on a plane, I've flown a lot. I've gone on planes, international flights, and someone said, this flight is going to Sydney, Australia. Someone said, what? And they'd be shuffling them off that plane at the last minute because they thought they were going to a different part of the world. I was on a plane going from Chicago to Atlanta one time and they said this plane's going to Atlanta and that guy thought he was going to LA or someplace out west. Man, he's grabbing his stuff out of the rack. Stop! Stop! Stop! I was sitting on a plane in Dallas-Fort Worth and I looked out and I was coming back from Australia and I watched them put my bags on the next plane next to me. And I grabbed the steward and I said, ma'am, that's my bags. And she went just like this, bye-bye. I didn't see him for three days. One guy goes to the airport and he says, look, I said, I'm going to London, but I want my bags to go to Frankfurt. They said, we can't do that, sir. He said, yes, you can. No, we can't. He said, you did the last time I went to London. Amen. They can do it. They just can't do it on purpose. What's the point? God said, if you receive Jesus Christ, whoever receive Jesus Christ is predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. You will be like Jesus one day. The idea is we're supposed to cooperate along the way while we're here and bear some resemblance to him. But the point is the predestination has to do with that. And so it starts with foreknowledge. If you get hold of that and let God be God, let him be righteous and love and wisdom, it all starts falling together. For example, let's take Abraham. Was God's perfect will, was the Father's will for Abraham to have a boy named Ishmael? No. Was God's will for him to go down into Egypt twice and lie about Sarah? No. So God did his providence, didn't he? And he took Abraham's free will and his providence and fulfilled his will. You get this? You know why we can't get all that? We're not God. I mean, when are we going to let God be God? Now, I'm not just telling you, I'll just accept it. I'm showing you, I'm showing you. Example, Jeremiah 35. These are just some references I'll give you. There are tons of them, tons of them. I'm praying as you read your Bible, this stuff will start jumping off the page at you. And I really do pray you get in that book. Jeremiah 35, 15, I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets. Rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, amend your doings, go not after other gods to serve them. And ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and your fathers. But ye have not inclined your ear nor hearken unto me, because the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rakeb, have performed the commandment of their father which he commanded them. But this people have not hearkened unto me. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them. Because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard. I have called unto them, but they have not answered." Personal choice. Free will. Now, can God work out other things in your life? Absolutely. And He will. And there are just a multitude of references. What about providence? Providence is when God gets involved and God has a will and God in His incredible care keeps working things together for good to everybody. That is not what that verse says. To them that love God. What kind of God would do the same things all the time for people who hate him as those who love him? You say, well, he sent his son to die. He did. And that's the choice right there. From there on up, it's, you know, Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it. You got to choose, man. You got to choose. And my point is this. Example, Deuteronomy 8, verse 2, I've got written down there. Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, ready to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. You understand God has every right, in fact, he has a duty to do that. Now, with that in mind, let's look at Ephesians 1. I'm just giving you some test verses to take with you. I'm doing this out of Genesis 12 because the life of Abraham is a walking, living prophecy, and yet at the same time, it has his free will involved. It has personal choice involved. And so God uses providence. Example, Abimelech's about to mess up, and God goes and talks to Abimelech. And says, this guy's not shooting straight with you, but I have chosen this guy to be my prophet. Now, hold your place in Ephesians 1, and come to Genesis 18. Pretty sure this is what I want. Because this is about this foreknowledge. Ephesians 1 and Genesis 18. Now get this with me. Try to hone in with me for a minute. I made this statement. Prophecy is not always predestination. Prophecy, another statement, is always connected to foreknowledge. Prophecy is always connected to foreknowledge. Foreknowledge, number three, is not predestination. Now, if you can get that, you're telling me you know as much as God. I don't think any of us can really get it. But I can get a glimpse of it. I can get a glimpse. God could do that. He's God. He could look ahead and see. But He's so righteous, and He's so love, and He's so wisdom, and He's so holy, He conducts Himself properly no matter what. That's some God. That's the Lord God. I can count on God to keep His word. I can't count on anybody else to always, every time, keep their word. Not me, not you, not nobody. Not anybody. Genesis 18. And let's look down here. We're down towards where he's going to tell him about going to, there we go, verse 19. We're starting with verse 17. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham the thing, that thing which I do? seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him," look at verse 19, "...that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Did God predestinate him to do that? Did God tweak his will? No. God looked ahead and said, I can trust this guy. That's a pretty big statement, isn't it? Did he say he was perfect? No. He said David was man after his own heart. We know David's track record was quite less than perfect. He said, I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him. They shall keep the way of the Lord and do justice, judgment. You know, one of the boys, one of the children he's talking about is Jacob. Hallelujah, the supplanter. So it must be something about a man and a woman's heart that God looks at. And that's what he says in Romans 7, 27, before he says all things work together for good. Talk about the heart. Well, why wouldn't I trust God to look on the heart? See, we look on the outward appearance and try to figure out the heart. God can literally, as they say, drill down in. And Hebrews 4, 12 says, the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the divine asunder of soul and spirit. and of the joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." There's a part of us that avoids the Bible. It's called our old nature. Because, you ever wonder why church is like it is? You know why God says to somebody, look, talk about this today, preach about this, bring this out. The Lord sneaks up on us. We all don't want him to. He sneaks up and says, I mean, have you never had a bad attitude about something or struggled with something? And the text is announcing like, oh boy, somebody's been reading my mail. God has. And I mean, things will happen and you're like, wow, Lord, that's amazing. And so when we think about this, we understand that God said, I know him. I know him. I know him. It's all based on foreknowledge. You see, if we get a hold of that, we start realizing how incredible God is. Now, Ephesians chapter 1 about us as believers. He said to Adam, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So someone says, see, he told Adam he had to eat. No, he said in the day, like if, in the day you eat thereof. You don't need any prophesied. He said, here's the deal. If you eat, you die. That's what he said. So the Bible starts off with Prophets. He told Abraham, I mean it took providence and persistence by God to get Abraham to where he's supposed to be, and then Isaac and then Jacob. Let's take Joseph for a minute. Let's take what it says about Joseph, that Joseph had these dreams. You know, there's all this stuff, people saying he shouldn't have told the dreams. Can I say this to you, just will you consider this? If he hadn't, they wouldn't have seen it fulfilled. Imagine him trying to convince them after the fact that he had a dream that this would happen. It was such a crazy dream. He had given up on it completely. He gets down there and God raises him up and he names his two boys Forgetfulness and Fruitfulness. He said, God's allowed me to forget everybody. And so when those boys came and bowed down there to get that food, he's like, oh, what an amazing thing. And he said, you meant it for evil? For what? God meant it for good. God did not determine that they had to get him into Egypt that way. They lost out because of that. Now, when Ephesians 1, and one character we want to look at before we close will be in Exodus 8, in just a minute, Pharaoh. Because it always comes up, anybody who's been to Sunday school and read the Bible and all that stuff, it always comes up about the fact that it says the Lord's heart and Pharaoh's heart. And so some knucklehead, and if you don't like me calling that too bad, they're knuckleheads that get their Bible and they want to prove Calvinism. That is a knucklehead. It's a Bible knucklehead. Okay, he may know a whole lot about, he might go out and drill an oil well and strike oil. I don't know how to do that, but when it comes to the Bible, he's a knucklehead. If you tell me that God is so unrighteous that when something doesn't go his way, he's going to break his word, you've got a wrong God than I've got. You've got a different God than I've got. My God sent his son to Calvary. My God has made promises and kept them, and so I've got a different God. Ephesians 1, watch. We'll start in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Now watch. Circle the words in. In heavenly places, in Christ. Get this. It's in Christ. I go to the airport. I buy the ticket. I get on the plane. I end up in Chicago. You'd have to have a reason to. But I end up in Chicago. Okay? Why did I get there? Because I got in the plane. Everything I have that you're about to read, I got in Christ. I make a personal choice over here. See this on the left? Free will. Personal choice. I take Christ as my Savior. My future is predestined from there by God who said, if you will take my son, I will make sure this happens in your life. So what does he say? According, verse 4, as he hath chosen us, how mark it, circle it, in him. in Him before the foundation of the world. He didn't choose you before the foundation of the world. He chose anybody who would get in Him. He says, here's how you get in. You repent of your sins, turn to Jesus Christ. If you do, you're in Him. Everybody who'll do that was in Him before the foundation of the world by foreknowledge. Now watch. That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. having predestined us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. You see, you have to twist and tweak and all that. But if you let God be who he is, it's very simple. God says, here's what I'm going to do. I look ahead. I see what's going to happen to the human race. I'm going to send my son. So here's what I'm going to do, son. He was the son before he was incarnate. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. He was the son before he ever became flesh and dwelt among us. He's always been the son. He didn't become the Son when he got in the human body. That's a Jehovah's Witness teaching. Okay? Here's the deal. This is awesome. He said, Son, anybody who will receive you, we're going to determine ahead of time they're going to get all this stuff in you because of you. One time I was scheduled to fly from Brisbane to LA. and I was going to fly a cattle class. You know, they put you in a seat with a shoehorn. Usually next to somebody twice as rude and unhappy as you are and they're going to try to fall asleep and snore into your ear and lay your head on your shoulder. One time I was about to land in L.A. and this guy orders champagne or something and the lady standing there talking to him and does a cork and sprayed me right in the face. I got off the plane, man. I was like, I started to play a trick on the passenger. I was like, get off there, you know. Hey, how you doing? It smelled like it. I'm in Brisbane Airport for 12 hours. My plane never shows up. Four weeks later, I find out why. The engine had blown up on it. Because on my way back to Australia, I'm on the same plane and don't know it, and an engine blows up on the other side in flight. It was really cool. It lit the whole sky up. And the idea is this. The guy finally said, we got to farm out all you people in Attaco town. He said, I'll send you to LA first class if you can just behave yourself. I said, I think I can do that. All I had to do was get on that plane. They walked me up. I'm sitting in first class. I mean it was amazing. You know how I got that? By just having my ticket. Just having my ticket. Didn't do anything for it. You know how I get all this? I get it in Jesus. I was in Jesus before the foundation of the world by my choice. By my choice. You see how simple that is? It is as simple as just understanding 2 plus 2 is 4 when I look at my Bible. God makes a prophecy. He allows personal choice. He has a predestined, a foreordained, a Father's will, and He uses providence in the vast majority of cases to bring about the fulfillment. Foreknowledge is not predestination. Prophecy is not predestination. Are there times He's destinated stuff? Sure. Have you ever noticed that He has to use providence with anybody who has a choice? He doesn't have to use providence with the planets or the earth. or nature. He says there will be a flood 120 years. Why? Because they don't have a free will. But entirely, from cover to cover, he uses providence with creatures of a free will. Starting with Lucifer, who is the anointed cherub. Not an angel, but a cherub. Higher up, all the way through. Anybody with free will, he uses providence. And he does not tweak. He does not touch that free will. And we've seen in the life of Abraham, which we'll study again next week, we see the beginning of that. You say, what about Pharaoh? I'm going to take two minutes. Exodus 8, we've got to do Pharaoh. Otherwise, Brother Dave's going to say to me, you didn't do Pharaoh. I'm trying to remember what happened one day. I didn't finish telling something. And praise Lord, he reminded me to do it. Now watch this. Go to Exodus 1 real quick. Exodus chapter 1. I'll tell you what, for time, we're going to do three verses. Exodus 3.19, I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all wonders, and I will do in the midst thereof, and after that he will let you go. Mark it. Exodus 3.19 and 20. Okay? Exodus 3.19 and 20. What did God use there? Somebody help me. What did he do? He looked ahead and used his foreknowledge. That's how he knew. When you get into here, and he says in chapter 4, verse 21, I will harden his heart that he shall not let the people go. How did he do it? By things, by events. Why? Pharaoh's attitude. His men tell him in chapter 8, verse 19, this is the finger of God. What should have happened to his heart? Changed and said Pharaoh's heart was hardened. By foreknowledge, God knew that. God should be allowed to say, I'll bring something to a man's life that will harden him if his heart is hard towards me. I'm going to let God have that power. Because if my heart's soft towards him, he'll bring something to my life that will help me know him and get me to Jesus Christ. Read through the Exodus and mark that down. Father, thank you for this time. Lord, filled preacher with the Holy Ghost of God, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.