Butch Vernon and Andrea Miller

This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together, we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits. Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robby Dilmore.

How fun today. We get to kind of do a continuation of the Christian Cargai show in that the folks from Simply the Story are considering doing a radio show along these lines of sharing Bible stories and then getting the listeners that you have been so gracious to call in during the Christian Cargai show, and we hope you will continue to do that during Kingdom Pursuits. So we're just continuing on what we were doing on Christian Cargai.

If you didn't hear that, I'm sad. But it's okay. We're going to pick up the story to where those of you who are just tuning in for the first time and kind of get used to the story.

And then the idea, obviously, or maybe not obviously, the idea is for us to engage in a conversation, things that come to your mind, maybe a question you didn't want to ask in Sunday school because you didn't want to look foolish. I'm great at looking foolish. Just if you listen to the last show, every name that came up, I had wrong. So I'll handle all the foolishness for you.

You call us 866-348-7884, 866-344-TRUTH. So Butch, take us from here. All right, Robby, thank you very much. We're going to kind of pick up where we left off. But I know some of you are just now tuning in.

And so we're going to go ahead and go through the story again, because it's kind of important you know the story a little bit to be able to talk about it and ask some questions. So the children of Israel have been wandering in the desert for about thirty nine years as a result of them refusing to go into the promised land when they had the opportunity. And God, rather than killing everybody, said, let you live out your natural life. But all those 20 years and younger are the only ones who are going to go into the promised land.

So for about thirty nine years, they've been wandering. God's provided manna. He's provided water.

His presence is there with them every day. Pillar of fire, cloud, the whole deal. And and so that kind of leads us to our story from God's word. So the children of Israel traveled from Mount Or and they went by the way of the Red Sea so that they go around the land of Edom. And on the way, the soul of the people became very discouraged and they complained against God and against Moses. And they said, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to die? There's there's no food. There's no water.

And we hate this worthless bread. So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people and they bit the people. And many of the children of Israel died.

The children of Israel came to Moses and they said, we have sinned against God and against you. So pray to God that he would take away the serpents. And so Moses prayed and God told him to make a serpent and put it on a pole. And it would be that when it was lifted up, if anyone had been bitten, if he looked at it, he would live. And that's what Moses did. He made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And if anyone who had been bitten looked at the serpent when it was lifted up, he would live. And so this is this is an amazing story from God's Word. I would get you guys to I don't get you guys to kind of help me walk through this again.

All right. So the children of Israel traveled from Mount Orr by the way of the Red Sea to go around Edom. And do you remember what happened to their to their souls on the way? Didn't they become discouraged along the way?

They didn't wear out from understanding the souls. That's a different reference. But yes, you are correct. Yeah. The souls of the people became very discouraged. And who was it they complained against? God and Moses. Yeah.

God and Moses. And they ask a question. Do you remember what that was? The question was, did you bring us? Yeah. I mean, out of Egypt to kill us in the desert. And, you know, oh, by the way, this food. Yeah. There's no food.

There's no water. And we hate the food. I love that. That's one of my favorite things in all of them. I will get to that. Okay. And and so the Lord said, I am so sorry to to discomfort you all.

I feel really badly that I have not done things the way you want. Is that is that what happened? Pretty much. I don't know. I think he sent some poisonous snakes.

Yeah. The Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people and they bit the people and many of the children of Israel died. And you remember what the children of Israel's response was? They said they sinned against the Lord. Then they go to Moses, said we sinned against the Lord and against you pray that God would take the snakes away. Pray to God he'd take the snakes away. And so Moses prayed.

And you remember what God told him to do? Make a serpent or a bronze serpent or something and make a serpent, put it on a pole, lift it up. If anybody looked at it, they've been bit. What's going to happen? They would live. Yeah, they live. And so that's what Moses did.

Bronze serpent on a pole, lifted up, anybody bitten, they looked, they lived. So we'll just kind of stop right there. Yeah. Well, we got Monica is in Scottsdale, Arizona. Monica, we hung up on you once, but we're so glad for your persistence that you called back in order to share your insights.

You might've been a little snake bit. There's Monica, all throughout the Bible, it reminds us to have hope. And in Jeremiah 29, 11, which is one of my favorites. And I think Robbie, you might've mentioned it earlier, but for, I know the plans I have for you plans to give you hope and the future.

And I think if I were to imagine putting myself in a situation where I'm lost in the desert, that would seem or feel hopeless, but all throughout the Bible, the Lord reminds us to lean on him and to have hope. Hmm. That's good. Yeah.

It's real good. Isn't Scottsdale in the desert? Very much so.

Yes. But those big cactuses. Wow. I mean, those things get me. I mean, those are some, if you've ever been to Scottsdale, Arizona, when I think of Scottsdale, Arizona, you guys have the prettiest cactuses in the world.

And when those things bloom, it's one of the spectacular things that I've ever seen anywhere in the world. Really. Yeah.

And so, you know, there probably were some cool things, you know, when they were walking around out there with their shoes not wearing out. So thank you for calling in Monica. We really, really appreciate hearing from Scottsdale. Thanks. God bless you. All right.

She had courage to call. Now you call eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four eight six six three four truth for the digitally gifted. Again, you can find all this stuff on simply the story there at Christian car guy dot com. But.

Well, you know, guys, I'm curious. So this the children of Israel, the Lord sent these serpents. Right. And and so the people came and said, hey, we have sinned against God and against you. So pray to God that he takes away the serpents. Do you all see them being repentant as we would understand repentance here and what what is your what is your take on there's a couple of takes, you know, as I dig into that and I wish you would call with the how you dug into it.

But it's interesting. They don't pray themselves. Right.

They go to the guy they've been grumbling. Yeah. You know, so that's a certain amount of repentance right there.

Like, if I didn't have faith in this guy, I sure wouldn't have turned to him. So to some extent. You know, it shows. And again, can you imagine actually knowing Moses? I mean, you know, these people had a real gift there. Yeah.

And knowing Moses himself and that and that had to be something because, you know, they saw his face lit up and all these different things. But but although there's issues involved all over the place, I got to give them credit for going to somebody that they feel like has an in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Good point. So how about you? Your thoughts?

What do you think they were doing when they went in to talk to Moses? You know, you think something. So be courageous. Call us. We're enjoying the discussion so much.

We'd enjoy it more with your call, though. 866-348-7884. 866-34-TRUTH.

So much more. Kingdom Pursuits was simply the story. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. We're having so much fun today with simply the story, and we're sharing the story of Snakebit in the desert with the Israelites and getting your insights, which are absolutely wonderful, into, you know, some of the thoughts, what the Bible would bring. You know, from my standpoint, it's discipleship. Like, great questions make for great disciples. Like, what did he mean?

Well, why do you think this happened? And begin to process that. And when you have those questions, you can begin to ask the Holy Spirit to help you out by answering them. And so to pick up our hero whenever he left off, Vern, not Butch, whose last name is Vernon. So I'd like to hear what Dan might have to say. Oh, so we have Dan is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, up there with our daily bread people, and all sorts of—we have Wisdom in the Wounded ministries out of that area of Michigan. So thank you for calling in today, Dan. How are you? Hey, good, doing well.

Thanks, Robbie. So share your insights for me. Yeah, well, I think Butch just asked the question about the, you know, what about the repentance of the Israelites?

If that's still the question, kind of lose some time when you call in. But, you know, they say, you know, we defend against you and against God. Pray that God will take this away. It's kind of like the kids saying, Oh, I took that cookie. Don't yell at me. You know, I got myself in trouble. Don't ground me.

You know, yeah, what I did was, I did this wrong thing, but don't ground me. And I just, I think repentance is like acknowledging our sin, acknowledging that we are sinful, but then turning around and saying, help me not to do that anymore, turning away from our sin. And what I'm hearing the Israelites say is, turn away from the punishment, God. Well, Dan, I'm curious, because not only do they just say, turn away from the punishment, but then do they ask Moses, what should we do? Or is there some way we should respond? Or do they tell him what it is he is supposed to do on their behalf?

What might that tell us about the children of Israel? Well, they still don't have it. They haven't figured it out.

They're still, you know, we've, you know, we've been, and now here's our list of things for you to do. I think you're right. I mean, it kind of shows a lack of understanding of who God is and really the depth of what they're standing. Did you bring us into the desert for us to die here? It's, it's, you know, and then you've given us, we don't like it.

I just, they don't, they don't get who God is. Yeah. Good observation. Yeah. That is wonderful. Thank you, Dan. Yeah. All right. We appreciate that.

That's a beautiful insight. The Michiganders, man. They know stuff like that. Michiganders. That's what they call folks in Michigan, really Michiganders. You didn't know that.

It's a different than a Californian or a Kentucky. Well, I see we have another caller. We have Linda is also back with us from Hemet, California. I understand Linda you're on Kingdom Pursuits. So you have another insight for us.

Well, I, I agree with Dan. They're more scared than repentant. And so I think, as God looks on their heart, he has some choices about how to deal with that.

And so he could have taken away the snakes. But if maybe if they had been truly repentant, maybe that would have been the answer to their prayer, take them away. But if their hearts are not like that, then God maybe takes a different direction and leaves the snakes there, but provides a way to live.

Israelites are still dying. If they don't believe that, if they look at it, they would get well. And so I, if they have to live with these snakes until they get into the promised land, it would be a reminder to them that they need to walk carefully with the Lord. I don't, I don't know. I think that calls for further discussion.

And stay inside of a pole with a snake on it. Yeah, don't lose sight of that. Don't lose sight of that.

It just seemed they were more concerned with consequences than in then really repenting. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful insight, Linda. Thank you. That's absolutely gorgeous. So you've heard these courageous calls and now it's your turn.

866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH, it's a butch. Well, you know, I wonder what this might teach us about God. That, I mean, he sent these serpents and then when Moses approaches him with, okay, Lord, what should we do?

And he comes up with this plan of putting a play snake on a stick, which is, I mean, if you examine that on the face of it, right, it's just like, excuse me, huh? But, you know, it was something Linda said in her response that this was going to keep them if, whether these serpents were there for the rest of their journey or not, were not told, but they were there at least for part of the journey. So the solution that God had for the children of Israel, what was required in God's solution from the people? Right, right.

It's, you know, I know you're not necessarily supposed to skip ahead, but I always do. It's just me, I'm a skipper, is that God didn't save Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego from the fire. He saved them out of the fire. And he didn't save Daniel from the lion's den. He saved him out of the lion's den.

And many, many, many times in my own life he pulled my rear end out of the fire. I'm just saying, in that I could face my fears to some extent, that I could see that even if the worst possible thing that could happen happened, which it reminds me of, I used to be terribly afraid of the dark. I'm six foot five, 240 pounds, and if I heard a noise in the house, I'm calling Tammy.

Like, Tammy, it was five feet tall, you know, a little bitty nothing. And I'm like, can you deal with that noise right there? Because I'm scared. And so I heard that you could give this kind of stuff to God. And so I said, one night in prayer, it was this creepy night, the lightning, thunder, and all this stuff. I'm in a house by myself. My wife was out visiting some people. I was like, God, I don't know how you're supposed to take this stuff away from me, but you, it says just give it to you.

So I want you to give it to me. And God says, okay, Robbie, what's the worst thing that can happen? And I'm like, have you seen, like, the lady in the shower with the knife? Like, and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of bad things that could really, like, you know, knife, I'm thinking gun, you know? And God says to me, really, seriously, he says, what would be so bad about that?

And all of a sudden I went, oh, you're threatening me with Jesus. You're threatening me with having like the worst thing that could possibly happen isn't all that bad, is it? And so here, they're afraid of the snakes, right? They're afraid of getting snake bit. But what's the worst thing that can happen?

It ain't getting snake bit. Well, you know, I see we have Keith from High Point. Oh, Keith is awesome. Oh, fantastic.

I'd love to hear what Keith's got to share with us. So you're sick of hearing me. I heard that.

Hey, I was trying to be subtle. All right. Keith, so great to hear from your buddy. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

What you got for us? Well, first of all, talking about the children in the desert and the snakes fighting them. You know, God told Moses put a bronze snake on a staff.

And that's what's used in the medical systems now. If you've ever seen a staff and there's a snake on it, that's that came from our Bible. And I think he did that too, told Moses to do that because there was such a large group of people then. If he took the snakes away, well, all of a sudden, those people have amnesia and don't remember why. And so they had is like when Peter was, you know, Lord, is that you walking on the water? Yeah.

Come on. And Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and started looking at the storms and he began to sink. And for, you know, we know what happens if you just step in water, all of a sudden you go to the bottom. But Jesus said he began to somewhere. The Bible says he began to sink. But he stayed focused on the Lord.

He walked on the water. And by having the snake on the staff, the people had to stay focused in on God and what his promise was. That's my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times, things I've been through myself, but, you know, I've been, I haven't been looking, looking at one up against the sink and I've felt some snake bites and all that. It refocuses me.

But anyway, it's just my opinion. That is so awesome, Keith. I haven't heard from you in a while. So good to hear your voice, man.

Well, thank you so much. You know, y'all are my Saturday show. I listen to y'all almost every Saturday. And I really enjoy it. And it's always something to, it's uplifting.

It's, you know, if you're listening to this and you're not learning something, there's got to be something wrong. Thank you, my friend. As always, God bless you. Y'all have a blessed day. You too, sir.

Thank you, Keith. Bye-bye. All right. But you got to hit us with another hard one.

Okay. So, you know, like man, I'm ready for the next question. Well, you know, does it, does it seem like God is putting them in a situation where faith is required? So what do we learn about God and his desire for his people to have faith in difficult situations? Oh, you know, that's a fascinating, fascinating thing. And here the Hebrew might actually come in handy for you as you look at the actual way that that word pole was spelled in Hebrew. So when we come back, we have all sorts of interesting snake stories, but we don't have you.

866-348-7884. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. Today we have with us the wonderful folks with Simply the Story, Andrea and Butch, and they're sharing the story of the snake bit in the desert all the way from Christian Car Guy. And we, oh, we have saved some of the, oh, goodies, goodies are coming in this segment.

So we're so glad that you have stayed with us. We got Amy Cabo, though. She's got a very exciting show coming up today at one o'clock. The Cure, you can call in live. And man, Amy, you guys are loaded for bear today.

Oh, yes. Today we have Katerina with over 10 years of experience of survivor suspects and labor trafficking as well as domestic violence. She created a nonprofit for survivors to survivors rescue and restoration operation in Florida and California. She specializes in minor sex trafficking, and she has trained public schools and universities seeking at risk youth and survivors. She starts up safe houses, leadership and mentoring. She works in law enforcement and has trained them on investigative techniques against crimes against children, gangs and advanced sex crimes. She also works at the FBI and has received the Medal of Honor for bravery from them in 2019.

How awesome is that? And the best part is you can say her name better than anybody I've ever heard in my life. Say that again for me one more time. Katerina, how do you say that?

Katerina. There you go. Like, man, there's nobody can say that like Amy. That's so wonderful.

So, you know, if you don't listen at one o'clock, you're gonna miss out on Amy and Boris, because Boris, he's there, right? And it's gonna be awesome. And what a great show. I'm so grateful that God has given you such an awesome guest.

And what a time. It's a live show, so you can call in and join Amy on The Cure at one o'clock. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, and have a beautiful day. And say hello to my friend Boris, please. All right. Okay, we have Diane is in Daytona Beach, and we hung up on her once, so she too is being very patient with us.

We're so grateful. Diane, you hung on? And Diane, share your insights on their sneaky situation here. Well, I think that the Israelites don't seem to quite realize that their time in the desert is close to ending, and they're gonna have to actually do something to take over the promised land. And they're gonna encounter some armies.

And so it's important that they still pay in this, before they get to the next challenge, that's going to be even bigger. Because snakes versus swords, I mean, they're both pretty scary. But this gives them an opportunity to look up and show that faith. I mean, when snakes are attacking, looking up is not your first impulse. So they gotta do this thing that's counterintuitive, because God has asked them to participate in their salvation.

He hasn't asked them to kill the snakes or do something so sacrificial, you know, a lot of religions kill some animals or do something, but they gotta show the faith. That's absolutely beautiful, Diane. Wow, I'm gonna think about that one all weekend.

That's just absolutely awesome. I appreciate you calling in so much. I hope you have a great day down there in Daytona Beach. I guess somebody has to be down there. Yeah, this is not my home base.

I would ask where I was, not where I'm from. I understand. I hope you enjoy your day down there. God bless. I appreciate you calling so much. Thanks, Diane. Bye-bye. Thanks. All right, we have Vivian is in New York City. So Vivian, you are on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning.

Hi, good morning. Weird, I can hear myself. So I actually think it's interesting that there is like this pole. We don't know how big it is, but then there's so many people that they need to look and they probably need to get through the crowd. Just look at the pole and on the way to look at the pole and the snake, there might be snakes in between. And just like you were sharing how you were afraid of lightning and darkness, at the end of the story, never resolved that if the snake went away, God never answered the way they wanted. The snake probably is still there, which is kind of what we do with our fears and stuff. The fear is always not the thing that frightens us. It's probably still there, but somehow it's always there.

It's probably still there, but somehow we become not afraid of it, hopefully. Oh, wow. Yeah.

You know, it's really, really cool. Vivian, you bring up the point about the pole, and I have this love of Hebrew, and so I studied that this morning, and that pole that was translated in English as pole is actually... It would better be translated perhaps ensign or flag. And the idea of it, actually, when you look at the letters inside of the word, it starts with the letter nun, which generally means faith, and then the letter tav, which generally means support, or excuse me, somic.

Why did I say tav? It's a somic. So it's a nun and a somic, which would mean faith, support. And when you think about what a flag is, it's a face... It's something that we rally around the American flag, and we rally around an ensign, or even in the Song of Solomon, one of my favorite books, by the way, where it says, you know, your banner over me is love, right? And so here, he's telling Moses, make a banner, right?

And it's a phenomenal thing that Jesus quotes this passage, I think, later on. But thank you for calling, Vivian. You're so awesome. And where in New York City are you? Are you in the state of New York? No, I'm in Queens, New York. In Queens? Yes.

Oh, man. Look, we got Daytona Beach and Queens in two different calls. How exciting. Is it beautiful there? I wish to be Daytona Beach.

Better to be there in February, believe me. Thank you so much, Vivian. God bless. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. You know, it's interesting, that trust... If the Israelites aren't able to trust that what God says is true just by looking up at the snake and surviving, then how are they gonna trust God to take over this promised land, as Diane said, with so many people groups?

There's six or seven people groups. They've gotta trust God to take over the land that God's given them. Oh, that was a beautiful insight. Absolutely. Yeah. There's a whole lot coming their way, and they got some growing to do.

As Lucy would say, you got some spraying to do. Yeah, their faith journey is not over yet. You know, in this story, we've been looking here in this last little section at God's putting them in a situation where faith is required. And there's some risk involved, all right? I mean, there's some bad stuff happening. I mean, today, are believers still placed in situations where some faith is required? You know, and I realize there are times that God might not necessarily be the one who is doing that, right? So we don't wanna give the blanket.

Every time something bad happens, it's God putting us. Right. But I think it's a great time to make a point that you guys have made so well, okay? Because we've been together now since Christian Kakar started at 10, and we spent nearly two hours on five verses, right?

And had some unbelievable insights from all sorts of listeners. And so what you guys say is treasure the journey. Like you just don't rush to the end of the story to find the good stuff, right? Is to spend some time wallowing around in there with the snakes. We've been in the pit together, have we?

But how do you guys work that? You have a neat word for that, that you treasure the... Well, we love it because when we spend time in God's Word, we're actually beginning to put God's Word into our heart pocket. And that's where it needs to be, in our heart pocket. Because when it's there, we can pull it out anytime wherever we go.

Right. And as we think about it and talk about it and meditate on it in so many different ways, right? It's there at our disposal. And the idea is that we would all think about these stories throughout the day today and talk about them with our children and our grandchildren.

I mean, how fun is all that? So we got one more segment coming and it's time for you to call, okay? You've had all this time to put it off, say, oh, Robbie, I'm gonna call.

Oh, well, here's a number. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Today, we are with the folks from Simply the Story.

But more importantly, we're with you. And if you don't call, then we don't have any... You know, you guys make the show. And so I need your calls. We got one last segment.

It's short. So you gotta call quick. 866-3... My daughter and my granddaughter told me I say this too fast.

866-348-7884. So there you go. And there's no excuse. You call, you share. Here we go. And we have to please those granddaughters.

That's important stuff right there. Well, you know, we were talking a little bit about the fact that, you know, God put them in this faith situation, some faith required and preparing for later on. And we asked the question just before the break, does God still allow us to be in situations that require faith? So I wonder, what are some kind of situations you guys can think of? Because here in the States, we're not put in that, you know, we're not put in that box quite as much as some other places that we have been as far as large amounts of faith required.

But just in everyday life, what are some areas you guys can think of that, you know, you need some faith to... I was here recently. You might have heard a story. I went to Atlanta.

And faith to get through Atlanta. Well, what you didn't hear is that when I got to Birmingham with my daughter, I was going to set up her bed, right? Because we'd brought this with the U-Haul. Well, the rest of the Snakebit story is my daughter who's going to show me how to build this bed, which I put together, I don't know how many beds. And I knew that the poles had to go through the rods. Now, I've been through a long day, hot day. And all of a sudden, I was Snakebit like crazy.

And I literally screamed at her. Like, you're not going to tell me how to put on a bed together after all this. I'm putting the bed together.

I'm not going to see my daughter again for months because she's going to college, right? And so I'm Snakebit as I can be, right? And I'm asking God to forgive me.

I'm hoping I haven't hurt the relationship with my daughter who I feel like if you've ever felt the wrath of Robbie, it's like, it's not pleasant. And so, you know, there I am. And oh my goodness, like, how do we roll away this reproach?

How do we do that? And like King David, you know, I'm crying out, God, you got to help me out here. So it does, it requires that faith. But fortunately, the Son of Man was raised up like that fall in the, and he was my sin. And actually, he was me screaming up there on that pole.

And there's the snake that bitches. So we got Paul is in Greensboro. I'm so grateful for you. Paul, what you got for us? Yeah. You're talking about the passages that I think Numbers 21 and John chapter 3, is that correct? I just tuned into your statement. Yes, you are. You're exactly right.

Yeah. Two great passages, and I just wanted to share that what a beautiful picture of the Gospel, that is, where, of course, Nicodemus came to Jesus wanting to know how he could become a citizen of God's kingdom, and I guess essentially be saved. And Jesus takes Nicodemus back to, you know, the history of his people, to Numbers chapter 21. And the whole point of Numbers 21, it's the foreshadowing of the cross, the sacrificial atoning death of Jesus. And, you know, Jesus, in that one-on-one conversation with Nicodemus, takes him back to Numbers 21. It says, basically, even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, if you look to the standard, the pole with the snake on it, he said, so, Jesus said to Nicodemus, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. And, you know, so Jesus was basically telling Nicodemus that his...

So Jesus was telling Nicodemus, essentially, you know, your legalistic religion doesn't save you. It's, you look to me for salvation, and you look to me and my death on the cross. And what a beautiful foreshadowing of the cross of Christ. And so when I heard your your show this morning talking about those two wonderful passages, you know, I just wanted to share that I believe that's exactly what those passages are talking about.

God's provision for the Israelites, if they looked at the pole with the serpent, it was foreshadowing. It was the gospel. He was preaching the gospel. Yeah, thank you, Paul. Yeah, you took us right where I wanted, right where I wanted to go to close this story out, because, you know, because Jesus does use the Numbers 21 story as an illustration. And just think, I want to leave you with this thought. What was required for those that looked up for salvation?

They just had to have faith in God's promise, and that was the same thing that happened with Jesus. Anyone who looks at me and believes will live so simple, and yet such a step of faith is required. Thank you guys so much for allowing us the privilege of coming into your homes and your cars today. It's been a thrill hearing your feedback on these stories. Thank you, Paul. I appreciate your call very much, buddy. God bless.

Thanks for listening to the truth. Andrea, it's been fun. I've enjoyed it, and wow, what a wonderful story from God's Word. What a meal. Yeah, we've eaten well. It's nice. It's time if we're Jewish to say the blessing, like bless you, God.

We definitely enjoyed that, and we enjoyed your calls. Oh, so amazing. And we're so grateful for your listening to Truth Network. Right now you've got so much coming at you, like encouraging prayer followed by the masculine journey.

Nikita Koloff, man up at one. Oh, my goodness. Oh, it's actually at 1230. So much truth coming at you on the Truth Network. How fun is that? Thank you so much for listening. This is the Truth Network.