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You're listening to The Bible Guys,
a podcast where a couple of friends talk

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about the Bible in fun, in
practical ways. Well, hello, I'm

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Jeff Forster. I'm one of the
Bible Guys, and Chris is off this

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week and so I have as my
co host, the Sensational Wesley Woods.

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I got yeah, sensational. That's
it. Everybody's cheering. Now they go

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wild. So man, Wesley,
thank you for joining us. And we

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have a really fun segment today to
kind of kick things off. So Desiree

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gave us a list, and she
likes to do these. One must go,

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so where we have to choose one
thing that we'd prefer to keep forever

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and one thing that disappears forever.
Right, And so the first one is,

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and this is near and dear to
your heart. Right, the first

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one is classic pepperoni pizza or gourmet
truffle pizza. One you keep forever,

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one has to go forever. I'm
not a fancy pizza guy. I'm a

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purist. So it's just brick oven
cheese, maybe pepperoni. So all the

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truffle and pineapples and all of that
stuff you can keep. Okay, So

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you're saying classic Pepperoni key, that's
one I'm keeping. And Truffle Gourmet Truffle

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Pizza. You can toss that one. Yeah, although I'm gonna I'm gonna

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admit to you I love truffle.
I love truffle oil, I love truffle

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anything that has truffle on it.
Yeah. But I think if I had

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to choose one for the rest of
my life, I would probably choose Yeah,

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that's it. Okay, So as
a comfort food, here's your second

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one. One you choose one has
to vanish for as a comfort food,

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French fries or ice cream. This
might shock a lot of people. I

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would toss ice cream. Really,
I would toss ice I'm not a big

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ice cream person. Like I could
only eat it a couple times a year

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and I'm happy now. Cookies,
brownies, cinnamon rolls. That's a whole

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nother discussion, all other things.
Right. So you trose fries, So

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would I. Yeah. Yeah.
So we're two for two. Man.

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Yeah, Hey, you know what, we should kick out that other guy

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that does this, and it to
be me and you. We're in alignment

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here. Okay, here's one.
You get to keep one forever, and

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then you have to get rid of
one forever, the macarena or the Electric

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Slide. Yes, they're both dances. I would say, just because I

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know it. Better keep the electric
slide me too, Dude. We're three

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for three on this, Okay,
Well, now we're getting down to it,

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and I know I know zar Bo's
answer would be on this one.

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Yeah, uh so a number four
Monopoly or the Game of Life. Monopoly

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or Game of Life. If we're
talking forever, I gotta go with Monopoly.

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It's the classic. Then we need
too. I would keep Monopoly me

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too. We're four for four,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Bo's job is on the line there. I think of this one. Okay,

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well, this might be the make
it or Break it bagpipes or the

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kazoo. This is to get rid
of one forever. Kazoos are fun,

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but bagpipes are kind of cool.
Like I was just at a ceremony where

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a guy was playing it and he's
got the all the pipes and he's doing

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it, like, yeah, yeah, I would say, keep the bagpipes

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me too. Yeah. We're five
for five today. I bet you the

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Desiree didn't think that that was going
to happen today. I actually I played

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music in my office a lot of
times for quiet, because you know,

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it can be loud in the rest
of space. And I'll use YouTube channels

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that play you know, that show
really pretty background settings and then play music

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in the background. And yesterday I
was playing one in my office of Scotland

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and about every third song you gotta
have bagpipes so played well, you know

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now by themselves, they're horrific.
Yeah, and they're played well and they

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have other things going. It's pretty
nice. So you don't recommend the four

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year old trying to play the mill. No, No, it's rough.

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It is rough. Well, there
we go. We are five for five

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when we see Zaraba. That's right. So okay, Well, hey,

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we are in the Book of Genesis
and we've been moving along and we come

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to a new character and we've dealt
with you know, Adam and Noah and

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Abraham and all those and then finally
we come to the story of Joseph in

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Genesis chapter thirty seven. This is
a very interesting story. Yeah, Joseph

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runs from this point to the end
of the Book of Genesis, so,

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I mean, he's quite a significant
figure in the Book of Genesis. And

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so we're just going to read the
entire chapter. I think of Genesis chapter

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thirty seven, aren't we Yeah yeah, So hang on, buckle up,

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here we go. So Jacob settled
again in the land of Canaan, where

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his father had lived as a foreigner. And this is the account of Jacob

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and his family. When Joseph was
seventeen years old, he often tended his

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father's flocks. He worked for his
half brothers, the sons of his father's

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wives, Bilha and Zilpah, But
Joseph reported to his father some of the

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bad things his brothers were doing.
Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his

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other children because Joseph had been born
to him in his old age. So

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one day Jacob had a special gift
made for Joseph, a beautiful robe.

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But his brothers hated Joseph. Because
their father loved him more than the rest

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of them, they couldn't say a
kind word to him. One night,

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Joseph had a dream, and when
he told his brothers about it, they

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hated him more than ever. Listen
to this dream, he said. We

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were out in the field trying up
or tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly

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my bundle stood up and your bundles
all gathered around and bowed low before mine.

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His brothers responded, so you think
you'll be our king? Do you?

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Do? You actually think you'll reign
over us? And they hated him

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all the more because of his dreams
and the way he talked about them.

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Soon, Joseph had another dream,
and again he told his brothers about it.

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Listen, I have had another dream, he said, The sun,

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the moon, and eleven stars about
low before me. This time he told

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the dream to his father as well
as his brothers, but his father scolded

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him. What kind of dream is
that? He asked, Well, your

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mother and I and your brother's actually
come and bow to the ground before you.

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But while his brothers were jealous of
Joseph, his father wondered what the

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dreams meant. Soon after this,
Joseph's brothers went to pasture their father's flocks

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at Shechem. When they had gone
been gone for some time, Jacob said

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to Joseph, your brothers are pasturing
the sheep at Shecham. Get ready and

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I'll send you to them. I'm
ready to go, Joseph replied, go

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and see how your brothers and the
flocks are getting along. Jacob said,

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then come back and report to me. So Jacob sent them on his way,

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and Joseph traveled to Shechem from their
home in the valley of Hebron.

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When he arrived there, a man
from the area noticed him wandering around the

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countryside. What are you looking for, he asked, I'm looking for my

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brothers. Joseph replied, do you
know where they are pasturing their sheep?

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Yes? The man told them they've
moved on from here. But I heard

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them say, let's go on to
Dothan. So Joseph followed his brothers to

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Dothan and found them there. When
Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized

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him in the distance. As he
approached, they made plans to kill him.

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Here comes the dreamer, they said, come on, let's kill him

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and throw him into one of these
cisterns. We can tell our father that

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a wild animal has eaten him,
and then we'll see what becomes of his

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dreams. But when Reuben heard of
their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue.

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Let's not kill him, He said, why should we shed any blood.

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Let's just throw him into this empty
cistern here in the wilderness, and

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then he'll die without our laying a
hand on him. Reuben was secretly planning

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to rescue Joseph and return him to
his father. So when Joseph arrived,

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his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe
he was wearing. Then they grabbed him

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and threw him into the cistern.
Now the cistern was empty, there was

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no water in it. Then,
just as they were sitting down to eat,

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they looked up and saw caravan and
camels in the distance. Coming toward

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them. There was a group of
ishmael like traders taking a load of gum,

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balm and aromatic resin from Gilead down
to Egypt. Judah said to his

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brothers, what will we gain by
killing our brother. We'd have to cover

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up the crime instead of hurting him. Let's sell him to those Ishmaelite traders.

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After all, he's our brother,
our own flesh and blood. And

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his brothers agreed. So when the
Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came

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by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out
of the cistern and sold him to them

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for twenty pieces of silver, and
the traders took him to Egypt. Sometime

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later, Reuben returned to get Joseph
out of the cistern, and when he

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discovered that Joseph was missing, he
tore his clothes in grief. Then he

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went back to his brother's and lamented, the boy is gone. What will

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I do now? Then the brothers
killed a young goat and dipped Joseph's robe

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in its blood. They sent the
beautiful robe to their father with this message,

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look at what we found. Doesn't
this robe belong to your son?

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Their father recognized it immediately, Yes, he said, it is my son's

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robe. A wild animal must have
eaten him. Joseph has clearly been torn

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to pieces, and Jacob tore his
clothes and dressed himself and lap. He

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mourned deeply for his son for a
long time. His family all tried to

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comfort him, but he refused to
be comforted. I will go to my

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grave mourning for my son, he
would say, and then he would weep.

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Meanwhile, the mid Night Traders arrived
in Egypt, where they sold Joseph

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to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. Potiphar was

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captain of the palace guard. Wow, a lot happened in that Yeah,

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man alive. Sometimes people say Oh, the Bible's kind of boring. But

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every twist in turn that sibling rivalry, you know, a plotting murderers,

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Yeah, selling their brother this is
crazy. One of the first things that

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comes to mind is verse five when
you were going through this, where it

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says one night Joseph had a dream
and when he told his brothers about it,

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they hated him more than ever.
The first thing that came to mind

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with that is that just a very
practical level that I think a lot of

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our listeners will be able to really
is everyone can't handle your dreams. That's

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true. The thing that God gave
you, the thing that he put on

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the inside of you. It may
resonate with you, it may excite you.

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But you share that thing with someone
else, it could be a business

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idea, what have you. You
share it with someone else and they're just

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kind of whole hum like, oh, yeah, I don't know if that'll

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work. Do you really think no, Maybe you shouldn't do that, Maybe

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you don't go back to school,
Maybe you just you know, continue doing

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what you're doing. Everyone can't handle
the thing that God put on the inside

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of you, right, Yeah,
you know. I'm a verbal processor,

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so a lot of times, if
I'm thinking about a thing, I talk

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it out. Yeah, right,
so I'll have it going in my head.

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Sometimes I find that my thoughts disentangle
themselves through the lips and the fingertips.

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Yeah. So sometimes I'll sit down
and just start typing and things will

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start to come out that way right
in order. But a lot of times

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I'm just driving and talking, yeah, and I can start to see around

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me people their eyes start rolling back
in their head, you know, and

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I'm just dreaming about the future.
And yeah, a lot of people just

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can't accept or non visionaries a lot
of times can't see the vision. Yeah.

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A lot of times it just sounds
like words or bragging or you know,

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pie in the sky kind of thinking, or other people will try to

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put their limitations on you. So
because they couldn't do X, Y and

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Z, they try to transfer that
on to you. This is why you

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shouldn't do that. Well, I'm
not you. Yeah, yeah, you

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know, God gave me different talents
and skills and gifts, and yeah,

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there's a I think a temptation sometimes
to want to hold others back, if

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you, especially these guys that are
struggling with jealousy. So jealousy just eats

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you alive, and it has an
impact on others around you, especially if

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you have influence. So, you
know, one of the things Joseph here,

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as a young man, probably a
teenage boy at this point, doesn't

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have a lot of discernment. Yeah, he doesn't realize that his brothers aren't

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his allies, right, And you
know, I think it's important to figure

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out who are your allies that are
going to not just affirm your vision.

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You don't need somebody just to blackt
just a bunch of yes people that's around

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you. But what you need is
you need allies that can see the vision,

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maybe help you refine the vision and
then make it happen. And you

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know, it's less about what you
know now and it's way more about who

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you know they can help you move
your vision forward. I could see the

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brothers when Joseph is telling the story, and they're looking at each other like,

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so, we're going to bow down
to you, and then and then

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he has your dad go tell his
dad, you're gonna go on to me

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too. I don't know if I
would have told my dad or mom that

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it's so funny. So the brothers
are like, what the heck this kid

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man, and so then they come
up with this scheme, you know,

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yeah, they said, hey,
we're going to kill him. Let's let's

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get rid of him. And uh
so they're out there and so just for

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geographic reference, you know, there
they started off they had left their father

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where their father was. What didn't
they say that they were like staying near

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near the Hebron Valley. Isn't that
what I read is where Jacob was.

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Jacob was staying near the Hebron Valley. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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So they traveled to Shechem from the
Hebron Valley. So Hebron is just

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south of Jerusalem. This is where
David for a while set up his kingdom,

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right, yeah, it's just south
of Jerusalem. It's in the hilly

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area. And then Shechem is is
quite a waste to north. Almost halfway

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between Jerusalem and Galilee is where Shechem
was. So it's a good couple of

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days walk and so they're up to
the north and then they go, okay,

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now we're gonna move on. That's
still hilly and depending on what time

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of the year, depending on the
rain, it might not have been great

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for grazing. And then they cut
out into one of the plain areas.

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Dothan is kind of in a planeary. It's very green, it's kind of

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a low area. There's a lot
of water there, and so that's where

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they go. So you get to
remember it's a very agrarian society and very

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much about following their animals. And
I think a lot about that with different

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tribes that we work with, you
know, Heritage Church, the church that

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you and I both work at,
And there's a tribe, the Pokot tribe,

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and they follow their cows and their
goats the men do so often the

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women will stay home in the village
or wherever the camp is for sometimes months

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at a time, and the men
will go out and follow the animals to

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wherever there's grazing. And it's because
back then there was way less money being

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used, and the animals were worth
That was your courage, Yeah, that

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was your currency. And so basically
they were tending their bank accounts, moving

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it from here to the air.
And yeah, so the brothers were trustworthy

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enough that the dad trusted them to
go take care of these animals this thing,

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and so I don't think that anybody
really saw this coming, like,

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oh man, you know, Hey, we got to be careful. If

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I send Joseph to go around his
brothers, you're probably not kill him.

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And so it's amazing to me how
jealousy sometimes can be so under the surface

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that you know, other people don't
even notice it. And I think sometimes

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even the people who are jealous don't
realize it's jealousy that's driving them, because

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it's so easy to justify our jealousy. Right. The interesting thing about this

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just the fact that it's family to
have family jealous against you, and some

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of our listeners may have even dealt
with that before, where you've had other

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family members jealous and you're thinking,
I don't even have anything to be jealous

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over, like, why are you
jealous about me? So, yeah,

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I think this is definitely something that
a lot of people can relate to.

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Well, that's that sibling rivalry.
The basis of sibling rivalry is jealousy.

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You know, oh mom treats you
better, you get more favors or whatever.

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You know, you think you're better
than. And in most cases parents

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love all the children equally. Now, in this story, it does mention

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that yeah he did love Jacob.
It says, you know more, yeah

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he loved Joseph more than that was. That's a bad move. I shouldn't

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say that one out loud. Yep. So we were doing this story when

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the kids were younger, and so
they were all asking me, you love

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me more, don't you like?
I said, no, No, you

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guys never have to worry about me
loving one of you more than you.

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I don't love any of you.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good.

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But yeah, yeah, so you
know that that's another I think learning moment

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for parents in general, that sometimes
the one that's behaving better, or the

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one that has a more pleasant attitude
or whatever, sometimes they just naturally get

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more favors from you. Yeah,
And so making sure that you're consciously balancing

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things out as much which is possible
for the kids would help. Because not

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only did Jacob not attempt to balance
things out, Yeah, he clearly a

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tremendous favor to Joseph's. So he
even gave him this fancy robe, all

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this kind of stuff. So yeah, in verse twenty one, something else

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had stood out. It says,
but when Ruben heard of this scheme,

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he came to Joseph's rescue. And
I think about that in the context of

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thank God there was someone around who
made the right decision against the grain.

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Now, Ruben could have just went
along with everybody else and said okay,

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I mean that he did say that, and this does sound like a good

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way to get rid of him,
and he could have went along with it.

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But Ruben made the decision to go
against what everyone else is doing.

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And I think about that practically in
our lives. What if you work at

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a business and everyone is fudging the
numbers a little bit, everyone is doing

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something that's it's bumping right up against
illegal. It could be just unethical or

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immoral, and everyone's doing it.
Will you be the one to go against

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the grain and do the right thing, or will you blend in with everyone

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else? Yeah, you know,
Ruben has kind of a conflicted reputation a

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little bit. And we won't read
all the stories of Ruben here, but

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there is a note in the Life
Application Study Bible. We always like the

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highlight, we really like Life Life
Application Study Bible, and it talks about

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how he had a very fluid kind
of a reputation. As a matter of

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fact, Jacob talking to Ruben at
one point, talks about how he's as

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unruly as a flood he's talking about
kind of there's this water kind of a

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very adaptable kind of Moraley kind of
where and that's right. Other than one,

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water is frozen. Other than that
it goes around the thing rather than

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you know, and so there's a
lot of power and a lot of force

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behind water sometimes. But with Ruben, he wouldn't go directly at and go

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no, and I'm going to stand
and you have to kill me. He

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didn't do that right. Instead,
he kind of had this conniving strategy of

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clearly he was influenced. He was
able to influence, Hey, let's not

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let's not kill and let's just throw
him in the well and then we don't

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have to feel guilty about it.
Yeah, and he appealed to that.

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There's some strategy. Of course,
the strategy failed. Later on, he

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winds up having an affair with his
father one of his father's wives, so

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he has this he goes back and
forth between a good guy and a bad

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guy. On the other hand,
at the very end of the story,

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we'll find he also helps save Benjamin's
life by offering his own sons, as

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you know, a deposit or whatever
to protect Benjamin. So it's kind of

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an interesting kind of a character that
early in his life, it seems like

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he wants to be the guy to
do the right thing. And so I

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think that if we would make more
decisions like that to do the right thing.

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The difference is, though, what
he tried to do is split it

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in the middle. I'm going to
do some of the right thing, yeah,

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because I'm afraid to actually stand up
to my brothers. And if he

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had really stood up to them rather
than trying to connive, maybe maybe he

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would have eliminated the entire story.
But we know God uses this story,

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yes, to save their lives,
So that's another thing. One of the

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last things was that I thought of
was verse thirty one, and this is

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them trying to kind of cover up
everything that they've done when it says the

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brothers killed a young goat in dip
Joseph's robe in its blood. So they're

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trying to throw the father off and
make the father think that some wild animal,

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you know, kill No dad,
look what we found. But the

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point here to me is when you
mess up, don't cover it up.

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That's right, just tell the truth, mess up, mess up. Instead

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of instead of doing that, they
just doubled down on it. We're going

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to really cover this thing up.
And that was totally the wrong thing to

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do, right, So one thing
I forgot to mention, Reuben was the

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oldest brother, and the oldest brother
had the most power, right the oldest

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brothers represented the father, and so
he was going to inherit most of the

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business, the whole nine yards.
He could have stopped it, shut it

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down on his own. But he
shows back up later and then finds out,

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oh hey, my scheming failed,
and you can imagine the panic that

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he had. He goes to his
other brothers and like, oh, yeah,

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we sold him. And they knew
it was very unlikely that Joseph would

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live very long as a slave either, and so it really was kind of

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a death sentence that they did.
And then they try to cover it up

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with their dad, and can you
imagine the Bible says from that point on,

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basically for the rest of Jacob's life
he was mourning deeply and during this

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time, and every time they would
try to comfort him, he would you

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say, no, I've lost my
son and start weeping again. This is

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going to be a regular occurrence for
the rest of their lives. They're going

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to see the consequences of their sin, and they never did fess up.

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They never did right through this whole
thing. So there's a lot of constant

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where free to make our choices,
but we're not free to choose the consequences.

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Yeah, that's good. The fact
that their choice eliminating their brother this

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one time caused all this family struggle
and discord and depression and all these things

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is really really difficult to watch,
yes, in this part of the story.

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So do you have any last word
on this, Wesley as we wrap

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things up. Yeah, I think
I would go back to what you just

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said a second ago, that phrase, but you literally just said it a

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second ago. We're free to make
our choices, we're not free to choose

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the consequences. Yeah, And I
think that's a major point that we all

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need to remember that you're free to
do whatever you want to do. I

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mean, you can go out and
do whatever, but you can't complain about

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the consequence that's connected to the very
thing that you opted to do on your

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own. And you also can't blame
God for it. That's the choice that

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you freely made. And a lot
of people like to say, well,

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why didn't know God had nothing to
do with that choice you made. You

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made that choice. Yeah. I
also think it's interesting we didn't cover this,

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but you know, Jacob's reputation was
that he was a deceiver when he

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was young, and now hear his
sons, all of them collectively deceive him

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to the point of depression. Right. He doesn't know that he's being lied

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to at this point, but his
sons are ruining his life. And it's

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amazing how the seeds that we plant
at one point in our life we get

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a harvest of it back. So
you got one liar, and now he's

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produced twelve liars or eleven liars here
right there. God is not mocked.

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Whatever you sew, that's right,
that's what you will read. So anyways,

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man, that was good. I'm
looking forward to continuing because the story

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of a ghost story is really an
incredible story. So we're looking forward to

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seeing you the next time on the
Bible. Guys,